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Sometimes alone, sometimes with a soldier from his own part of the country, he would slowly saunter along by cages containing parrots with green backs and yellow heads from the banks of the Amazon, or parrots with gray backs and red heads from Senegal, or enormous macaws, which look like birds reared in hot-houses, with their flower-like feathers, their plumes and their tufts.
They are called the Macaws because of their blue-and-yellow costumes, but I understand there was nothing yellow about Miriam's language. I agreed to make one alteration, as I pretended I had got it a Spitz instead of a Chow, but beyond that I was firm.
On the borders of the small lake Kallolo had discovered a large quantity of wild rice, on which numberless waterfowl fed. We collected an ample supply of the seed, and found it very useful in lieu of other farinaceous food. After it had been well stewed, it assisted to fricassee macaws, parrots, and monkeys, which formed our staple diet.
The sun rose red and angry through broken clouds; his disk flamed behind the tall, slender columns of the palms, and lit the waste fields of papyrus. The black monkeys howled mournfully. The birds awoke. Macaws, parrots, parakeets screamed at us and chattered at us as we rode by. Ibis called with wailing voices, and the plovers shrieked as they wheeled in the air.
There is great similarity in all their ceremonies and mummeries, whether the object is a wedding, the celebration of the feast of fruits, the plucking of the hair from the heads of their children, or a holiday got up simply out of a love of dissipation. Some of the tribe on these occasions deck themselves with the bright-coloured feathers of parrots and macaws.
Don Pablo's pistols were all the fire-arms they had, and Guapo had no other weapon than his macheté. With their present means, then, there was very little chance of their killing any game, even should they have fallen in with it. But they saw none as yet, except some birds, such as parrots, macaws, and toucans, that fluttered among the leaves.
We recounted our adventures to them, when Marian was not a little agitated at hearing of our encounter with the macaws, and at our having been compelled to leap into the river. "Oh, how dreadful it would have been had you been drowned," she exclaimed; "or had a shark or alligator, or an anaconda, snapped you up!" "There was very little danger of that," answered Arthur.
Here the visitor should notice the red-crowned parrot, and ground parrot of Australia; the South American yellow-headed, and hawk-headed parrots; the horned parrot from New Caledonia and the racket-tailed parrot of the Philippines. Among the Macaws are the hyacinthine macaw of South America, and the blue and yellow varieties.
They ranged from party-colored macaws, green parrots, and big gregarious cuckoos down to a brilliant green-and-chestnut kingfisher, five and a quarter inches long, and a tiny orange-and- green manakin, smaller than any bird I have ever seen except a hummer.
"You will find everyone ready to assist you in carrying out your plans, captain, for a more obedient set of men I have never met with," said Uncle Paul. "Yes, yes, I am sure of that," said the captain. "Now, instead of losing more time in talking, let us go to supper. We have some parrots and macaws roasting, and a collection of ripe fruit for the little maid."
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