Martin Rattler by R. M. Ballantyne (read full novel .txt) 📕

It is pleasant, when the sun is bright, and the trees are green, and when flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling tropical trees scent the balmy atmosphere at eventide, to lie extended at full length in a canoe, and drop easily, silently, yet quickly, down the current of a noble river, under the grateful shadow of overhanging foliage; and to look lazily up at the bright blue sky which appears in broken patches among the verdant leaves; or down at the river in which that bright sky and those green leaves are reflected; or aside at the mud-banks where greedy vultures are searching for prey, and lazy alligators are basking in the sun; and to listen, the while, to the innumerable cries and notes of monkeys, toucans, parrots, orioles, bemtevi or fly-catchers, white-winged and blue chatterers, and all the myriads of birds and beasts that cause the forests of Brazil, above all other forests in the world probably, to resound with the gleeful songs of animated nature!

It is pleasant to be thus situated, especially when a cool breeze blows the mosquitoes and other insects off the water, and relieves you for a time from their incessant attacks. Martin Rattler found it pleasant as he thus lay on his back with his diminutive pet marmoset monkey seated on his breast quietly picking the kernel out of a nut. And Barney O’Flannagan found it pleasant, as he lay extended in the bow of the canoe with his head leaning over the edge gazing abstractedly at his own reflected visage, while his hands trailed through the cool water, and his young dog—a shaggy indescribable beast with a bluff nose and a bushy tail—watched him intently, as a mother might watch an only child in a dangerous situation. And the old sun-dried, and storm-battered, and time-shrivelled mulatto trader, in whose canoe they were embarked and whose servants they had become, found it pleasant, as he sat there perched in his little montaria, like an exceedingly ancient and overgrown monkey, guiding it safely down the waters of the great river of the Tocantins.

Some months have passed since we last parted from our daring adventurers. During that period they had crossed an immense tract of country, and reached the head-waters of one of the many streams that carry the surplus moisture of central Brazil into the Amazon. Here they found an old trader, a free mulatto, whose crew of Indians had deserted him,—a common thing in that country,—and who gladly accepted their services, agreeing to pay them a small wage. And here they sorrowfully, and with many expressions of good-will, parted from their kind friend and entertainer the hermit. His last gift to Martin was the wonderfully small marmoset monkey before mentioned; and his parting souvenir to Barney was the bluff-nosed dog that watched over him with maternal care, and loved him next to itself;—as well it might; for if everybody had been of the same spirit as Barney O’Flannagan, the Act for the prevention of cruelty to animals would never have been passed in Britain.

It was a peculiar and remarkable and altogether extraordinary monkey, that tiny marmoset. There was a sort of romance connected with it, too; for it had been the mother of an indescribably small infant-monkey, which was killed at the time of its mother’s capture. It drank coffee, too, like—like a Frenchman; and would by no means retire to rest at night until it had had its usual allowance. Then it would fold its delicate little hands on its bosom, and close its eyes with an expression of solemn grief, as if, having had its last earthly wish gratified, it now resigned itself to sleep. Martin loved it deeply, but his love was unrequited; for, strange to say, that small monkey lavished all its affection on Barney’s shaggy dog. And the dog knew it, and was evidently proud of it, and made no objection whatever to the monkey sitting on his back, or his head, or his nose, or doing in fact whatever it chose whenever it pleased. When in the canoe, the marmoset played with Grampus, as the dog was named; and when on shore it invariably travelled on his back.

Martin used to lie in the canoe half asleep and watch the little face of the marmoset, until, by some unaccountable mental process, he came to think of Aunt Dorothy Grumbit. Often did poor Martin dream of his dear old aunt, while sleeping under the shelter of these strange-leaved tropical trees and surrounded by the wild sounds of that distant land, until he dreamed himself back again in the old village. Then he would rush to the well-known school, and find all the boys there except Bob Croaker, who he felt certain must be away drowning the white kitten; and off he would go and catch him, sure enough, in the very act, and would give him the old thrashing over again, with all the additional vigour acquired during his rambles abroad thrown into it. Then he would run home in eager haste, and find old Mrs Grumbit hard at the one thousand nine hundred and ninety-ninth pair of worsted socks; and fat Mr Arthur Jollyboy sitting opposite to her, dressed in the old lady’s bed-curtain chintz and high-crowned cap, with the white kitten in his arms and his spectacles on his chin, watching the process with intense interest and cautioning her not to forget the “hitch” by any means; whereupon the kitten would fly up in his face, and Mr Jollyboy would dash through the window with a loud howl, and Mrs Grumbit’s face would turn blue; and, uncoiling an enormous tail, she would bound shrieking after him in among the trees and disappear! Martin usually wakened at this point and found the marmoset gazing in his face with an expression of sorrowful solemnity, and the old sun-dried trader staring vacantly before him as he steered his light craft down the broad stream of the Tocantins.

