One of the most surprising circumstances, perhaps, in connection with this voyage up the river, was the rapidity with which the two Englishmen--or Dick, rather--lost the capacity to be astonished. Stukely, indeed, had never manifested the least surprise at any of the wonders that were continually coming under their observation, for, steadfastly adhering to that strange fancy of his that he must have lived in these regions during some former state of existence, he persistently asserted that everything he saw was perfectly familiar to him. But with Dick it was very different; he was as matter-of-fact as Phil was fanciful; and the sight of giant trees between two and three hundred feet in height towering up into the cloudless blue a solid mass of purple, scarlet, or yellow bloom; of graceful clumps of feathery bamboo a hundred feet long; of the lofty forest walls on either hand draped with festoons of orchids of the most extraordinary and undreamed-of shapes and the most gorgeous colours; of birds, insects, ay, and even fish, that flashed and glittered with all the hues of the rainbow; of monkeys who followed their course up the river in troops of a hundred or more; of the lithe and graceful jaguar lying stretched upon some trunk or branch that closely overhung the water, watching with ready paw to seize any unwary fish that might chance to swim past within reach; of alligators that basked log-like on the mud banks--all these things were to Chichester at first a source of utmost wonder and admiration; yet within a month they had become the veriest commonplaces to him, and had entirely ceased to attract his attention. He was far more interested in the sight of a fair breeze stealing up the river after them than he was in the sight of the most beautiful flower, the most gorgeous butterfly, or the most dainty and brilliant colibri, for he knew that all these things he would see again a thousand times or more; but a wind that would relieve them of the labour of paddling in that scorching climate--ah! that was indeed a sight worth seeing.