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<h2> Chapter 3 </h2>
<p>The next day, the 30th of October, all was ready for the proposed
exploring expedition, which recent events had rendered so necessary. In
fact, things had so come about that the settlers in Lincoln Island no
longer needed help for themselves, but were even able to carry it to
others.</p>
<p>It was therefore agreed that they should ascend the Mercy as far as the
river was navigable. A great part of the distance would thus be traversed
without fatigue, and the explorers could transport their provisions and
arms to an advanced point in the west of the island.</p>
<p>It was necessary to think not only of the things which they should take
with them, but also of those which they might have by chance to bring back
to Granite House. If there had been a wreck on the coast, as was supposed,
there would be many things cast up, which would be lawfully their prizes.
In the event of this, the cart would have been of more use than the light
canoe, but it was heavy and clumsy to drag, and therefore more difficult
to use; this led Pencroft to express his regret that the chest had not
contained, besides "his halfpound of tobacco," a pair of strong New Jersey
horses, which would have been very useful to the colony!</p>
<p>The provisions, which Neb had already packed up, consisted of a store of
meat and of several gallons of beer, that is to say enough to sustain them
for three days, the time which Harding assigned for the expedition. They
hoped besides to supply themselves on the road, and Neb took care not to
forget the portable stove.</p>
<p>The only tools the settlers took were the two woodmen's axes, which they
could use to cut a path through the thick forests, as also the
instruments, the telescope and pocket-compass.</p>
<p>For weapons they selected the two flint-lock guns, which were likely to be
more useful to them than the percussion fowling-pieces, the first only
requiring flints which could be easily replaced, and the latter needing
fulminating caps, a frequent use of which would soon exhaust their limited
stock. However, they took also one of the carbines and some cartridges. As
to the powder, of which there was about fifty pounds in the barrel, a
small supply of it had to be taken, but the engineer hoped to manufacture
an explosive substance which would allow them to husband it. To the
firearms were added the five cutlasses well sheathed in leather, and, thus
supplied, the settlers could venture into the vast forest with some chance
of success.</p>
<p>It is useless to add that Pencroft, Herbert, and Neb, thus armed, were at
the summit of their happiness, although Cyrus Harding made them promise
not to fire a shot unless it was necessary.</p>
<p>At six in the morning the canoe put off from the shore; all had embarked,
including Top, and they proceeded to the mouth of the Mercy.</p>
<p>The tide had begun to come up half an hour before. For several hours,
therefore, there would be a current, which it was well to profit by, for
later the ebb would make it difficult to ascend the river. The tide was
already strong, for in three days the moon would be full, and it was
enough to keep the boat in the center of the current, where it floated
swiftly along between the high banks without its being necessary to
increase its speed by the aid of the oars. In a few minutes the explorers
arrived at the angle formed by the Mercy and exactly at the place where,
seven months before, Pencroft had made his first raft of wood.</p>
<p>After this sudden angle the river widened and flowed under the shade of
great evergreen firs.</p>
<p>The aspect of the banks was magnificent. Cyrus Harding and his companions
could not but admire the lovely effects so easily produced by nature with
water and trees. As they advanced the forest element diminished. On the
right bank of the river grew magnificent specimens of the ulmaceae tribe,
the precious elm, so valuable to builders, and which withstands well the
action of water. Then there were numerous groups belonging to the same
family, among others one in particular, the fruit of which produces a very
useful oil. Further on, Herbert remarked the lardizabala, a twining shrub
which, when bruised in water, furnishes excellent cordage; and two or
three ebony trees of a beautiful black, crossed with capricious veins.</p>
<p>From time to time, in certain places where the landing was easy, the canoe
was stopped, when Gideon Spilett, Herbert, and Pencroft, their guns in
their hands, and preceded by Top, jumped on shore. Without expecting game,
some useful plant might be met with, and the young naturalist was
delighted with discovering a sort of wild spinach, belonging to the order
of chenopodiaceae, and numerous specimens of cruciferae, belonging to the
