d reported the result to the
lieutenant, who at once gave orders, and the steamer entered the narrow,
winding way.

To all appearance they might have been the first visitors to those
regions, so haunted was the strangely beautiful scene by wild creatures.
Birds in abundance fled at their approach. Now it was a white eagle,
then a vividly plumaged kingfisher, or a kind of black, racket-tailed
daw with glossy plumage. Parrots of a diminutive size and dazzling
green plumage flitted before them; and from time to time the lotus
leaves were agitated by a shoal of fish, that alarmed by the wash of the
steamer rushed away.

Every now and then, too, Bob Roberts, who was feasting on what passed
like a glorious panorama before him, had his adventure with Ali in the
shooting-trip brought vividly to mind, for some huge reptile or another
shuffled into the slow stream, while others lay sluggishly basking, and
ill-disposed to move.

Their progress was slow, for the screw-propeller was more than once
fouled by the thick weed, through which they ploughed their way. So
dense was it that at times it gathered in large cables, stretching from
bank to bank, and literally barring further progress, till the steamer
was backed and driven at full speed against the obstruction, which
divided and swept off in hillocks to starboard and to port.

Then a more open stretch of water would be gained, widening quite into a
lake, and framed in glorious tropical verdure; large pools would be
quite free from vegetable growth, and so clear that the bright scales of
the fish could be seen flashing far below. Then the river seemed to
wind its way through dense growths of lily and other water plants,
amidst which water-fowl in endless numbers disported themselves, but
fled away at the sight of the steamer, panting onward through this
wilderness of beauty.

For in spite of the anxiety felt by all, and their eagerness to reach
the spot where their friends were in peril, it was impossible to help
gazing with wonder and admiration at the loveliness of all around.
Where the stream narrowed, the great trees growing to the water's edge
formed huge walls of verdure, in parts a hundred--two hundred feet high;
and over and amidst these wreathed and twined the beautiful creepers,
filling up every gap with leaves of the most delicious, tender green.
Then a tree would be passed one mass of white and tinted blossoms,
another of scarlet, and again another of rich cr