ll the stores that we could
not take with us were laid by in the tent, the door of which was made
safe by a row of casks, that we put round it. My wife and Fritz soon led
the way; the cow went next; then the ass, with Frank on its back. Jack
led the goats, and on the back of one of them sat the ape. Ernest took
charge of the sheep, and I brought up the rear as chief guard. We took
care to cross the bridge one at a time, and found it bore our weight
well; but once or twice we thought the cow would step in the stream, or
fall off the boards, when she went to the sides to drink.

Just as we had left the bridge, Jack cried out, "Be quick! here is a
strange beast with quills as long as my arm." The dogs ran, and I with
them, and found a large POR-CU-PINE, in the grass. It made a loud noise,
and shot out its quills at the dogs, and made them bleed. At this Jack
shot at the beast, which fell dead on the spot. My wife's first thought
was to dress the wounds made by the quills, which had stuck in the
nose of one of the dogs, while the boys made haste to pluck some of the
quills from the skin of their strange prize.

At last our march came to an end, and I saw for the first time the great
trees that my wife had told me of. They were of vast size, and were, I
thought, fig trees. "If we can but fix our tent up there," I said, "we
shall have no cause to dread, for no wild beasts can reach us." We sent
Frank off to find sticks, with which to make a fire, and my wife made
some soup of the flesh of the beast we had slain, though we did not like
it so well as we did the ham and cheese we brought with us.

CHAPTER VI.

THE meal at an end, my first thought was to make some steps by means of
which we could reach the first strong branch of the tree. Ernest and I
went in search of some thick canes that grew in the sands hard by. These
we cut down, bound them to four long poles, and thus made a pair of
steps that would, we thought, reach far up the trunk.

On our way back from the sands, one of the dogs made a dart at a clump
of reeds, and a troop of large birds rose on the wing with a loud noise.
Fritz let fly at them, and brought down two at a shot. One of them fell
quite dead, but its mate, though hurt in the wing, made use of its long
legs so well that it would have got off if Bill had not held it. The joy
of Fritz, to have caught such a strange bird, was so great that he would
have us at once bind it by the neck and take it back