Numerous wild plants covered the banks, and relieved them with a profusion of the most brilliant colors.  Swallow-wort, iris, lilies, clematis, balsams, umbrella-shaped flowers, aloes, tree-ferns, and spicy shrubs formed a border of incomparable brilliancy.  Several forests came to bathe their borders in these rapid waters.  Copal-trees, acacias, “bauhinias” of iron-wood, the trunks covered with a dross of lichens on the side exposed to the coldest winds, fig-trees which rose above roots arranged in rows like mangroves, and other trees of magnificent growth, overhung the river.  Their high tops, joining a hundred feet above, formed a bower which the solar rays could not penetrate.  Often, also, a bridge of lianes was thrown from one bank to the other, and during the 27th little Jack, to his intense admiration, saw a band of monkeys cross one of these vegetable passes, holding each other’s tail, lest the bridge should break under their weight.

These monkeys are a kind of small chimpanzee, which in Central Africa has received the name of “sokos.”  They have low foreheads, clear yellow faces, and high-set ears, and are very ugly examples of the simiesque race.  They live in bands of a dozen, bark like dogs, and are feared by the natives, whose children they often carry off to scratch or bite.

In passing the liane bridge they never suspected that, beneath that mass of herbs which the current bore onward, there was a little boy who would have exactly served to amuse them.  The preparations, designed by Dick Sand, were very well conceived, because these clear-sighted beasts were deceived by them.

Twenty miles farther on, that same day, the boat was suddenly stopped in its progress.

“What is the matter?” asked Hercules, always posted at his oar.

“A barrier,” replied Dick Sand; “but a natural barrier.”

“It must be broken, Mr. Dick.”

“Yes, Hercules, and with a hatchet.  Several islets have drifted upon it, and it is quite strong.”

“To work, captain! to work!” replied Hercules, who came and stood in the fore-part of the perogue.

This barricade was formed by the interlacing of a sticky plant with glossy leaves, which twists as it is pressed together, and becomes very resisting.  They call it “tikatika,” and it will allow people to cross watercourses dry-shod, if they are not afraid to plunge twelve inches into its green apron.  Magnificent ramifications of the lotus covered the surface of this barrier.

It was already dark.  Hercules could, without imprudence, quit the boat, and he managed his hatchet so skilfully that two hours afterward the barrier had given way, the current turned up the broken pieces on the banks, and the boat again took the channel.

Must it be confessed!  That great child of a Cousin Benedict had hoped for a moment that they would not be able to pass.  Such a voyage seemed to him unnecessary.  He regretted Alvez’s factory and the hut that contained his precious entomologist’s box.  His chagrin was real, and indeed it was pitiful to see the poor man.  Not an insect; no, not one to preserve!