"It isn't to be done, squire," said the captain. "Take your glass when you go on deck, and you'll see that the forest is all one tangle, through which you'd have to cut your way, unless you can find a creek and pole the boat along among the trees." "There must be a creek in yonder," said Briscoe, "where we heard that great alligator splashing." "Well, try, gentlemen," said the captain, smiling; "there's nothing done without: only don't go and overdo it, for you'll find it terribly hot and steamy under the trees." "I'll see to that," said Sir Humphrey quietly; and soon after, well provided with arms and ammunition, the party stepped into the boat, the men dropped their oars into the water with a splash, and in an instant there was a tremendous eddy and a little wave arose, showing the course made by some startled inhabitant of the river--fish or reptile, probably the latter, disturbed from where it had lain in the shadow of the brig. "Might have had a shot if the water had been clear," said Brace excitedly. "I've got ball in one barrel." "Good plan," said Briscoe, "for you never know what you may see next. I'd keep an eye upward amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours, too, Dan." Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing-- brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the huge trees. Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green. One was literally covered from the water's edge to its summit with a gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects the travellers had ever seen. "It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace," said Sir Humphrey. "So I was thinking," said the former. "Look at those lovely humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the butterflies." "I was looking," said Sir Humphrey, "and longing for a tiny gun loaded with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright blue steely gleams of their forked tails." "No, no," whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious vision of colour should pass away; "I meant those tiny fellows all blue and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their legs. Oh, what a pity!"