As soon as their mirth had fairly subsided, Karl and Caspar resumed the conversation, which had been broken off so abruptly.

“And so, brother,” said Karl, who was the first to return to the subject, “you say there is a bird of the eagle genus, that might carry a rope over the cliff for us. Of what bird are you speaking?”

“Why, Karl, you are dull of comprehension this morning. Surely the presence of the two kites should have suggested what I mean.”

“Ha! you mean a kite, then?”

“Yes, one with a very broad breast, a very thin body, and a very long tail: such as you and I used to make not so many years ago.”

“A paper kite,” said Karl, repeating the phrase mechanically, at the same time settling down, into a reflecting attitude. “True, brother,” he added, after a pause; “there might be something in what you have suggested. If we had a paper kite—that is, a very large one—it is possible it would carry a rope over the summit of the cliff; but, alas!—”

“You need not proceed further, Karl,” said Caspar, interrupting him. “I know what you are going to say: that we have no paper out of which to make the kite; and that, of course, puts an end to the matter. It’s no use our thinking any more about it: since we have not got the materials. The body and bones we could easily construct; and the tail too. But then the wings—ah, the wings. I only wish we had a file of old newspapers. But what’s the use of wishing? We haven’t.”

Karl, though silent, did not seem to hear, or at all events heed, what Caspar had been just saying. He appeared to be buried either in a reverie, or in some profound speculation.

It was the latter: as was very soon after made manifest by his speech.

“Perhaps,” said he, with a hopeful glance towards the wood, “we may not be so deficient in the material of which you have spoken.”

“Of paper, do you mean?”

“We are in the very region of the world where it grows,” continued Karl, without heeding the interrogation.

“What! where paper grows?”

“No,” replied Karl, “I do not mean that the paper itself grows here; but a ‘fabric’ out of which that useful article may be made.”

“What is that, brother?”

“It is a tree, or rather a shrub, belonging to the order of the Thymelaceae, or ‘Daphnads.’ The plants of this order are found in many countries; but chiefly in the cooler regions of India and South America. There are even representatives of the order in England: for the beautiful ‘spurge laurel’ of the woods and hedges—known as a remedy for the toothache—is a true daphnad. Perhaps the most curious of all the Thymelaceae is the celebrated Lagetta, or lace-bark tree of Jamaica; out of which the ladies of that island know how to manufacture cuffs, collars, and berthas, that, when cut into the proper shapes, and bleached to a perfect whiteness, have all the appearance of real lace! The Maroons, and other runaway negroes of Jamaica, before the abolition of slavery, used to make clothing out of the lagetta; which they found growing in plenty in the mountain forests of the island. Previous also to the same abolition of slavery, there was another, and less gentle, use made of the lace-bark, by the masters of these same negroes. The cruel tyrants used to spin its tough fibres into thongs for their slave-whips.”

“And you think that paper can be made out of these trees?” asked Caspar, impatient to know whether there might be any chance of procuring some for the covering of a kite.

“There are several species of daphnads,” replied the botanist, “whose bark can be converted into paper. Some are found at the Cape of Good Hope, and others in the island of Madagascar; but the best kinds for the purpose grow in these very mountains, and in China. There is the ‘Daphne Bholua,’ in Nepaul; from which the Nepaulese make a strong, tough, packing-paper; and I have reason to believe that it also grows in the Bhotan Himalayas—at no very great distance from our position h............