A Soudan negro may be excused, then, for opening his
eyes VERY wide!"
"Faith!" said Joe, as the Victoria skimmed closely
along the ground, at scarcely the elevation of one hundred
feet, and immediately over a village, "I'll throw them
an empty bottle, with your leave, doctor, and if it reaches
them safe and sound, they'll worship it; if it breaks, they'll
make talismans of the pieces."
So saying, he flung out a bottle, which, of course, was
broken into a thousand fragments, while the negroes
scampered into their round huts, uttering shrill cries.
A little farther on, Kennedy called out: "Look at that
strange tree! The upper part is of one kind and the
lower part of another!"
"Well!" said Joe, "here's a country where the trees
grow on top of each other."
"It's simply the trunk of a fig-tree," replied the doctor,
"on which there is a little vegetating earth. Some fine
day, the wind left the seed of a palm on it, and the
seed has taken root and grown as though it were on the
plain ground."
"A fine new style of gardening," said Joe, "and I'll
import the idea to England. It would be just the thing
in the London parks; without counting that it would be
another way to increase the number of fruit-trees.
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