enormous trunks, already
petrified, lay on the ground, indicating the presence of coal mines,
which are frequently met with on the African continent. Then, in the
clearings, where the green carpet was mingled with some sprigs of
roses, the flowers were various in color, yellow and blue ginger
plants, pale lobelias, red orchids, incessantly visited by the insects
which fertilized them.

The trees no longer formed impenetrable masses, but their nature was
more varied. There were a kind of palm-tree, which gives an oil found
only in Africa; cotton-trees forming thickets from eight to ten feet
high, whose wood-stalks produce a cotton with long hairs, almost
analogous to that of Fernambouc. From the copals there oozes, by the
holes which certain insects make, an odorous gum, which runs along
the ground and collects for the wants of the natives. Here spread the
lemon-trees, the grenadiers of a savage condition of a country, and
twenty other odorous plants, which prove the prodigious fertility of
this plateau of Central Africa. In several places, also, the perfume
was agreeably mingled with the tine odor of vanilla, although they
could not discover what tree exhaled it.

This whole collection of trees and plants was perfectly green,
although it was in the middle of the dry season, and only rare storms
could water these luxuriant forests. It was then the time for fevers;
but, as Livingstone has observed, they can be cured by leaving the
place where they have been contracted. Dick Sand knew this remark of
the great traveler, and he hoped that little Jack would not contradict
it. He told it to Mrs. Weldon, after having observed that the
periodical access had not returned as they feared, and that the child
slept quietly in Hercules' arms.

Thus they went forward carefully and rapidly. Sometimes they
discovered traces where men or animals had recently passed. The
twisted and broken branches of the brushwood and the thickets afforded
an opportunity to walk with a more equal step. But the greater part of
the time numerous obstacles, which they had to overcome, retarded the
little party, to Dick Sand's great disappointment.

There were twisted lianes that might justly be compared with the
disordered rigging of a ship, certain vines similar to bent swords,
whose blades were ornamented with long thorns, vegetable serpents,
fifty or sixty feet long, which had the faculty of turning to prick
the passer-by with their sharp spikes. The