ing tortoises and fruit; but as we would not allow them on board,
they did not discover our defenceless condition; and we took good care
to hide our bows and arrows, which would have made them suspect that we
had no firearms.

We were somewhat closely packed on board the little vessel, what with
twelve human beings, three monkeys, the curassow, the macaw, two parrots
and three parakeets--one with a yellow top-knot, who, from his manners,
showed that he considered himself the chief of the party, and deserving
of the most attention; then there were ten turtles and a number of
tortoises. The turtles, however, were stowed in the hold, and served as
ballast. Quacko and the parrots afforded us constant amusement. The
former generally took up his seat on the roof of the cabin, in front of
the parrots, whose perches were fixed upon it. Arthur, Marian, and I
took infinite pains to improve their manners and teach them all sort of
tricks, so that they might be fit, as Marian observed, to appear in
civilised society.

Though we had been very happy during our long sojourn in the wilds of
the Orinoco, the elders of the party especially looked forward with
satisfaction to reaching a place where we could live without fear of
attack from savages, anacondas, or wild beasts, and where we could hear
what was going on in the world. Marian and I agreed, however, that we
should have been very happy to have remained on at our settlement as
long as our friends liked to stay.

We now and then, I must confess, had some difficulty in keeping our pets
in order. They had got on very well on shore, but in the close contact
to which they were subjected on board their tempers were somewhat tried,
and Uncle Paul suggested that we should take immediate steps for the
setting up of family government. Jack, the macaw, though he had been
placed on the highest perch as a post of honour, was continually
climbing down to quarrel with the parrots, and creating a fearful hubbub
with his hoarse screaming; while the parrots fought desperately over
their food. One day they and the macaw, while wrangling together, in
the blindness of their anger tumbled overboard; and had not Sambo jumped
into the water and hauled them out, they would have all three been
drowned, or fallen into the maw of some ravenous alligator. The
parakeets were as quarrelsome as their larger brethren--yellow-top
considered himself quite as good as a dozen green ones; while they, with