Afloat in the Forest Part 2

THE GALATEA AGROUND.

Little experienced as he was in the art of navigation, the steersman was not inattentive to his duty. Previously to his taking the rudder, he had been admonished about the importance of keeping the craft in the channel of the stream, and to this had he been giving his attention.

It so chanced, however, that he had arrived at a place where there were two channels,--as if an island was interposed in the middle of the river, causing it to branch at an acute angle. Which of these was the right one? Which should be taken? These were the questions that occurred to Tipperary Tom.

At first he thought of awakening his master, and consulting him, but on once more glancing at the two channels, he became half convinced that the broader one must be the proper route to be followed.

"Bay j.a.pers!" muttered he to himself. "Shure I can't be mistaken. The biggest av the two ought to be the mane sthrame. Anyway, I won't wake the masther. I'll lave it to the s.h.i.+p to choose for hersilf." Saying this he relaxed his hold upon the steering oar, and permitted the galatea to drift with the current.

Sure enough, the little craft inclined towards the branch that appeared the broader one; and in ten minutes' time had made such way that the other opening was no longer visible from her decks. The steersman, confident of being on the right course, gave himself no further uneasiness; but, once more renewing his hold upon the steering oar, guided the galatea in the middle of the channel.

Notwithstanding all absence of suspicion as to having gone astray, he could not help noticing that the banks on each side appeared to be singularly irregular, as if here and there indented by deep bays, or reaches of water. Some of these opened out vistas of s.h.i.+ning surface, apparently illimitable, while the dark patches that separated them looked more like clumps of trees half-submerged under water than stretches of solid earth.

As the galatea continued her course, this puzzling phenomenon ceased to be a conjecture; Tipperary Tom saw that he was no longer steering down a river between two boundary banks, but on a broad expanse of water, stretching as far as eye could reach, with no other boundary than that afforded by a _flooded forest_.

There was nothing in all this to excite alarm,--at least in the mind of Tipperary Tom. The Mundurucu, had he been awake, might have shown some uneasiness at the situation. But the Indian was asleep,--perhaps dreaming of some Mura enemy,--whose head he would have been happy to embalm.

Tom simply supposed himself to be in some part of the Solimoes flooded beyond its banks, as he had seen it in more places than one. With this confidence, he stuck faithfully to his steering oar, and allowed the galatea to glide on. It was only when the reach of water--upon which the craft was drifting--began to narrow, or rather after it had narrowed to a surprising degree, that the steersman began to suspect himself of having taken the wrong course.

His suspicions became stronger, at length terminating in a conviction that such was the truth, when the galatea arrived at a part where less than a cable's length lay between her beam-ends and the bushes that stood out of the water on both sides of her. Too surely had he strayed from the "mane sthrame." The craft that carried him could no longer be in the channel of the mighty Solimoes!

The steersman was alarmed, and this very alarm hindered him from following the only prudent course he could have taken under the circ.u.mstances. He should have aroused his fellow-voyagers, and proclaimed the error into which he had fallen. He did not do so. A sense of shame at having neglected his duty, or rather at having performed it in an indifferent manner,--a species of regret not uncommon among his countrymen,--hindered him from disclosing the truth, and taking steps to avert any evil consequences that might spring from it.

He knew nothing of the great river on which they were voyaging. There _might_ be such a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding.

The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on.

The channel _did_ widen again; and the galatea once more rode upon open water. The steersman was restored to confidence and contentment. Only for a short while did this state of mind continue. Again the clear water became contracted, this time to a very strip, while on either side extended reaches and estuaries, bordered by half-submerged bushes,--some of them opening apparently to the sky horizon, wider and freer from obstruction than that upon which the galatea was holding her course.

The steersman no longer thought of continuing his course, which he was now convinced must be the wrong one. Bearing with all his strength upon the steering oar, he endeavoured to direct the galatea back into the channel through which he had come; but partly from the drifting of the current, and partly owing to the deceptive light of the moon, he could no longer recognise the latter, and, dropping the rudder in despair, he permitted the vessel to drift whichever way the current might carry her!

Before Tipperary Tom could summon courage to make known to his companions the dilemma into which he had conducted them, the galatea had drifted among the tree-tops of the flooded forest, where she was instantly "brought to anchor."

The cras.h.i.+ng of broken boughs roused her crew from their slumbers. The ex-miner, followed by his children, rushed forth from the toldo. He was not only alarmed, but perplexed, by the unaccountable occurrence. Mozey was equally in a muddle. The only one who appeared to comprehend the situation was the old Indian, who showed sufficient uneasiness as to its consequences by the terrified manner in which he called out: "The Gapo!

The Gapo!"

CHAPTER SIX.

THE MONKEY-POTS.

"The Gapo?" exclaimed the master of the craft. "What is it, Munday?"

"The Gapo?" repeated Tipperary Tom, fancying by the troubled expression on the face of the Indian that he had conducted his companions toward some terrible disaster. "Phwat is it, Manday?"

