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Up to this time you have thought, perhaps, there was only one, and that was the palm-tree itself. Maybe you have heard of more, such as the sago-palm, the cocoa-nut palm, the date-palm, or the cabbage-palm; and you fancied there might be others perhaps as many as a dozen!
One of them stood near, playing upon a kind of stringed instrument, made out of the stem of a cabbage-palm, and about two feet, or two feet and a half, in length. A hole was cut in it in a slanting direction, and six fibres of the stem had been raised up, and kept in an elevated position at each end, by means of a small bridge.
Not a breath of air ruffled the surface of the lagoon, or stirred the boughs of the surrounding trees, among which were cypresses, live-oak, water-oak, the cabbage-palm, and many others, festooned with wreaths of the gorgeous trumpet-flower of crimson hue, wild-vines, and parasites innumerable; while a short way off I could distinguish a meadow of tall grass or reeds a dozen feet in height at least.
We soon had it skinned and roasted; and Tim was surprised to find it far more palatable than he had expected. "We shall not starve if we keep our wits awake," I said; "but we must not be over-particular as to what we eat." Again we pushed on. I remembered the cabbage-palm, and determined to climb the first tree of the kind we met with to obtain a cabbage.
These thunder-storms are generally very local, belonging to distant valleys and ranges. Much rain had fallen at the foot of the range, but we had very little of it. Several of my companions suffered by eating too much of the cabbage-palm. The Blackfellows will doubtless wonder why so many noble trees had been felled here.
Tall lilies, with large white, crimson, or purple blossoms, and beautiful flowers of various descriptions, fringed the water's edge; while the banks were overhung with tangled masses of the densest tropical vegetation, beyond which rose forests of cabbage-palm, backed on the higher ground by tall pine-trees.
He fitted me out with a good stock of provisions, including a quantity of beche-de-mer, cabbage-palm, fruit, &c. I arranged my buffalo skin over my provisions as a protection, turtle-back fashion. Our preparations completed, Yamba and I and the dog pushed out into the unknown sea in our frail canoe, which was only about fifteen feet long and fourteen inches wide.
Fixing in two uprights, we secured a horizontal pole between them at their tops; and from this pole we suspended the enormous cabbage-palm leaves, stretching them out at the bottom, thus forming a thatched roof impervious to rain or sun. Where cabbage-palms grow, the hunter, as I have shown, can in a few minutes form a very efficient hut, capable of holding two or three people.
We encamped on a spot of much the same character as we had chosen on the previous night. A short distance behind rose a rich hummock, where live-oak, mahogany, mulberry, gum, cabbage-palm, and other valuable trees and shrubs, grew together in the greatest luxuriance. Beyond it stretched a savanna, where our pilot told us we should find abundance of small birds.
When sent into the woods to gather bark or gums, or the heads of the cabbage-palm, or to catch fish on the river or neighbouring lake, I used to be interested by the vast number of birds and insects the beauty of the plumage of the one, and the brilliancy of the tints of the other. I must not omit to mention the cabbage-palm.
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