ccustomed to see and hear, that it seemed as though they had
landed on another planet. Trees, shrubs, flowers, birds, beasts,
insects, and reptiles, all were unfamiliar, except indeed, one or two of
the more conspicuous trees and animals, which had been so imprinted on
their minds by means of nursery picture-books that, on first beholding
them, Disco unconsciously paid these books the compliment of saying that
the animals "wos uncommon like the picturs."

Disco's mental condition may be said, for the first two or three days,
to have been one of gentle ever-flowing surprise, studded thickly with
little bursts of keen astonishment.

The first part of the river ran between mangrove jungle, in regard to
which he remarked that "them there trees had legs like crabs," in which
observation he was not far wrong, for, when the tide was out, the roots
of the mangroves rose high out of the mud, forming supports, as it were,
for the trees to stand on.

But it was the luxuriance of the vegetation that made the most powerful
impression on the travellers. It seemed as if the various groups and
families of the vegetable kingdom had been warmed by the sun into a
state of unwonted affection, for everything appeared to entertain the
desire to twine round and embrace everything else. One magnificent
screw-palm in particular was so overwhelmed by affectionate parasites
that his natural shape was almost entirely concealed. Others of the
trees were decked with orchilla weed. There were ferns so gigantic as
to be almost worthy of being styled trees, and palm-bushes so sprawling
as to suggest the idea of huge vegetable spiders. Bright yellow fruit
gleamed among the graceful green leaves of the mangroves; wild
date-palms gave variety to the scene, if that had been needed, which it
was not, and masses of umbrageous plants with large yellow flowers grew
along the banks, while, down among the underwood, giant roots rose in
fantastic convolutions above ground, as if the earth were already too
full, and there wasn't room for the whole of them. There was an
antediluvian magnificence, a prehistoric snakiness, a sort of primeval
running-to-seedness, which filled Harold and Disco with feelings of awe,
and induced a strange, almost unnatural tendency to regard Adam and Eve
as their contemporaries.

Animal life was not wanting in this paradise. Frequently did our seaman
give vent to "Hallo!" "There they go!" "Look out for the little 'un
wi' th