For some time we paddled along in silence. A thick mist which was rising from the river was illumined by the rays of the moon, and we could see the dim forms of the trees as we passed by them. At last I began to hear the sounds of insects and the movements of birds succeeding to the deadly stillness which characterizes the last two hours of the tropical night, and then suddenly it became light. The mist began to roll away down the middle of the river, leaving the part where we were paddling up close to the trees quite clear.
The loveliness of the trees covered with creepers, some of them having flowers and fruit which rose from the water like a sea of foliage, was marvellous to me. The long feathery spikes of the calamus palm (the ratan cane so dearly loved by schoolboys—or by schoolmasters, should I say?) shot out for fifteen or twenty feet above the general surface. Flocks of hornbills and other birds were disturbed as we passed along. As the mist kept getting less and less, we could see spur-wing plovers and other strange birds on the banks, and sitting on the snags which here and there jutted from the water were kingfishers watching for their prey, some being large and of a sober gray, while others were scarcely larger than humming-birds, and rivalled them in the beauty of their plumage.
Tom now began to scan the banks curiously and closely, and urged the men to paddle their strongest and best. Just as the sun showed above the tree-tops he ordered the canoe to stop, and some of the men,
ON THE OGOWAI RIVER.
Page 132.
getting into the water, began to remove a portion of a screen of canes which hid the mouth of a creek, into which we ran the canoe and then replaced the canes.