cabbage tribe, which it would certainly be possible to cultivate by
transplanting. There were cresses, horseradish, turnips, and lastly,
little branching hairy stalks, scarcely more than three feet high, which
produced brownish grains.</p>
<p>"Do you know what this plant is?" asked Herbert of the sailor.</p>
<p>"Tobacco!" cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favorite plant
except in the bowl of his pipe.</p>
<p>"No, Pencroft," replied Herbert; "this is not tobacco, it is mustard."</p>
<p>"Mustard be hanged!" returned the sailor; "but if by chance you happen to
come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don't scorn that!"</p>
<p>"We shall find it some day!" said Gideon Spilett.</p>
<p>"Well!" exclaimed Pencroft, "when that day comes, I do not know what more
will be wanting in our island!"</p>
<p>These different plants, which had been carefully rooted up, were carried
to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought.</p>
<p>The reporter, Herbert, and Pencroft in this manner frequently disembarked,
sometimes on the right bank, sometimes on the left bank of the Mercy.</p>
<p>The latter was less abrupt, but the former more wooded. The engineer
ascertained by consulting his pocket-compass that the direction of the
river from the first turn was obviously southwest and northeast, and
nearly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be
supposed that this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy
continued to the north-west, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among
which the river rose.</p>
<p>During one of these excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two
couples of living gallinaceae. They were birds with long, thin beaks,
lengthened necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail.
Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamous, and it was resolved that
they should be the first tenants of their future poultry-yard.</p>
<p>But till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke
the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of
a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher.</p>
<p>"I recognize him!" cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by
itself.</p>
<p>"What do you recognize?" asked the reporter.</p>
<p>"The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave
the name to that part of the forest."</p>
<p>"A jacamar!" cried Herbert.</p>
<p>It was indeed a jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic
luster. A shot brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe.
At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the
size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings
crimson, and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the
honor of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food
than the jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult
to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds. It
was ten o'clock in the morning when the canoe reached a second angle of
the Mercy, nearly five miles from its mouth. Here a halt was made for
breakfast under the shade of some splendid trees. The river still measured
from sixty to seventy feet in breadth, and its bed from five to six feet
in depth. The engineer had observed that it was increased by numerous
affluents, but they were unnavigable, being simply little streams. As to
the forest, including Jacamar Wood, as well as the forests of the Far
West, it extended as far as the eye could reach. In no place, either in
the depths of the forests or under the trees on the banks of the Mercy,
was the presence of man revealed. The explorers could not discover one
suspicious trace. It was evident that the woodman's axe had never touched
these trees, that the pioneer's knife had never severed the creepers
hanging from one trunk to another in the midst of tangled brushwood and
long grass. If castaways had landed on the island, they could not have yet
quitted the shore, and it was not in the woods that the survivors of the
supposed shipwreck should be sought.</p>
<p>The engineer therefore manifested some impatience to reach the western
coast of Lincoln Island, which was at least five miles distant according
to his estimation.</p>
<p>The voyage was continued, and as the Mercy appeared to flow not towards
the shore, but rather towards Mount Franklin, it was decided that they
should use the boat as long as there was enough water under its keel to
float it. It was both fatigue spared and time gained, for they would have
been obliged to cut a path through the thick wood with their axes. But
soon the flow completely failed them, either the tide was going down, and
it was about the hour, or it could no longer be felt at this distance from
the mouth of the Mercy. They had therefore to make use of the oars.
