saved them."
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
"They are all, the meanest things that be. As free to live, and to enjoy that life, As God was free to form them at the first, Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all."
Cowper.
We had just finished lunch by the lake-side at Bala, my friend BenRoberts and I, and were thinking of trying the fishing once more, forthe clouds had banked up from the west and obscured the sun's glare, alittle breeze had rippled the water, and everything looked promising,when the Captain burst out laughing.
"Shiver my timbers! as sailors say on the stage, Nie," cried he, "ifthere isn't that same old stag-beetle making his way up your jacketagain, intent on revenge."
"Plague take it!" I exclaimed, shaking the brute off again; "I haveflicked him away once; I shall have to kill him now."
"No you won't," said Ben Roberts; "the world happens to be wide enoughfor the lot of us. Let him live. I'm a kind of Brahmin, Nie; I nevertake life unless there is dire necessity.
"We in England," continued Captain Roberts, "have little to complainabout in the matter of insects; our summer flies annoy us a little, themountain midges tickle, and the gnats bite, and hornets sting. Butthink of what some of the natives of other countries suffer. I rememberas if it were this moment a plague of locusts that fell upon a beautifuland fertile patch of country on the seaboard of South Africa. Itextended only for some two hundred miles, but the destruction wascomplete.
"The scenes of grief and misery I witnessed in some of the villages Irode through, I shall remember till my dying day.
"`All, all gone!' cried one poor Caffre woman who could talk English,`no food for husband, self, or children, and we can't eat the stones.'
"These poor wretches were positively reduced to eating the locuststhemselves."
"I shouldn't like to be reduced to eating insects," said I; "fancyeating a stag-beetle fried in oil."
"And yet I doubt," replied the Captain, "if it is a bit worse thaneating shrimps or swallowing living oysters. You've seen monkeys eatingcockroaches?"
"Yes, swallowing them down as fast as they possibly could, and when theycouldn't eat any more, stuffing their cheeks for a future feast."
"On the old _Sans Pareil_ we had fifteen apes and monkeys, besides theold cat and a pet bear. Ah! Nie, what fun we did use to have, to besure!"
"Didn't they fight?"
"No, they all knew their places, and settled down amiably enough. Thevery large ones were not so nimble, and some of them were very solemnfellows indeed; the smaller gentry used to gather round these foradvice, we used to think, and apparently listened with great attentionto everything told them, but in the end they always finished up bypulling their professors by their tails. If at any time they did happento find that old cat's tail sticking out of the cage, oh! woe betide it!they bent on to it half a dozen or more, and it was for all the worldlike a caricature of our sailors paying in the end of a rope. Meanwhilethe howls of the cat would be audible in the moon, I should think. Thenup would rush our old cook with the broom, and there would be a suddendispersal. But they were never long out of mischief. The little bearcame in for a fair share of attention. You see, he wasn't so nimble asthe monkeys; they would gather round him, roll him on deck, and scratchhim all over. The little Bruin rather liked this, but when three orfour of the biggest held his head and three or four others began tostuff cockroaches down his throat, he thought it was taking advantage ofgood nature; he clawed them then and sometimes squeezed them till theysqueaked with pain or fright. They used to bathe Bruin, though. Themen brought the bath up, then the monkeys teased the bear until he goton his hind-legs and began clawing the air; this was their chance. Theywould make a sudden rush on the poor little fellow, he would step back,trip, and go souse into the bath. Then the chattering and jumping andgrinning of the monkeys, and the laughing and cheering of the men, madea fine row, I can tell you. We had two monkeys that didn't brook muchnonsense from the others--an orang, and a long-nosed monkey--we got herin Sumatra--who looked a very curious old customer. The best of it wasthat the sailors taught the long-nosed one to snuff, and the orang todrink a glass of rum.
"As soon as the old orang heard the hammering on the rum-cask to knockout the bung, he began to laugh, and he beamed all over when his basinof grog was brought. The other old monkey taking a pinch was a sight tosee. She stack to the box at last, and when any of her friends came tosee her would present it to them with a `hae! hae! hae!' that spokevolumes."
