It was used by a very gifted French author--
M. Mery--in a romance, it is true. He has his travellers
drawn along in a balloon by a team of camels; then a lion
comes up, devours the camels, swallows the tow-rope, and
hauls the balloon in their stead; and so on through the
story. You see that the whole thing is the top-flower of
fancy, but has nothing in common with our style of locomotion."
Joe, a little cut down at learning that his idea had
been used already, cudgelled his wits to imagine what
animal could have devoured the lion; but he could not
guess it, and so quietly went on scanning the appearance
of the country.
A lake of medium extent stretched away before him,
surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, which yet could
not be dignified with the name of mountains. There were
winding valleys, numerous and fertile, with their tangled
thickets of the most various trees. The African oil-tree
rose above the mass, with leaves fifteen feet in length upon
its stalk, the latter studded with sharp thorns; the bombax,
or silk-cotton-tree, filled the wind, as it swept by,
with the fine down of its seeds; the pungent odors of the
pendanus, the "kenda" of the Arabs, perfumed the air
up to the height where the Victoria was sailing; the
papaw-tree, with its palm-shaped leaves; the sterculier,
which produces the Soudan-nut; the baobab, and the
banana-tree, completed the luxuriant flora of these
inter-tropical regions.
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