"'Can you not almost _feel_ the forest grow!' exclaimed Miss Hyde; while the boat floated quietly to one side, and her charming young face shining out from the punkah, before Master Gopaul's deucedly ugly one, coolly staring past his snub nose, made one think of a white English rose and a black puff-ball growing together under a toadstool; plenty of which, as red as soldiers' coats, and as big as targets, looked here and there out of the bank. It put new spirit into me to see her, but still we could do little more than shove across from one side to the other--till something all at once roused us up in the shape of a long scaly-like log, seemingly lying along in the sun, which tumbled off the edge with a loud splash, and two of the young fellows let drive from their fowling-pieces, just after the alligator had sunk to the bottom. Rather uncomfortable it was to come sheering right over him next moment, and catch a glimpse of his round red eyes and his yellow throat, as the mud and weeds rose over him. "The other ladies shrieked, but Violet Hyde only caught hold of her father's arm and started back; though her blue eye and the clear cut of her pretty nostril opened out, too, for the moment her lips closed. Five minutes after, when a couple of large guinea-fowl sprang up, Sir Charles proved himself a better shot than the cadets, by dropping one of them over the water ahead of us, which was laid hold of by the reefer of the Indiaman, and stowed away fluttering into the stern-locker--Simm observing coolly that it was a scavengering carrion sort of bird, but perhaps one of his messmates might like to take it home stuffed to his sister. The judge merely smiled and patted the mid on the shoulder, remarking in great good-humour that he, Simm, would make a good attorney; and on we held, soaking to our shirts and panting, until the bowman hooked down the stem of a young plantain, with a huge bunch of full ripe yellow bananas under the long flapping leaves at its head, right into the midst of us, out of a whole clump of them, where the smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of gaudy-coloured butterflies, and a cloud of mosquitoes, and making the parroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat, as I peeled the soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics, I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through and all over you, after chewing salt-junk for a space. I remember one