The trader could speak little more English than sufficed to enable him to say “yes” and “no;” Barney could speak about as much Portuguese as enabled him to say “no” and “yes;” while Martin, by means of a slight smattering of that language, which he had picked up by ear during the last few months, mixed now and then with a word or two of Latin, and helped out by a clever use of the language of signs, succeeded in becoming the link of communication between the two.

For many weeks they continued to descend the river; paddling energetically when the stream was sluggish, and resting comfortably when the stream was strong, and sometimes dragging their canoe over rocks and sand-banks to avoid rapids—passing many villages and plantations of the natives by the way—till at last they swept out upon the bosom of the great Amazon River.

The very first thing they saw upon entering it was an enormous alligator, fully eighteen feet long, sound asleep on a mud-bank.

“Och! put ashore, ye Naygur,” cried Barney, seizing his pistol and rising up in the bow of the canoe. The old man complied quickly, for his spirit was high and easily roused.

“Look out now, Martin, an’ hould back the dog for fear he wakes him up,” said Barney, in a hoarse whisper, as he stepped ashore and hastened stealthily towards the sleeping monster; catching up a handful of gravel as he went, and ramming it down the barrel of his pistol. It was a wonderful pistol that—an Irish one by birth, and absolutely incapable of bursting, else assuredly it would have gone, as its owner said, to “smithereens” long ago.

Barney was not a good stalker. The alligator awoke and made for the water as fast as it could waddle. The Irishman rushed forward close up, as it plunged into the river, and discharged the compound of lead and stones right against the back of its head. He might as well have fired at the boiler of a steam-engine. The entire body of an alligator—back and belly, head and tail—is so completely covered with thick hard scales, that shot has no effect on it; and even a bullet cannot pierce its coat of mail, except in one or two vulnerable places. Nevertheless the shot had been fired so close to it that the animal was stunned, and rolled over on its back in the water. Seeing this, the old trader rushed in up to his chin, and caught it by the tail; but at the same moment the monster recovered, and, turning round, displayed its terrific rows of teeth. The old man uttered a dreadful roar, and struggled to the land as fast as he could; while the alligator, equally frightened, no doubt, gave a magnificent flourish and splash with its tail, and dived to the bottom of the river.

The travellers returned disgusted to their canoe, and resumed their journey up the Amazon in silence.

The vulnerable places about an alligator are the soft parts under the throat and the joints of the legs. This is well-known to the jaguar, its mortal foe, which attacks it on land, and fastening on these soft parts, soon succeeds in killing it; but should the alligator get the jaguar into its powerful jaws or catch it in the water, it is certain to come off the conqueror.

The Amazon, at its mouth, is more like a wide lake or arm of the sea than a river. Mention has been already made of this noble stream in the Hermit’s Story; but it is worthy of more particular notice, for truly the Amazon is in many respects a wonderful river. It is the largest, though not quite the longest, in the world. Taking its rise among the rocky solitudes of the great mountain range of the Andes, it flows through nearly four thousand miles of the continent in an easterly direction, trending northward towards its mouth, and entering the Atlantic Ocean on the northern coast of South America, directly under the Equator. In its course it receives the waters of nearly all the great rivers of central South America, and thousands of smaller tributaries; so that when it reaches the ocean its volume of water is enormous. Some idea may be formed of its majestic size, from the fact that one of its tributaries—the Rio Negro—is fifteen hundred miles long, and varying in breadth; being a mile wide not far from its mouth, while higher up it spreads out in some places into sheets of ten miles in width. The Madeira, another tributary, is also a river of the largest size. The Amazon is divided into two branches at its mouth by the island of Marajo, the larger branch being ninety-six miles in width. About two thousand miles from its mouth it is upwards of a mile wide. So great is the force of this flood of water, that it flows into the sea unmixed for nearly two hundred miles. The tide affects the river to a distance of about four hundred miles inland; and it is navigable from the sea for a distance of three thousand miles inland.

On the north bank of the Amazon there are ranges of low hills, partly bare