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WE MOVE TO THE FOREST 8S |
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set aside the remainder to be smoked or salted for future use.
Presently little Francis came running up to us, with his mouth crammed full of something, and called out: ' Mamma, I have found a nice fruit to eat, and I have brought you some of it!'
' You greedy boy I' replied his mother, quite alarmed, ' What have you got there ? Do not put into your mouth everything you find or you will be poisoned.' She made him open his mouth, and with some difficulty drew out the remains of a fig.
' A fig !' I exclaimed. ' Where did you get it ?'
' I got it among the grass, papa ; and there are a great many more. I thought it must be good to eat, for the fowls and the pigeons, and even the pig, ate up all they could find.'
' We are, then, in a grove of fig-trees,' I said. ' Not the dwarf figs we see in Europe, but a kind called yellow mangoes, which I know do send down their branches to take root in just this peculiar way.'
I took this opportunity to tell the boys never to eat anything they found till they had seen it eaten by birds and monkeys. At the word monkeys they turned to look at our little monkey, who was sitting on the root of a tree, examining with the oddest grimaces the half-skinned tiger-cat which |
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