After supper the moon rose, casting shadows of new and unknown shapes through this strangely new and unknown forest. A thin white mist ascending everywhere from the soil tempered but could not obscure the white brilliance. The thermometer stood now only at 82°, but the dripping tropical sweat-bath in which our camp was pitched considerably raised the sensible heat. A bird with a most diabolical shrieking note cursed in the shadows. Another, a pigeon-like creature, began softly, and continued to repeat in diminishing energy until it seemed to have run down, like a piece of clockwork.
Our way next morning led for some time through this lovely but damp jungle. Then we angled up the side of a hill to emerge into the comparatively open country atop what we Westerners would call a "hog's back"—a long narrow spurlike ridge mounting slowly to the general elevation of the main hills. Here were high green bushes, with little free open passages between them, and occasionally meadow-like openings running down the slopes on one side or the other. Before us, some miles distant, were the rounded blue hills.
We climbed steadily. It was still very early morning, but already the day was hot. Pretty soon we saw over the jungle to the gleaming waters of the inlet, and then to the sea. Our "hog's back" led us past a ridge of the hills, and before we knew it we had been deposited in a shallow valley three or four miles wide between parallel ridges; the said valley being at a considerable elevation, and itself diversified with rolling hills, ravines, meadow land, and wide flats. On many of the ridges were scattered cocoanut palms, and occasional mango groves, while many smokes attested the presence of natives.
These we found in shambas or groups of little farms, huddled all together, with wilderness and brush and trees, or the wide open green grass lawn between. The houses were very large and neat-looking. They were constructed quite ingeniously from coco branches. Each branch made one mat. The leaves were all brought over to the same side of the stem, and then plaited. The resulting mat was then six or seven feet long by from twelve to sixteen inches broad, and could be used for a variety of purposes. Indeed, we found Melville's chapter in "Typhee" as to the various uses of the cocoanut palm by no means exaggerated. The nuts, leaves, and fibre supplied every conceivable human want.
The natives were a pleasant, friendly, good-looking lot. In fact, so like was their cast of countenance to that of the white-skinned people we were accustomed to see that we had great difficulty in realizing that they were mere savages, costume—or lack of it—to the contrary notwithstanding. Under a huge mango tree two were engaged in dividing a sheep. Sixty or seventy others stood solemnly around watching. It may have been a religious ceremony, for all I know; but the affair looked to be about two parts business to sixty of idle and cheerful curiosity. We stopped and talked to them a little, chaffed the pretty girls—they were really pretty—and marched on.
About noon our elegant guide stopped, struck an attitude, and pointed with his silver-headed rattan cane.
"This," said he, "is where we must camp."
We marched through a little village. A family party sat beneath the veranda of a fine building—a very old wrinkled couple; two stalwart beautiful youths; a young mother suckling her baby; two young girls; and eight or ten miscellaneous and naked youngsters. As the rest of the village appeared to be empty, I imagined this to be the caretaker's family, and the youngsters to belong to others. We stopped and spoke, were answered cheerfully, suggested that we might like to buy chickens, and offered a price. Instantly with a whoop of joy the lot of them were afoot. The fowl waited for no further intimations of troublous times, but fled squawking. They had been there before. So had our hosts; for inside a minute they had returned, each with a chicken—and a broad grin.
After due payment we proceeded on a few hundred yards, and pitched camp beneath two huge mango trees.
Besides furnishing one of the most delicious of the tropical fruits, the mango is also one of the most beautiful of trees. It is tall, spreads very wide, and its branches sweep to within ten feet of the ground. Its perfect symmetry combined with the size and deep green of its leaves causes it to resemble, from a short distance, a beautiful green hill. Beneath its umbrella one finds dense shade, unmottled by a single ray of sunlight, so that one can lie under it in full confidence. For, parenthetically, even a single ray of this tropical sunlight is to the unprotected a very dangerous thing. But the leaves of the mango have this peculiarity, which distinguishes it from all other trees—namely, that they grow only at the very ends of the small twigs and branches. As these, of course, grow only at the ends of the big limbs, it follows that from beneath the mango looks like a lofty green dome, a veritable pantheon of the forest.