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Far as the eye could reach, the whole country was in a blaze, the flames crackling and hissing as they fiercely attacked clump after clump of the tall tussac grass, while the ground over which they had passed was charred and blackened, the globular masses of the bog balsam glowing with fervent heat.
The flaming mass caught on his horns, and certainly had the effect of making him turn tail, and rush bellowing off from the rock; but it had another effect, and a most disastrous one, on which we had not calculated. Galloping on, the animal very soon freed himself from his burning head-dress by sending it into the middle of a large clump of tussac grass.
We next touched at the Falkland Islands, then uninhabited, except by a few Gauchos, who had crossed from South America with a herd of cattle, which have since increased to a prodigious number, as they thrive well on the tussac grass, the chief natural production of the country. The fresh beef afforded by a couple of oxen was very acceptable, and contributed to keep us in health.
Instead of a walk, hop, or run, as with other birds, it is a sort of rapid rush, in which the rudimentary wings of the birds are used as fore legs, so that, from even a slight distance, they might easily be mistaken for quadrupeds. "It is likely they have their nests yonder," observed Mrs Gancy, pointing to where the penguins kept going in and out of the tussac.
Now and then, as it reached spots more thickly covered with clumps of tussac grass, we could see the flames rushing upwards in pyramids of fire; but in other places a dense fierce glow could alone be perceived as the fiery wave receded from us.
In accordance with this suggestion, each of the boys arms himself with an oar, leaving Seagriff the boat-hook. They enter among the tussac, and after tramping through it a hundred yards or so, they come upon a "penguinnery," sure enough. It is a grand one, extending over acres, with hundreds of nests if a slight depression in the naked surface of the ground deserves to be so called.
We saw that we should have no difficulty in penetrating across it, through the high tussac grass which almost entirely covered the ground. We first advanced together. We soon came to some curious green mounds, covered with a velvety moss, about two feet high and nine in circumference. I happened to sit down on one to tie my shoe, and it made a most comfortable seat.
At first they find the uphill slope gentle and easy, their path leading through hummocks of tall tussac, whose tops rise above their heads, and the flower-scapes many feet higher. Their chief difficulty is the spongy nature of the soil, in which they sink at times ankle-deep.
In the same way in eating grass the elephant selects a tussac which he draws from the ground by a dexterous twist of his trunk, and nothing can be more graceful than the ease with which, before conveying it to his mouth, he beats the earth from its roots by striking it gently upon his fore-leg.
We had got into high spirits with our walk, and had begun to forget all about the bulls and the fire, when, as Jerry and I were in advance scrambling along the shore, we saw basking, a little way inland, among some tussac grass, a huge animal. "Why, there is an elephant!" I exclaimed, starting back "or a live mammoth, or something of that sort. I don't like his look, I own."
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