d
fatal; but as the shikarree talked in a very broken and mixed language,
that would hardly be intelligible to the reader, I must translate his
story for him; and its main incidents will be found in the chapters that
follow.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE.

"BANG."

It so happened that Ossaroo had made for himself a regular fish-net.
Not being permitted to poison the lake with wolf's-bane, and having no
bamboo to make wicker-work of, he looked around for some other substance
wherewith to construct a net; and soon found the very thing itself, in
the shape of a plant that grew in abundance throughout the valley, and
particularly near the shores of the lake.

This plant was a tall single-stemmed annual, with a few digitate and
toothed leaves, and a loose panicle of greenish flowers at its top.
There was nothing _very_ remarkable about its appearance, except that
its stem was covered with short rigid hairs, and rose undivided to a
height of nearly twenty feet. Many plants were growing together, and
when first discovered--all three of our adventurers were present at the
discovery--Caspar had said that they reminded him of hemp. It was not a
bad comparison Caspar had hit upon, for the plant was _hemp_, as Karl
immediately made known--the true _Cannabis sativa_, though the variety
which grows in India, or rather a drug extracted from it, is called
_Cannabis Indica_, or "Indian hemp." It was the tallest hemp either
Karl or Caspar had ever seen--some of the stalks actually measuring
eighteen feet in length, whereas that of the northern or middle parts of
Europe rarely reaches the height of an ordinary man. In Italy, however,
and other southern portions of the European Continent, hemp attains a
much greater height, rivalling that of India in the length of its stalk
and fibre. It was noticed that nearly one half of the plants, although
growing side by side, and mingled with the others, were much riper, and,
in fact, fast withering to decay. The botanist explained this to his
companions, by saying that these were the male plants, and the growing
ones the females; for hemp is what is termed by botanists "dioecious"--
that, is, having male flowers on one plant, and female ones upon
another. Karl farther observed that the male plants, after having
performed their office--that is, having shed their pollen upon the
females--not only cease to grow taller, but soon wither and die; whereas
the females still flourish, and do not arrive