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Updated: June 25, 2025
The company passed very near; so near as that the sand thrown up by the horses' feet pattered among the foliage of the mangroves. No one of the strangers was then speaking; but in another moment the sentry challenged them. They laughed, and were certainly stopping at the little gate. "We know your master, fellow," said one. "We have had more talk with him in one day than you in all your service."
But here the wood which hid the margin was altogether of mangrove; the common Rhizophoras, or black mangroves, being, of course, the most abundant. Over them, however, rose the statelier Avicennias, or white mangroves, to a height of fifty or sixty feet, and poured down from their upper branches whole streams of air-roots, which waved and creaked dolefully in the breeze overhead.
Brilliant-plumaged birds flashed hither and thither; kingfishers of all sizes perched solemnly upon the roots and overhanging branches of the mangroves, intently watching the surface of the muddy water for the tiny ripple that should betray the presence of their prey, or flitted low athwart the placid, shining surface of the creek; bright-coloured parrots were seen clawing their way about the trunks of the more lofty trees, or winging their flight fussily with loud screams from branch to branch; the cooing of pigeons was heard in every direction; and high overhead, a small black spot against the deep, brilliant blue of the sky, marked the presence of a fishing eagle on the look-out for his breakfast.
We backed out of the mangroves with the utmost caution, and inch by inch: when we had got to such a distance as to render this extreme circumspection no longer necessary, we commenced a wide circuit around the inlet, which proved to be only a small cove, or indentation in the shore, extending less than a hundred yards inland.
As the boat floated with the current among the bobbing, slender spindles of the mangroves youthful plants on a voyage of discovery for new lands there appeared a brown mottled leaf on the surface. A second glance revealed a dead Ulysses an adventurous creature which had succumbed to temporary weakness during a more than usually ambitious maritime excursion.
Away to the south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea and Northern Australia. They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents. They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down to the very water's edge.
For the present I hold the surf along shore and the Ebumesu bar to be equally dangerous. The land-tongue between the two streams is the favourite haunt of mosquitoes and sand-flies, and it produces nothing save mud and mangroves, miasma and malaria.
Here three large canoes were moored to the mangroves, the largest was about 28 feet long, and 30 inches wide, cut out of the solid butt of some large tree, and very neatly finished. The tent was pitched, but not made much use of, for after dark the travellers left it and camped separately, each keeping vigilant watch all night.
We tried to send a boat ashore for a pow-wow, but it was fired upon. And every once and a while some nigger'd take a long shot at us out of the mangroves." "They was only a quarter of a mile off," Sparrowhawk explained, "and it was damned nasty. 'Don't shoot unless they try to board, was Miss Lackland's orders; but the dirty niggers wouldn't board. They just lay off in the bush and plugged away.
He was lying on his back in a grove of mangroves, upheld from the water by the gnarled and twisted roots of one of the huge trees. He had his naked sword in his hand and his target on his arm, but he was completely prostrated and speechless. The men took him to a fire, revived him and finally brought him back to the ship. Marvelous to relate, he had not a single wound upon him!
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