njoyed his coffee with plenty of sugar, for he had
no distrust now, but ate and drank as we did, laughing and talking all
the while, and stopping every now and then to point to butterfly or bird
that went by, eating a prodigious breakfast, but mostly of fish and
fruit.

Breakfast over, as soon as he saw us ready for a start he stuck his
spear down again in front of the door, excited and eager to be off, and
ready to draw our attention to the fact that one of us had no gun.

We pointed, however, to the butterfly-nets and that satisfied him, and
when we were ready to start I suggested to my uncle that we should put
the uncooked remains of the fish and the fruit inside the hut so as to
have them when we came back.

"To be sure, Nat," he said, "I had forgotten them."

But at the first attempt to remove them Mr Ebony stopped me, and
uttered a loud, ringing cry, whose effect was to bring about a couple of
dozen little naked black boys out of the jungle, where they must have
been watching us, safely hidden all the time.

To these comical-looking little objects the chief said a few words, when
there was a rush, and the remains from our breakfast were carried off
like magic, Mr Ebony pointing to the sea and to the trees as much as to
say, "There is plenty more when we want it."

We were not long in getting to work, for no sooner were we in the denser
part of the island where the foliage grew thick and moist, than we were
astounded at the number of little lizards that swarmed about, darting
here and there and puzzling me at first as to what colour they were.
One moment they seemed to be bright green, the next like a wriggling
line of the most beautiful blue.

I found out their colour, though, as soon as I had one in the
butterfly-net, for while their bodies were of a brilliant green, their
tails were a blue as pure as the sky.

A couple of them were consigned to the spirit bottle for preservation,
and then we tramped on, growing more and more delighted with the country
the farther we went.

For some time butterflies were absent, so we had to take to collecting
birds, but hardly had we shot three different kinds of parrots, all of a
most lovely colour, than we seemed to tumble upon the butterflies, and
in the course of that one day we captured some of the most lovely
specimens I had ever seen out of a museum. Blue, yellow, black,
crimson, no tint was wanting to make them attractive, and we went on for
hour after hour,