s'
mirth.

"Have I said something very stupid?" he asked.

"Why, couldn't you see?" cried Joe eagerly. "It was a monkey."

"I did not see any monkey," said Rob coldly. "I was talking about that
great brown husky-looking fruit, like a cocoa-nut hanging by a long
stalk in that tree. Look! there are two more lower down!" he cried
eagerly, as the boat glided round a bend into a long reach, two of the
men being at the oars backing water a little from time to time with a
gentle dip, so as to keep the boat's head straight and check her to
enable Brazier to scan the banks through the little binocular glass he
carried, and be rowed close in when he wished to obtain specimens.

"Yes: there's two more lower down," said Shaddy, with his face puckered
up like the shell of a walnut, and then Rob's mouth expanded into a grin
as wide as that of Joe's, and he laughed heartily.

"Well," he cried, "that is comic, and no mistake. I really thought it
was some kind of fruit. It _was_ a monkey."

"You ain't the first as made that mistake, Mr Rob, sir," said Shaddy.
"You see, they just take a turn with their tails round a branch, draws
their legs up close, and cuddles them with their long arms round 'em,
and then they looks just like the hucks of a cocoa-nut."

"Like the what?" cried Rob.

"Hucks of a cocoa-nut."

"Oh--husk."

"You may call it `husk' if you like, sir: I calls it `hucks.' Then they
hangs head downwards, and goes to sleep like that, I believe. Wonderful
thing a monkey's tail is. Why I've seen the young ones hold on to their
mother by giving it a turn round the old girl's neck. They're all like
that out here. Ring-tail monkeys we call 'em."

While they were talking the last two monkeys had swung themselves to and
fro, and then lowered themselves down among the branches to get close to
the river and watch the boat, like a couple of tiny savages stricken
with wonder at the coming of the strange white men, and chattering away
to each other their comments on all they saw.

The progress made was very slow, for the boat was constantly being
anchored, so to speak, by the men rowing in and holding on by the
hanging boughs of trees, while Brazier cut and hacked off bulb and
blossom in what, with glowing face, he declared to be a perfect
naturalist's paradise.

They had been floating down a few miles when, right ahead, the stream
seemed to end, the way being blocked entirely by huge trees, and as they
drew nearer