erkimier's packages seemed to know nothing
about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an
hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had
fallen across the stream and formed a natural bridge.

On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the
forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight--only a
glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops.
In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which
swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where
sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life
away over the damp ground by the water's edge.

The native forest path which they followed was little better than a
tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but
exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These
were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it,
or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step
quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered
their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to
increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in
diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and
this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic
mud-bath--the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants--obstructed the
way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross
it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out
also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it--as
resolute men always do--somehow!

"Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions,
and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature.
"Hah! zee brute! I have 'im."

The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm
outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of
triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.

"What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.

"A splendid _Ornit'optera_ a day-flying moss'," said Verkimier as he
cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee _Trepsichrois mulciber_. Ant zis very
morning I caught von _Leptocircus virescens_, vich derives protection
from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly."

"What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" rema