Herbert and Neb each took one, and Pencroft took the scull. The forest
soon became less dense, the trees grew further apart and often quite
isolated. But the further they were from each other the more magnificent
they appeared, profiting, as they did, by the free, pure air which
circulated around them.</p>
<p>What splendid specimens of the flora of this latitude! Certainly their
presence would have been enough for a botanist to name without hesitation
the parallel which traversed Lincoln Island.</p>
<p>"Eucalypti!" cried Herbert.</p>
<p>They were, in fact, those splendid trees, the giants of the extratropical
zone, the congeners of the Australian and New Zealand eucalyptus, both
situated under the same latitude as Lincoln Island. Some rose to a height
of two hundred feet. Their trunks at the base measured twenty feet in
circumference, and their bark was covered by a network of farrows
containing a red, sweet-smelling gum. Nothing is more wonderful or more
singular than those enormous specimens of the order of the myrtaceae, with
their leaves placed vertically and not horizontally, so that an edge and
not a surface looks upwards, the effect being that the sun's rays
penetrate more freely among the trees.</p>
<p>The ground at the foot of the eucalypti was carpeted with grass, and from
the bushes escaped flights of little birds, which glittered in the
sunlight like winged rubies.</p>
<p>"These are something like trees!" cried Neb; "but are they good for
anything?"</p>
<p>"Pooh!" replied Pencroft. "Of course there are vegetable giants as well as
human giants, and they are no good, except to show themselves at fairs!"</p>
<p>"I think that you are mistaken, Pencroft," replied Gideon Spilett, "and
that the wood of the eucalyptus has begun to be very advantageously
employed in cabinet-making."</p>
<p>"And I may add," said Herbert, "that the eucalyptus belongs to a family
which comprises many useful members; the guava-tree, from whose fruit
guava jelly is made; the clove-tree, which produces the spice; the
pomegranate-tree, which bears pomegranates; the Eugeacia Cauliflora, the
fruit of which is used in making a tolerable wine; the Ugui myrtle, which
contains an excellent alcoholic liquor; the Caryophyllus myrtle, of which
the bark forms an esteemed cinnamon; the Eugenia Pimenta, from whence
comes Jamaica pepper; the common myrtle, from whose buds and berries spice
is sometimes made; the Eucalyptus manifera, which yields a sweet sort of
manna; the Guinea Eucalyptus, the sap of which is transformed into beer by
fermentation; in short, all those trees known under the name of gum-trees
or iron-bark trees in Australia, belong to this family of the myrtaceae,
which contains forty-six genera and thirteen hundred species!"</p>
<p>The lad was allowed to run on, and he delivered his little botanical
lecture with great animation. Cyrus Harding listened smiling, and Pencroft
with an indescribable feeling of pride.</p>
<p>"Very good, Herbert," replied Pencroft, "but I could swear that all those
useful specimens you have just told us about are none of them giants like
these!"</p>
<p>"That is true, Pencroft."</p>
<p>"That supports what I said," returned the sailor, "namely, that these
giants are good for nothing!"</p>
<p>"There you are wrong, Pencroft," said the engineer; "these gigantic
eucalypti, which shelter us, are good for something."</p>
<p>"And what is that?"</p>
<p>"To render the countries which they inhabit healthy. Do you know what they
are called in Australia and New Zealand?"</p>
<p>"No, captain."</p>
<p>"They are called 'fever trees.'"</p>
<p>"Because they give fevers?"</p>
<p>"No, because they prevent them!"</p>
<p>"Good. I must note that," said the reporter.</p>
<p>"Note it then, my dear Spilett; for it appears proved that the presence of
the eucalyptus is enough to neutralize miasmas. This natural antidote has
been tried in certain countries in the middle of Europe and the north of
Africa where the soil was absolutely unhealthy, and the sanitary condition
of the inhabitants has been gradually ameliorated. No more intermittent
fevers prevail in the regions now covered with forests of the myrtaceae.
