r Uncle Joe would be happy anywhere, Nat," said my uncle. "He is
one of those contented amiable men who are always at rest; but I'm
afraid your Aunt Sophia would soon find it dull, and be grumbling
because there was no gas, no pavement, no waterworks, no omnibuses, no
cabs, no railroads. No, Nat, my boy, your Aunt Sophia would be
miserable here."

"And yet it is such a lovely place," I cried enthusiastically.
"Everything is so beautiful. Oh! uncle, I could stay here forever."

"No, Nat, you could not," he replied laughing; "but it is very beautiful
all the same. I have travelled a great deal, and have seen some
wonderful scenery, but I have never met with so much beauty condensed in
so small a space."

We kept on walking, but it was only to stop every now and then before
some fresh find--sometimes it would be a curiously-shaped orchid, or a
pitcher-plant half full of dead insects. Then some great forest tree
full of sweet-scented blossoms, and alive with birds and insects, would
arrest our attention; or down in some moist hollow, where a tiny stream
trickled from the rocks, there would be enormous tree-ferns springing up
twelve or fifteen feet above us, and spreading their beautiful fronds
like so much glorious green lace against the sky. A fern is always a
beautiful object, but these tree-ferns were more than beautiful--they
were grand.

The farther we went the more beauties we found, and we kept on noting
down places to visit again where there were palm and other trees full of
fruit, which evidently formed the larder of various kinds of beautiful
birds. We could have shot enough in that walk to have kept us busy
making skins for days, but we kept to the determination my uncle had
made, not to shoot any more that day, except once, when the curious
hoarse cry of some bird of paradise, answered by others at a distance,
tempted us away.

"Birds of paradise are exceptions, Nat," said my uncle, smiling. "We
must get them when we can."

I immediately seemed to see the beautiful bird flying amongst the trees,
with its lovely buff plumes trailing behind like so much live sunshine,
and glancing once at my gun to see that the cartridges were in all
right, I crept cautiously on amongst the trees on one side as Uncle Dick
made a bit of a curve round in another, so that we had a good many great
forest trees between us, whose foliage we carefully watched as we went
cautiously on.

Every now and then, after a silence