ke-air; and at times strange voices of
the wilderness,--the hoarse bark of a cayman, answered by the shriek of
swamp-geese in the canebrakes of the Rio Verde, and in the distance now
and then a queer rustling sound, like the shaking of a tree butted by
some heavy animal. Bats were circling above our heads in the moonlight,
and our advent seemed to have excited the curiosity of a troop of
flying-squirrels, who uttered their chirping squeak now on the roof, now
in the branches of a neighboring live-oak-tree.

After removing a layer of seed-cotton that might harbor scorpions or
centipedes, I spread my blanket near the hatch and made myself
comfortable for the night. My feet still smarted, though I had pulled
off my stockings as well as my boots; yet I could not regret the
hardships of a march which had brought us to such an encampment. The
portador was taking his ease in the centre of the floor, where the
night-wind played with his long hair, while the Swiss boy had fallen
asleep on the mantle of his countryman, who was sitting in the open
louvre, smoking his pipe in measureless content. The air up here was
delightfully cool, and, with the buzz of the legions of Beelzebub still
ringing in our ears, the sense of security itself was more than a
negative comfort.

Baron Savarin, who wrote a treatise on the art of enjoying life, should
have added a chapter on the happiness of contrast. A snug little cottage
in a stormy November night, a shade-tree on the Llano Estacado, the
silence of the Upper Alleghanies after a "revival-meeting" in the
valleys, a bath in the dog-days, would rank above all the luxuries of
Paris and Stamboul, if unbought enjoyments could ever become
fashionable.

The moon set soon after midnight, but we managed to readjust our luggage
by the light of greased paper spills, and entered the gates of the
foot-hills before the watch-call of the night-hawk had been silenced by
the reveille of the iris-crows. A keen land-breeze, tumbling the mists
through the fens of the Tierra Caliente, gave promise of a bright day.
What wonderful perfumes the morning wind brews from the atmosphere
of a moist tropical forest-land!--scents that haunt the memory more
persistently than the echo of a weird song. No latter-day nose could
analyze these odors and trace them to their several sources; but with or
without an attempt at further classification, they might be primarily
divided into sweet and pungent aromatic smells, the latt