ed to by Bumble with deep
respect, for that sable gentleman had taken a great fancy for the bold
harpooner, and treasured up all his sayings in his heart.

Phil Briant distinguished himself by shooting an immense serpent, which
the doctor, who cut off and retained its head, pronounced to be an
anaconda. It was full twenty feet long; and part of the body was cut
up, roasted, and eaten by Bumble and the trader, though the others
turned from it with loathing.

"It be more cleaner dan one pig, anyhow," remarked Bumble, on observing
the disgust of his white friends; "an' you no objic' to eat dat."

"Clainer than a pig, ye spalpeen!" cried Phil Briant; "that only shows
yer benighted haithen ignerance. Sure I lived in the same cabin wid a
pig for many a year--not not to mintion a large family o' cocks and
hens--an' a clainer baste than that pig didn't stop in that cabin."

"That doesn't say much for your own cleanliness, or that of your
family," remarked Glynn.

"Och! ye've bin to school, no doubt, haven't ye?" retorted Phil.

"I have," replied Glynn.

"Shure I thought so. It's there ye must have larned to be so oncommon
cliver. Don't you iver be persuaded for to go to school, Bumble, if ye
iver git the chance. It's a mighty lot o' taichin' they'd give ye, but
niver a taste o' edication. Tin to wan, they'd cram ye till ye turned
white i' the face, an' that wouldn't suit yer complexion, ye know, King
Bumble, be no manes."

As for the trader, he acted interpreter when the party fell in with
negroes, and explained everything that puzzled them, and told them
anecdotes without end about the natives and the wild creatures, and the
traffic of the regions through which they passed. In short, he made
himself generally useful and agreeable.

But the man who distinguished himself most on that trip was Jim
Scroggles. That lanky individual one day took it into his wise head to
go off on a short ramble into the woods alone. He had been warned by
the trader, along with the rest of the party, not to venture on such a
dangerous thing; but being an absent man the warning had not reached his
intellect although it had fallen on his ear. The party were on shore
cooking dinner when he went off, without arms of any kind, and without
telling whither he was bound. Indeed, he had no defined intentions in
his own mind. He merely felt inclined for a ramble, and so went away,
intending to be back in half-an-hour or less.

But Jim S