This fact is now beyond doubt, and it is a happy circumstance for us
settlers in Lincoln Island."</p>
<p>"Ah! what an island! What a blessed island!" cried Pencroft. "I tell you,
it wants nothing—unless it is—"</p>
<p>"That will come, Pencroft, that will be found," replied the engineer; "but
now we must continue our voyage and push on as far as the river will carry
our boat!"</p>
<p>The exploration was therefore continued for another two miles in the midst
of country covered with eucalypti, which predominated in the woods of this
portion of the island. The space which they occupied extended as far as
the eye could reach on each side of the Mercy, which wound along between
high green banks. The bed was often obstructed by long weeds, and even by
pointed rocks, which rendered the navigation very difficult. The action of
the oars was prevented, and Pencroft was obliged to push with a pole. They
found also that the water was becoming shallower and shallower, and that
the canoe must soon stop. The sun was already sinking towards the horizon,
and the trees threw long shadows on the ground. Cyrus Harding, seeing that
he could not hope to reach the western coast of the island in one journey,
resolved to camp at the place where any further navigation was prevented
by want of water. He calculated that they were still five or six miles
from the coast, and this distance was too great for them to attempt during
the night in the midst of unknown woods.</p>
<p>The boat was pushed on through the forest, which gradually became thicker
again, and appeared also to have more inhabitants; for if the eyes of the
sailor did not deceive him, he thought he saw bands of monkeys springing
among the trees. Sometimes even two or three of these animals stopped at a
little distance from the canoe and gazed at the settlers without
manifesting any terror, as if, seeing men for the first time, they had not
yet learned to fear them. It would have been easy to bring down one of
these quadramani with a gunshot, and Pencroft was greatly tempted to fire,
but Harding opposed so useless a massacre. This was prudent, for the
monkeys, or apes rather, appearing to be very powerful and extremely
active, it was useless to provoke an unnecessary aggression, and the
creatures might, ignorant of the power of the explorers' firearms, have
attacked them. It is true that the sailor considered the monkeys from a
purely alimentary point of view, for those animals which are herbivorous
make very excellent game; but since they had an abundant supply of
provisions, it was a pity to waste their ammunition.</p>
<p>Towards four o'clock, the navigation of the Mercy became exceedingly
difficult, for its course was obstructed by aquatic plants and rocks. The
banks rose higher and higher, and already they were approaching the spurs
of Mount Franklin. The source could not be far off, since it was fed by
the water from the southern slopes of the mountain.</p>
<p>"In a quarter of an hour," said the sailor, "we shall be obliged to stop,
captain."</p>
<p>"Very well, we will stop, Pencroft, and we will make our encampment for
the night."</p>
<p>"At what distance are we from Granite House?" asked Herbert.</p>
<p>"About seven miles," replied the engineer, "taking into calculation,
however, the detours of the river, which has carried us to the northwest."</p>
<p>"Shall we go on?" asked the reporter.</p>
<p>"Yes, as long as we can," replied Cyrus Harding. "To-morrow, at break of
day, we will leave the canoe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the
distance which separates us from the coast, and then we shall have the
whole day in which to explore the shore."</p>
<p>"Go ahead!" replied Pencroft.</p>
<p>But soon the boat grated on the stony bottom of the river, which was now
not more than twenty feet in breadth. The trees met like a bower overhead,
and caused a half-darkness. They also heard the noise of a waterfall,
which showed that a few hundred feet up the river there was a natural
barrier.</p>
<p>Presently, after a sudden turn of the river, a cascade appeared through
the trees. The canoe again touched the bottom, and in a few minutes it was
moored to a trunk near the right bank.</p>
<p>It was nearly five o'clock. The last rays of the sun gleamed through the
thick foliage and glanced on the little waterfall, making the spray
sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow. Beyond that, the Mercy was
lost in the bushwood, where it was fed from some hidden source. The
different streams which flowed into it increased it to a regular river
further down, but here it was simply a shallow, limpid brook.</p>
<p>It was agreed to camp here, as the place was charming. The colonists
disembarked, and a fire was soon lighted under a clump of trees, among the
branches of which Cyrus Harding and his companions could, if it was
necessary, take refuge for the night.</p>
<p>Supper was quickly devoured, for they were very hungry, and then there was
only sleeping to think of. But, as roarings of rather a suspicious nature
had been heard during the evening, a good fire was made up for the night,
so as to protect the sleepers with its crackling flames. Neb and Pencroft
also watched by turns, and did not spare fuel. They thought they saw the
dark forms of some wild animals prowling round the camp among the bushes,
but the night passed without incident, and the next day, the 31st of
October, at five o'clock in the morning, all were on foot, ready for a
start.</p>
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