uture."

"Were I to consent to this project," said Willis, "there is still
something more required."

"What, Willis?"

"Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute
before you can get its skin."

"Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here
quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill
or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that
will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat
plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this
prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad
river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some
resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain
there is a swamp."

"And," added Jack, "behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of
cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished,
however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth."

"I was not aware," said Willis, "that we were within reach of such
amiable neighbors."

"Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of
hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our
settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify."

"It appears then," said Willis, "that there will be no difficulty in
finding the animals, but--"

"Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning
till night, let us for once hunt in ours."

"I go a-hunting?"

"Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now."

"Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite
human beings, they don't eat them!"

"And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my
mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame."

"I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in
Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a
part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I
shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my
bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may
as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by
this road as by any other."

In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having
landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there
in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had
on