The Pirate Slaver | Page 5

the north-west under the combined influence of wind and tide together, with the low point--named Banana Peninsula, so the master informed me, though why it should be so named I never could understand, for there was not a single banana-tree upon the whole peninsula, as I subsequently ascertained. Let me see, where was I? I have gone adrift among those non-existent banana-trees. Oh yes, I was going to attempt to make a word-sketch of the scene which surrounded us after we had let go our anchor and furled our canvas. The sea-breeze was piping strong from the westward, while the tide was ebbing down the creek from the northward, and under these combined influences the Barracouta was riding with her head about north--west. Banana Peninsula lay ahead of us, trending away along our larboard beam and slightly away from us to the southward for about half-a-mile, where it terminated in a sandy beach bordered by a broad patch of smooth water, athwart which marched an endless line of mimic breakers from the wall of flashing white surf that thundered upon the outer edge of the protecting shoal three-quarters of a mile to seaward. The point was pretty thickly covered with bush and trees, chiefly cocoa-nut and other palms--except in the immediate vicinity and in front of the two factories, where the soil had been cleared and a sort of rough wharf constructed by driving piles formed of the trunks of trees into the ground and wedging a few slabs of sawn timber in behind them. The point, for a distance of perhaps a mile from its southern extremity, was very narrow--not more than from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards wide--but beyond that it widened out considerably until it merged in the mainland. On the opposite side of the creek, on our starboard quarter and astern of us, was what I at first took to be a single island, but which I subsequently found to be a group of about a dozen islands, of which the smallest may have been half-a-mile long by about a third of a mile broad, while the largest was some nine or ten miles long by about three miles broad. These islands really constituted the northern bank of the river for a distance some twenty-four miles up the stream, being cut off from the mainland and from each other by narrow canal-like creeks running generally in a direction more or less east and west. The land all about here was low, and to a great extent swampy, the margin of the creeks being lined with mangroves that presented a very curious appearance as they stood up out of the dark, slimy-looking water, their trunks supported upon a network of naked, twisted roots that strongly suggested to me the idea of spiders' legs swollen and knotted with some hideous, deforming disease. The trees themselves, however, apart from their twisted, gnarled, and knotted roots, presented a very pleasing appearance, for they had just come into full leaf, and their fresh green foliage was deeply grateful to the eye satiated with a long and wearisome repetition of the panorama of unbroken sea and sky. Beyond the belt of mangroves the islands were overgrown with dense bush, interspersed with tall trees, some of which were rich with violet blossoms growing in great drooping clusters, like the flowers of the laburnum; while others were heavily draped with long, trailing sprays of magnificent jasmine, of which there were two kinds, one bearing a pinky flower, and the other a much larger star-like bloom of pure white. The euphorbia, acacia, and baobab or calabash-tree were all in bloom; and here and there, through openings between the trunks of the mangroves, glimpses were caught of rich splashes of deep orange-colour, standing out like flame against the dark background of shadowed foliage, that subsequent investigation proved to be clumps of elegant orchids. It appeared that we had entered the river at precisely the right time of the year to behold it at its brightest and best, for the spring rains had only recently set in, and all Nature was rioting in the refreshment of the welcome moisture and bursting forth into a joyous prodigality of leaf and blossom, of colour and perfume, of life and glad activity. The forest rang with the calls and cries of pairing birds; flocks of parrots, parrakeets, and love-birds were constantly wheeling and darting hither and thither; kingfishers flitted low across the placid water, or watched motionless from some overhanging branch for the passage of their unsuspecting prey; the wydah bird flaunted his gay plumage in the brilliant sunshine, where it could be seen to the fullest advantage; and butterflies, like living gems, flitted happily from flower to flower. Astern of us, some three miles away, lay