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Without giving notice of what he was about to do, Mike suddenly sprang off the raft and swam out towards an object of which he had just caught sight. "This will serve us for mate and drink too," he exclaimed, as he swam back, pushing before him a couple of melon-like fruit.
I had much difficulty in preserving it from being eaten by small forest rats that came out of the woods, where they had already been accustomed to eat the wild fruit of this climber. The moist, warm climate seemed to suit the papaw tree, as it grew with great vigour, and produced very large and fine melon-like fruits.
It will please him, and if he will carry us we will eat leaves or grass. Come on, old man. Here you are! Ripe 'nanas, and one of them pumpkin things. What! rather have the pumpkin first?" he continued, as the great trunk curved slowly towards the golden-hued, melon-like fruit. "Can't swallow that all at once, can you? And I don't want to stop and cut it. What! you can? Oh, all right, then.
On it were piles of turtle shells, while scattered about were bones of deer and alligator and skulls of bear and smaller animals. A cultivated papaw which some Indian had planted within a few years, stood twelve feet high and was filled with great melon-like papaws, each one of which weighed from five to ten pounds.
On reaching the bread-fruit, I was delighted to find that it was scarcely yet mature, the best state, indeed, for eating. I eagerly cut down a couple of the melon-like fruit and descended with them to the ground. As my breakfast had not been substantial, I lost no time in cutting up a bread-fruit into slices, which I toasted before the fire, pouring over it a little cocoa-nut milk.
Though in some gulches the kukui preponderates, in others the lauhala whose aerial roots support it in otherwise impossible positions, and in others the sombre ohia, yet there were some grand clefts in which nature has mingled her treasures impartially, and out of cool depths of ferns rose the feathery coco-palm, the glorious breadfruit, with its green melon-like fruit, the large ohia, ideal in its beauty, the most gorgeous flowering tree I have ever seen, with spikes of rose-crimson blossoms borne on the old wood, blazing among its shining many-tinted leafage, the tall papaya with its fantastic crown, the profuse gigantic plantain, and innumerable other trees, shrubs, and lianas, in the beauty and bounteousness of an endless spring.
They led me down green alleys arched over with huge melon-like leaves; they led me along innumerable byways, making me peep and peer through the chequered sunlight at ocean-growing craft, that had budded twelve months before, already filling their moulds to the last inch of space.
Just then, a trampling and lumbering became audible, and on the road behind appeared first three horsemen riding abreast, streaming with black and white ribbons; then eight pair of black horses, a man walking at the crested heads of each couple, and behind these a coach, shaped like an urn reversed, and with a coronet on the top, silvered, while the vehicle itself was, melon-like, fluted, alternately black, with silver figures, and white with black landscapes; and with white draperies, embroidered with black and silver, floating from the windows.
Still, I had been aroused, and I hoped to be able to return to the camp before being quite overcome. After going some distance, however, my spirits again sank, and I could scarcely sit my horse. In another moment I believe I should have fallen, when I saw a plant trailing along the ground, with large leaves, and among them a large melon-like fruit. Yes, there before me was a water-melon!
The star cactus was in full flower, the scarlet buds starting out from the flat surface of the thick leaves after a queer and original fashion. The bread-fruit tree, with its large, melon-like product, hung heavy with the nourishing esculent.
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