we’re in it.”
The three interrogators were as much in the dark as ever. Whether the Gapo was fish, flesh, or fowl, air, fire, or water, they could not even guess. There was but one upon the galatea besides the Indian himself who knew the signification of the word which had created such a sensation among the crew, and this was young Richard Trevannion.
“It’s nothing, uncle,” said he, hastening to allay the alarm around him; “old Munday means that we’ve strayed from the true channel of the Solimoës, and got into the flooded forest, – that’s all.”
“The flooded forest?”
“Yes. What you see around us, looking like low bushes, are the tops of tall trees. We’re now aground on the branches of a sapucaya, – a species of the Brazil-nut, and among the tallest of Amazonian trees. I’m right, – see! there are the nuts themselves!” As the young Paraense spoke, he pointed to some pericarps, large as cocoa-nuts, that were seen depending from the branches among which the galatea had caught. Grasping one of them in his hand, he wrenched it from the branch; but as he did so, the husk dropped off, and the prism-shaped nuts fell like a shower of huge hailstones on the roof of the toldo. “Monkey-pots they’re called,” continued he, referring to the empty pericarp still in his hand. “That’s the name by which the Indians know them; because the monkeys are very fond of these nuts.”
“But the Gapo?” interrupted the ex-miner, observing that the expressive look of uneasiness still clouded the brow of the Mundurucú.
“It’s the Indian name for the great inundation,” replied Richard, in the same tranquil tone. “Or rather I should say, the name for it in the lingoa-geral.”
“And what is there to fear? Munday has frightened us all, and seems frightened himself. What is the cause?”
“That I can’t tell you, uncle. I know there are queer stories about the Gapo, – tales of strange monsters that inhabit it, – huge serpents, enormous apes, and all that sort of thing. I never believed them, though the tapuyos do; and from old Munday’s actions I suppose he puts full faith in them.”
“The young patron is mistaken,” interposed the Indian, speaking a patois of the lingoa-geral. “The Mundurucú does not believe in monsters. He believes in big serpents and monkeys, – he has seen them.”
“But shure yez are not afeerd o’ them, Manday?” asked the Irishman.
The Indian only replied by turning on Tipperary Tom a most scornful look.
“What is the use of this alarm?” inquired Trevannion. “The galatea does not appear to have sustained any injury. We can easily get her out of her present predicament, by lopping off the branches that are holding her.”
“Patron,” said the Indian, still speaking in a serious tone, “it may not be so easy as you think. We may get clear of the tree-top in ten minutes. In as many hours – perhaps days – we may not get clear of the Gapo. That is why the Mundurucú shows signs of apprehension.”
“Ho! You think we may have a difficulty in finding our way back to the channel of the river?”
“Think it, patron! I am too sure of it. If not, we shall be in the best of good luck.”
“It’s of no use trying to-night, at all events,” pursued Trevannion, as he glanced uncertainly around him. “The moon is sinking over the tree-tops. Before we could well get adrift, she’ll be gone out of sight. We might only drift deeper into the maze. Is that your opinion, Munday?”
“It is, patron. We can do no good by leaving the place to-night. Wiser for us to wait for the light of the sun.”
“Let all go to rest, then,” commanded the patron, “and be ready for work in the morning. We need keep no lookout, I should think. The galatea is as safe here as if moored in a dry dock. She is aground, I take it, upon the limb of a tree! Ha! ha! ha!”
The thought of such a situation for a sailing craft – moored amid the tops of a tall tree – was of so ludicrous a nature as to elicit a peal of laughter from the patron, which was echoed by the rest of the crew, the Mundurucú alone excepted. His countenance still preserved its expression of uneasiness; and long after the others had sunk into unconscious sleep, he sat upon the stem of the galatea, gazing out into the gloom, with glances that betokened serious apprehension.
Chapter Seven
The Gapo
The young Paraense had given a correct, although not sufficiently explicit, account of the sort of place in which the galatea had gone “aground.”
That singular phenomenon known as the Gapo (or Ygapo), and which is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the great Amazonian region, demands a more detailed description. It is worthy of this, as a mere study of physical geography, – perhaps as pleasant a science as any; and furthermore, it is here absolutely necessary to the understanding of our tale. Without some comprehension of the circumstances that surrounded them, the hardships and sufferings endured, the adventures accomplished, and the perils passed by the crew of the strayed galatea, would appear as so many fabulous inventions, set forth to stimulate and gratify a taste for the merely marvellous. Young reader, this is not the aim of your author, nor does he desire it to be the end. On the contrary, he claims to draw Nature with a verisimilitude that will challenge the criticism of the naturalist; though he acknowledges a predilection for Nature in her wildest aspects, – for scenes least exposed to the eye of civilisation, and yet most exposed to its doubting incredulity.
There are few country people who have not witnessed the spectacle of a piece of woodland inundated by the overflow of a neighbouring stream. This flood is temporary; the waters soon subside into their ordinary channel, and the trees once more appear growing out of terra firma, with the green mead spreading on all sides around them. But a flooded forest is a very different affair; somewhat similar in character indeed, but far grander. Not a mere spinney of trees along the bank of a small stream; but a region extending beyond the reach of vision, – a vast tract of primeval woods, – the tall trees submerged to their very tops, not for days, nor weeks, but for months, – ay, some of them forever! Picture to your mind an inundation of this kind, and you will have some idea of the Gapo.
Extending for seventeen hundred miles along the banks of the Solimoës, now wider on the northern, now stretching farther back from the southern side, this semi-submerged forest is found, its interior almost as unknown as the crater-like caverns of the moon, or the icy oceans that storm or slumber round the Poles, – unknown to civilised man, but not altogether to the savage. The aboriginal of Amazonia, crouching in his canoe, has pierced this water-land of wonders. He could tell you much about it that is real, and much that is marvellous, – the latter too often pronounced fanciful by lettered savans. He could tell you of strange trees that grow there, bearing strange fruits, not to be found elsewhere, – of wonderful quadrupeds, and quadrumana, that exist only in the Gapo, – of birds brilliantly beautiful, and reptiles hideously ugly; among the last the dreaded dragon serpent, “Sucuruju.” He could tell you, moreover, of creatures of his own kind, – if they deserve the name of man, – who dwell continuously in the flooded forest, making their home on scaffolds among the tree-tops, passing from place to place in floating rafts or canoes, finding their subsistence on fish, on the flesh of the manatee, on birds, beasts, reptiles, and insects, on the stalks of huge water-plants and the fruits of undescribed trees, on monkeys, and sometimes upon man! Such Indians as have penetrated the vast water-land have brought strange tales out of it. We may give credence to them or refuse it; but they, at least, are firm believers in most of the accounts which they have
