The other party were soon off ahead of us up the main river, under care of the Scotch surgeon, laughing, talking, and holloing in chase of the cadets who had first left. However, Sir Charles thought there was more likelihood of game along the creek, and the ladies fancied it something new, so I steered right into it; the fat midshipman, Simm, watching me critically as I handled the yokelines which he had given up to me in a patronising way, and the sailor in the bow regarding the exertions of the griffins with a knowingly serious expression, while he dabbled his flipper at ease in the water. As the tide steadied, this said creek proved to be a smaller river, apparently from the hilly country I had noticed beyond the woods; by the clearness of its current, that showed the pale yellow reflection of the close bamboo-brake on one side, deep down into the light--the huge sharp green notched aloe-leaves and fern shoving here and there out of it--the close, rank, stifling smell of rotten weeds and funguses giving place to the strange wild scent of the flowers, trailing and twisting in thick snaky coils close up the stems on our opposite hand, and across from branch to branch, with showers of crimson and pink blossoms and white stars; till, eager as the ladies were to put foot on land, 'twas no use looking as yet for a spot of room, let alone going farther in. The cadets were not long in being blown, either; when the midshipman, the bowman, and I had to relieve them. However, _then_ I could look straight toward Violet Hyde's face, the shade of the scarlet punkah hanging over it, and her soft little straight nose and forehead catching a flickering burst from the leaves as we sheered at times under cover of the bank; while her eyelids, dropping from the glare, gave her bright eyes a half-sleepy sort of violet look, and it was only her lips that let you see how excited she felt. The griffin who had the tiller steering with the judgment of a tailor's 'prentice on a picnic to Twickenham, we came two or three times crash into the twigs of some half-sunk tree; then a blue bird like a heron would rise direct ahead of us, with its tall wet spindle legs and spurs glistening like steel behind it into the light, and a young snake in its sharp bill; or a gray crane rustled out of the cane from overhead, its long wings creaking in the air out of our sight. Suddenly you heard a long chirruping croak from a tree-frog, and the ground ones gave full chorus from farther in, whining and cackling, and peep-peep-peeping in one complete rush that died as suddenly away again, like thousands of young turkeys--then out in the midst of the quiet would come a loud clear wheetle-wheetling note from some curious fowl in an opening, with another of the same to match, dimmer amongst the thick of the bush. However everything of the kind seemed to sink down with the heat at noon, the very buzz of flies round every dark feather of