"Any other funny pets on the _Sans Pareil_?"
"Oh, yes, lots. We had an adjutant. Ah! Nie, we did use to laugh atthat bird, too. Five feet tall he was, and a more conceited old fop ofa fellow I never did see. He had a pouch that hung down in front.Well, he used to eat everything, from a cockroach to half a leg ofmutton; and when he couldn't hold any more he used to stuff his pouch.
"`Comes in handy, you see,' he seemed to say, alluding to this pouch ofhis. `But, dear me!' he would continue, `ain't I a pretty bird? Lookat my pretty little head; there ain't much hair on it; but never mind,look at my bill. There is a bill for you! Just see me eat a fish, or afrog, or a snake! And now, look at my legs. Pretty pair, ain't they?See me walk!'
"Then he would set off to promenade up and down the deck till the shipgave a bit of a lurch, when down he would go, and the monkeys would allgather round to laugh and jibber, and Snooks, as we called him, woulddeal blows with his bill in all directions, which the monkeys, nimblethough they were, had some difficulty in dodging.
"`Can't you see,' he would say, `that I didn't tumble at all--that Imerely sat down to arrange my pretty feathers?' And Snooks would retainhis position for about half an hour, preening his wings, and scratchinghis pouch with the point of his bill, just to make the monkeys believehe really hadn't fallen, and that his legs were really and trulyserviceable sea-legs.
"I've lain concealed and watched the adjutants in an Indian marsh forhours; there they would be in scores, and in every conceivable idioticposition.
"Suddenly, perhaps, one would mount upon an old tree-stump, and spreadwide his great wings. `Hullo, everybody!' he would seem to cry, `lookat _me_. I'm the king o' the marsh! Hurrah!
"`My foot's upon my native heath, My name, Macgregor;'
"or words to that effect, Nie."
"You were always fond of birds, and beasts, and fishes, weren't you,Ben?"
"I was, Nie, lad, and never regretted it but once."
"How was that?"
"I was down with that awful fever we call Yellow-Jack; and, oh! Nie, itseemed to me that at first all the awful creatures ever I had seen onearth or in the waters came back to haunt my dream; and often and oftenI awoke screaming with fright. Indeed, the dream had hardly faded whenmy eyes were opened, for I would see, perhaps, a weird-looking camel ordromedary's head drawing away from the bed, or a sea-elephant, a bear,an ursine seal, or an old-fashioned-looking puffin.
"In my fever, thirst was terribly severe, and I used to dream I wasdiving in the blue pellucid water of the Indian Ocean, down--down--downto beds of snow-white coral sands, with submarine flowers of far morethan earthly beauty blooming around me; suddenly I should perceive thatI was being watched by the terrible and human-like eyes of a monk shark,or--I shudder even now, Nie, to think of it--I should see an awfulhead--the uranoscope's--with extended jaws and glaring protruding eyes.Then I would awake in a fright, shivering with cold, yet bathed inperspiration. But, Nie, when I began to get well a change came o'er thespirit of my dreams. The terrible heads, the horrid fishes, and theslimy monsters of the deep appeared no more; in their place camebeautiful birds, and scenery far more lovely than ever I had clapped awaking eye upon. So, in one way, Nie, I was rewarded for my love fornatural history."
"What a lovely day!" I remarked, looking around me.
"Yes," replied Ben; "but do you know what this very spot where we arenow standing puts me in mind of--lake and all, I mean?"
"I couldn't guess, I'm sure
," I replied.
"Well, it is just like the place where I was nearly killed by a panther,and would have been, but for my man Friday."
"He must have been a useful nigger, then," I said, "that man Friday."
"He came in precious handy that day, Nie. You see, it was like this:--Neither he nor I had ever been to South America before; so when we wentaway shooting together we weren't much used to the cries of the birds orbeasts of the woods. The birds seemed to mimic the beasts, and reptilesoften made sounds like birds. We had been away through the forest, andsuch a forest--ah! Nie, you should have seen