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Updated: May 5, 2025
The next morning we said good-bye, and the last I saw of poor Ebo was as he stood in his boat watching us and waving his spear, and I'm not ashamed to say that the tears stood in my eyes as I wondered whether I should ever see that true, generous fellow again.
"Are there more birds?" said Uncle Dick pointing to the hole; but Ebo shook his head, running up, thrusting in his hand, and coming down again. "Very curious, Nat," said my uncle. "The male bird evidently shuts his wife up after she has laid an egg, to protect her from other birds and perhaps monkeys till she has hatched, and then he goes on feeding her and her young one."
Ebo tried in his fashion to dissuade us from going farther, and it was evident that the poor fellow was terrible uneasy as the boat was run in close to the shore, when all at once about a dozen nude black savages came running down to the water's edge, making signs to us to land, and holding up bunches of bright feathers and rough skins of birds. "They look friendly, Nat," said my uncle.
I made the fire, after which we had a hasty breakfast, and then worked hard at skin making preserving all our specimens. The day glided by, but Ebo did not come, and feeling no disposition to collect more, in fact not caring now to fire, we had a look round to see which would be the most likely place to cut down a tree and begin building a boat.
I cried angrily, for it seemed wasting a splendid fish. Ebo chatted away in reply, almost as angrily, after which, evidently satisfied that I did not understand, he behaved very nastily, though his dumb-show was so comic that it made us roar with laughter. For he pretended to eat, as we supposed, some of the fish.
Their yard adjoined that of Ebo, with which it communicated by a door way, without a door, so that it enabled the travellers to have frequent opportunities of seeing his numerous unhappy wives, and a number of little boys and girls, who were his personal attendants.
But I must go back to the rest of our adventures that day, for as soon as we had dined and had a rest, Uncle Dick signed to Ebo that he should make a rough hut beneath this tree, ready for our sleeping that night, and leaving him industriously at work, we started off together to try and explore a little more of the island.
No time was lost in transferring our boxes and stores beneath the roof; and then, as it wanted quite three hours to sunset, my uncle proposed, by way of recompense for all our drudgery, that we should take our guns and see if we could not obtain a few specimens. Ebo looked delighted, and, without being told, obtained a short piece of bamboo ready for carrying the birds we shot.
By the time we had made a hearty meal Ebo pointed with triumph to the faint hazy speck in the distance, now growing minute by minute plainer to our eyes. Ebo watched our countenances very intently, and then suddenly broke out with: "Bird shoot bird." "He seems to have brought us here under the impression that it is a good place, Nat, and I trust it will prove so," said my uncle.
But the light did not come, and as my arms ached with holding up my gun I lowered it, and patiently waited with my heart beating heavily, as I listened to the cries that were on the increase. All at once I felt an arm glide over my shoulder, and I could just make out that Ebo was pointing upward with his black finger steadily in one direction.
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