's a piece of dumb-show that says very plainly we are to
shoot some birds for breakfast before we do anything else, and it would
perhaps be wise, so come along; there are some of our old friends in
that great palm-tree."

I followed my uncle closely, and we had no difficulty in shooting three
of the great pigeons, which Ebo pounced upon and carried off in triumph,
and in a few minutes they were roasting upon sticks, while our black
cook busied himself in climbing a cocoa-tree, from which he detached
half a dozen nuts, each of which came down with a tremendous thud.

I was terribly hungry, but Uncle Dick said we should be worse if we
stopped there smelling the roasting pigeons. So we took our guns and
went across an opening to where there was tree after tree, rising some
thirty or forty feet high, all covered with beautiful white
sweet-scented starry flowers, each with a tube running up from it like
that of a jasmine.

All about this beautiful little birds were flitting, and as we watched
them for some time I could see their feathers flash and glitter in the
sunshine, as if some wore tiny helmets of burnished gold and
breastplates of purple glittering scales. No colours could paint the
beauty of these lovely little creatures, which seemed to be of several
different kinds, for some had patches of scarlet, of orange, blue, and
white to add to the brilliancy of their feathering; and so little used
were they to the sight of man that they seemed to pay no attention to
us, but allowed us to go very close, so that we could see them flit and
hover and balance themselves before the sweet-scented starry
bell-flowers, into whose depths they thrust their long thin beaks after
the honey and insects that made them their home.

I soon learned from my uncle that they were the sun-birds, the tiny
little fellows that were in the Old World what the humming-birds were in
the New, for there are no humming-birds in the East.

Following Uncle Dick's example, I took the shot out of my gun, for he
said that the concussion and the wad would be sufficient to bring them
down. But, somehow, we were so interested in what we saw that neither
of us thought of firing, and there we stood watching the glittering
feathers, the graceful motions, and the rapidity with which these tiny
birds seemed to flash from blossom to blossom, till a loud yell from Ebo
summoned us to breakfast.

"Yes, Nat," said my uncle, who seemed to read my thoughts, "that is