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His eyes, wistful in their setting, were faded, as though a relentless tropical sun had drunk up their once vivid, boyish colouring. "Oh yes, that and a few other trifles. I think I've housed most West African bugs in my time. Everyone had them, but I was such poor pasture that I got off better than most. Three of my superiors died of 'em, and I stepped right into their shoes.
They are all vigorous, robust seafaring men, weatherbeaten and seasoned in the burning beat of tropical latitudes, whose rich blood is surcharged with oxygen by the breezes of the ocean. There is not a youth nor an old man among them. They are all in their prime, their ages ranging from thirty to fifty. But why do they submit to such an existence? Do they never leave their rocky retreat?
This belief may have originally derived its existence from the fact that certain tropical insects sometimes lay their eggs beneath the skins of animals, or even of men, from which it is difficult to expel them until the larvae are hatched. The chico or "jigger" of the West Indies and the Spanish Main is the most obvious example.
Was it possible that they might not have come to New Orleans after all? Through the days, when the sun beat upon the awning with a tropical fierceness, when Monsieur Vigo abandoned himself to his siestas, I thought. It was perhaps characteristic of me that I waited nearly three weeks to confide in my old friend the purpose of my journey to New Orleans.
The humidity is, of course, excessive, but the rains are not so heavy and continuous in the wet season as in many other tropical climates. The country had for a long time a reputation for extreme salubrity. Since the small-pox in 1819, which attacked chiefly the Indians, no serious epidemic had visited the province.
We waved and shouted a farewell to the crews of the launch and the dhow. The path for a hundred feet was walled in by the mangroves through which scuttled and rattled the big land crabs. Then suddenly we found ourselves in a story-book tropical paradise.
"It seems queer," observed Frank, "to be flying an aeroplane, that has been through so many tropical adventures, in the frozen regions of the south pole." "It does, indeed," said the professor, who, with Billy Barnes, had obtained permission to accompany the boys.
Fiery greens, such as burn in tropical scenery, do not exist; and blossom-bursts take a more exquisite radiance by contrast with the heavy tones of the vegetation out of which they flame.
Almost every flower of the tropical climate contains insects of one kind or other; now, the humming-bird is most busy about the flowers an hour or two after sunrise and after a shower of rain, and it is just at this time that the insects come out to the edge of the flower in order that the sun’s rays may dry the nocturnal dew and rain which they have received.
She had been painted white, with tropical economy, outside and in; and we found, later on, that the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the scuttle but, etc., were picked out with green. At that time, however, when we first stepped aboard, all was hidden under the droppings of innumerable sea-birds.
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