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There are coves and bays along this coast where oysters do grow upon trees, ridiculous as the assertion first strikes the ear. The mangrove-trees extend their roots from the shore into the sea, to which the oysters affix themselves, growing and thriving until plucked by the fishermen.
As the sun rose, a mist was drawn up which floated just above the water and shut out the lower branches of the mangrove-trees, though their tops, forming a wavy dark line, could just be seen above it. None of the officers of the Archer had been on the coast before, and as she had no pilot, it was necessary to approach it with caution. The lead was therefore kept going.
They were not a little astonished to see countless numbers of oysters clinging to the branches of the mangrove-trees overhanging the water. These and plenty of lemons, which they found very wholesome and refreshing, were used as food. Once more the Golden Hind was at sea steering northward, the richest argosy which had ever yet floated on the ocean.
By the sides of the creeks, especially nigh the sea, there grow a few small black mangrove-trees. There are but few land animals. I saw some lizards; and my men saw two or three beasts like hungry wolves, lean like so many skeletons, being nothing but skin and bones: it is probable that it was the foot of one of those beasts that I mentioned as seen by us in New Holland.
Both Harry and I felt a strong impulse to run aloft and have a look at it, but this we dared not do. It was some time, therefore, before we saw the shore from the deck. We could then make out a line of mangrove-trees, with blue hills rising to a considerable height in the distance. The mangrove-trees marked the entrance of the river up which we were bound.
The margin of the shore was fringed with a deep belt of mangrove-trees, the long roots of which, interlacing one another, formed a kind of submarine lattice-work that made the place difficult of approach.
The shore, as far as the eye could reach, was fringed with mangrove-trees, their branches dipping into the sea.
What, when you pretend that in the absence of serpents there are centipedes a span long, and spiders the bigness of bats, and mosquitoes that sweetly sing in the drowsing ear, but bite not; or that there are swamps but no streams, and in the marshes stand mangrove-trees whose branches grow downward into the ooze, as if they wished to get back into the earth and pull in after them the holes they emerged from?
Every moment we expected the boat to fill; but presently we saw a narrow opening, through which we rushed, with only space sufficient for the oars on each side to avoid the roots of the mangrove-trees, while the dense foliage formed a wall of verdure high above our heads.
The food was excellent, and included some delicious tiny queer-shaped oysters, which are found on the mangrove-trees, overhanging the water higher up the bay. We afterwards went to a pleasant little reception, where we enjoyed the splendid singing of some young Brazilian ladies, and the subsequent row off to the yacht, in the moonlight, was not the least delightful part of the programme.
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