"Da Gapoo?" simultaneously interrogated the negro, the whites of his eyeb.a.l.l.s s.h.i.+ning in the moonlight. "What be dat?"

The Mundurucu made reply only by a wave of his hand, and a glance around him, as if to say, "Yes, the Gapo; you see we're in it."

The three interrogators were as much in the dark as ever. Whether the Gapo was fish, flesh, or fowl, air, fire, or water, they could not even guess. There was but one upon the galatea besides the Indian himself who knew the signification of the word which had created such a sensation among the crew, and this was young Richard Trevannion.

"It's nothing, uncle," said he, hastening to allay the alarm around him; "old Munday means that we've strayed from the true channel of the Solimoes, and got into the flooded forest,--that's all."

"The flooded forest?"

"Yes. What you see around us, looking like low bushes, are the tops of tall trees. We're now aground on the branches of a _sapucaya_,--a species of the Brazil-nut, and among the tallest of Amazonian trees.

I'm right,--see! there are the nuts themselves!" As the young Paraense spoke, he pointed to some pericarps, large as cocoa-nuts, that were seen depending from the branches among which the galatea had caught.

Grasping one of them in his hand, he wrenched it from the branch; but as he did so, the husk dropped off, and the prism-shaped nuts fell like a shower of huge hailstones on the roof of the _toldo_. "Monkey-pots they're called," continued he, referring to the empty pericarp still in his hand. "That's the name by which the Indians know them; because the monkeys are very fond of these nuts."

"But the Gapo?" interrupted the ex-miner, observing that the expressive look of uneasiness still clouded the brow of the Mundurucu.

"It's the Indian name for the great inundation," replied Richard, in the same tranquil tone. "Or rather I should say, the name for it in the _lingoa-geral_."

"And what is there to fear? Munday has frightened us all, and seems frightened himself. What is the cause?"

"That I can't tell you, uncle. I know there are queer stories about the Gapo,--tales of strange monsters that inhabit it,--huge serpents, enormous apes, and all that sort of thing. I never believed them, though the _tapuyos_ do; and from old Munday's actions I suppose he puts full faith in them."

"The young patron is mistaken," interposed the Indian, speaking a patois of the _lingoa-geral_. "The Mundurucu does not believe in monsters. He believes in big serpents and monkeys,--he has seen them."

"But shure yez are not afeerd o' them, Manday?" asked the Irishman.

The Indian only replied by turning on Tipperary Tom a most scornful look.

"What is the use of this alarm?" inquired Trevannion. "The galatea does not appear to have sustained any injury. We can easily get her out of her present predicament, by lopping off the branches that are holding her."

"Patron," said the Indian, still speaking in a serious tone, "it may not be so easy as you think. We may get clear of the tree-top in ten minutes. In as many hours--perhaps days--we may not get clear of the Gapo. That is why the Mundurucu shows signs of apprehension."

"Ho! You think we may have a difficulty in finding our way back to the channel of the river?"

"Think it, patron! I am too sure of it. If not, we shall be in the best of good luck."

"It's of no use trying to-night, at all events," pursued Trevannion, as he glanced uncertainly around him. "The moon is sinking over the tree-tops. Before we could well get adrift, she'll be gone out of sight. We might only drift deeper into the maze. Is that your opinion, Munday?"

"It is, patron. We can do no good by leaving the place to-night. Wiser for us to wait for the light of the sun."

"Let all go to rest, then," commanded the patron, "and be ready for work in the morning. We need keep no lookout, I should think. The galatea is as safe here as if moored in a dry dock. She is _aground_, I take it, upon the limb of a tree! Ha! ha! ha!"

The thought of such a situation for a sailing craft--moored amid the tops of a tall tree--was of so ludicrous a nature as to elicit a peal of laughter from the patron, which was echoed by the rest of the crew, the Mundurucu alone excepted. His countenance still preserved its expression of uneasiness; and long after the others had sunk into unconscious sleep, he sat upon the stem of the galatea, gazing out into the gloom, with glances that betokened serious apprehension.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE GAPO.

The young Paraense had given a correct, although not sufficiently explicit, account of the sort of place in which the galatea had gone "aground."

That singular phenomenon known as the _Gapo_ (or _Ygapo_), and which is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the great Amazonian region, demands a more detailed description. It is worthy of this, as a mere study of physical geography,--perhaps as pleasant a science as any; and furthermore, it is here absolutely necessary to the understanding of our tale. Without some comprehension of the circ.u.mstances that surrounded them, the hards.h.i.+ps and sufferings endured, the adventures accomplished, and the perils pa.s.sed by the crew of the strayed galatea, would appear as so many fabulous inventions, set forth to stimulate and gratify a taste for the merely marvellous. Young reader, this is not the aim of your author, nor does he desire it to be the end. On the contrary, he claims to draw Nature with a verisimilitude that will challenge the criticism of the naturalist; though he acknowledges a predilection for Nature in her wildest aspects,--for scenes least exposed to the eye of civilisation, and yet most exposed to its doubting incredulity.