giant fowl, and the simplest objects of the
forest like the imaginations of a disordered dream. Behind that gauzy
hallucination a fine white mist came up, and the sun spread out flat
and red in the sky, while the pent-in heat became almost unendurable.

Still I plodded on, growling to myself that in Christian latitudes all
the evidences would have been held to betoken a storm before night,
whatever they might do here, but for the most part lost in my own
gloomy speculations. That was the more pity since, in thinking the
walk over now, it seems to me that I passed many marvels, saw many
glorious vistas in those nameless forests, many spreads of colour, many
incidents that, could I but remember them more distinctly, would supply
material for making my fortune as a descriptive traveller. But what
would you? I have forgotten, and am too virtuous to draw on my
imagination, as it is sometimes said other travellers have done when
picturesque facts were deficient. Yes, I have forgotten all about that
day, save that it was sultry hot, that I took off my coat and waistcoat
to be cooler, carrying them, like the tramp I was, across my arm, and
thus dishevelled passed some time in the afternoon an encampment of
forest folk, wherefrom almost all the men were gone, and the women shy
and surly.

In no very social humour myself, I walked round their woodland village,
and on the outskirts, by a brook, just as I was wishing there were some
one to eat my solitary lunch with, chanced upon a fellow busily engaged
in hammering stones into weapons upon a flint anvil.

He was an ugly-looking individual at best, yet I was hard up for
company, so I put my coat down, and, seating myself on a log opposite,
proceeded to open my wallet, and take out the frugal stores the woodman
had given me that morning.

The man was seated upon the ground holding a stone anvil between his
feet, while with his hands he turned and chipped with great skill a
spear-head he was making out of flint. It was about the only pastime
he had, and his little yellow eyes gleamed with a craftsman's pleasure,
his shaggy round shoulders were bent over the task, the chips flew in
quick particles, and the wood echoed musically as the artificer watched
the thing under his hands take form and fashion. Presently I spoke,
and the worker looked up, not too pleased at being thus interrupted.
But he was easy of propitiation, and over a handful of dried raisins
communicative.

Ho