Swiss Family Robinson

moment afterwards sprang back to me, exclaiming, `Oh, father, sugar-cane, sugar-cane! Taste it. Oh, how delicious, how delightful! Do let us take a lot home to mother,' he continued, sucking eagerly at the cane!
    `Gently there,' said I, `take breath a moment, moderation in all things, remember. Cut some to take home if you like; only don't take more than you can conveniently carry.'
    In spite of my warning, my son cut a dozen or more of the largest canes, and stripping them of their leaves, carried them under his arm. We then pushed through the cane-brake, and reached the clump of palms for which we had been making; as we entered it a troop of monkeys, who had been disporting themselves on the ground, sprang up, chattering and grimacing, and before we could clearly distinguish them, were at the very top of the trees.
    Fritz was so provoked by their impertinent gestures that he raised his gun, and would have shot one of the poor beasts. `Stay,' cried I, `never take the life of any animal needlessly. A live monkey up in that tree is of more use to us than a dozen dead ones at our feet, as I will show you.'
    Saying this, I gathered a handful of small stones, and threw them up towards the apes. The stones did not go near them, but influenced by their instinctive mania for imitation, they instantly seized all the cocoanuts within their reach, and sent a perfect hail of them down upon us.
    Fritz was delighted with my stratagem, and rushing forward picked up some of the finest of the nuts. We drank the milk they contained, drawing it through the holes which I pierced. The milk of a cocoanut has not a pleasant flavor, but it is excellent for quenching thirst. What we liked best was a kind of solid cream which adheres to their shells, and which we scraped off with our spoons.
    After this delicious meal, we thoroughly despised the lobster we had been carrying, and threw it to Turk, who ate it gratefully; but far from being satisfied, the poor beast began to gnaw the ends of the sugar-canes, and to beg for cocoanut. I slung a couple of the nuts over my shoulder, fastening them together by their stalks, and Fritz having resumed his burden, we began our homeward march.
    I soon discovered that Fritz found the weight of his canes considerably more than he expected: he shifted them from shoulder to shoulder, then for a while carried them under his arm, and finally stopped short with a sigh. `I had no idea,' he said, `that a few reeds would be so heavy. How sincerely I pity the poor negroes who are made to carry heavy loads of them! Yet how glad I shall be when my mother and brothers are tasting them.'
    `Never mind, my boy,' I said, `Patience and courage! Do you not remember the story of Aesop and his breadbasket, how heavy he found it when he started, and how light at the end of his journey? Let us each take a fresh staff, and then fasten the bundle crosswise with your gun.'
    We did so, and once more stepped forward. Fritz presently noticed that I from time to time sucked the end of my cane.
    `Oh, come,' said he, `that's a capital plan of yours, father, I'll do that too.'
    So saying, he began to suck most vigorously, but not a drop of the juice could he extract. `How is this?' he asked. `How do you get the juice out, father?'
    `Think a little,' I replied, `you are quite as capable as I am of finding out the way, even if you do not know the real reason of your failure.'
    `Oh, of course,' said he, `it is like trying to suck marrow from a marrow bone, without making a hole at the other end.'
    `Quite right,' I said, `you form a vacuum in your mouth and the end of your tube, and expect the air to force down the liquid from the other end which it cannot possibly enter.'
    Fritz was speedily perfect in the accomplishment of sucking sugar-cane, discovering by experience the necessity for a fresh cut at each joint or knot in the cane, through which the juice could not flow; he talked of the pleasure of initiating his brothers in the art, and of how Ernest would enjoy the cocoanut milk, with which he had filled his flask.*
    * M. Wyss's acquaintance with sugar has not extended to the sugar cane. The sap does not flow; it is embedded in the very fibrous pulp, and the cane must be crushed, and its juice cooked and repeatedly refined, to make the sugar. People enjoying the cane in its natural state must chew the pulp, which is not particularly sweet.
    `My dear boy,' said I, `you need not have added that to your load; the chances are it will be