108 



THE ADVENTURES OF 



" For you, very probably ; but it was much the same to 

 the squirrel. However, if there's another chance, you shall 

 lend your gun to Gringalet." 



Lucien smiled through his tears, and his indignation 

 gradually calmed down. Certainly the result is the same, 

 whether you wring a fowl's neck or shoot it; yet I could 

 never make up my mind to the former operation. Lucien, 

 who was endowed with almost feminine sensibility, was oft- 

 en angry with l'Encuerado, who could scarcely resist the 

 temptation of firing at any thing alive, useful or not, which 

 came within reach of his -gun. We had spoken often 

 enough to the Indian on the subject, but he always assert- 

 ed that if God had allowed man to kill for the purpose of 

 food, He had also ordered him to destroy hurtful animals, 

 as they were the allies of the demon. Unfortunately, 

 horses and dogs excepted, all animals were hurtful in l'En- 

 cuerado's eyes. 



Gun on shoulder, we made our way up the bed of the 

 stream, often being obliged to cut our path through a 

 thicket of plants. I noticed a fine tree-fern, the leaves of 

 which, not yet developed, assumed the shape of a bishop's 

 crosier. Lucien remarked this. 



"You are right," said I, "it is very curious. Do you 

 know Jussieu divided all vegetables into three great orders 

 — Acotyledons, Monocotyledons , and Dicotyledons, Ferns 

 belong to the first ;* they have no visible flowers, and are 

 allied to the sea-weed and mushroom tribe. It is only un- 

 der the tropics that ferns attain the dimensions of the one 

 you are looking at; in colder regions their height seldom 



Ik 



exceeds a few feet. Ferns formed almost the sole vegeta- 

 tion of the primitive world, and we frequently find evidence 

 of some gigantic species which are now extinct." 



* That is, a plant devoid of lobes. 



