"Tobacco!" cried Pencroft, who evidently had never seen his favorite plant except in the bowl of his pipe.
"No, Pencroft," replied Herbert; "it is mustard."
"Mustard be hanged!" returned the sailor; "but if by chance you happen to come across a tobacco-plant, my boy, pray don't scorn that!"
"We shall find it some day!" said Gideon Spilett.
"Well!" exclaimed Pencroft, "when that day comes, I do not know what more will be wanting in our island!"
These different plants, which had been carefully rooted up, were carried to the canoe, where Cyrus Harding had remained buried in thought.
The reporter, Herbert and Pencroft in this manner frequently disembarked on either bank of the Mercy. The left bank was less abrupt, the right more wooded. The engineer ascertained by consulting his pocket compass that the direction of the river from the first turn was obviously southwest and northeast, and nearly straight for a length of about three miles. But it was to be supposed that this direction changed beyond that point, and that the Mercy continued to the northwest, towards the spurs of Mount Franklin, among which the river rose.
During one of his excursions, Gideon Spilett managed to get hold of two couples of living gallinaceæ. They were birds with long, thin beaks, long necks, short wings, and without any appearance of a tail. Herbert rightly gave them the name of tinamons, and it was resolved that they should be the first tenants of their future poultry yard.
Till then the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher. "I recognize him!" cried Pencroft, and it seemed as if his gun went off by itself.
"What do you recognize?" asked the reporter.
"The bird which escaped us on our first excursion, and from which we gave the name to that part of the forest."
"A jacamar!" cried Herbert.
It was indeed a jacamar, of which the plumage shines with a metallic luster. A short brought it to the ground, and Top carried it to the canoe. At the same time half a dozen lories were brought down. The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings
