, stood before us, and seemed to move
as the eye strove in vain to make out their real shape. From time to
time a splash in the water, caused by the movement of an alligator, the
bellowing of a manatee, the screeching of a night-bird, or the roar of
some beast of the forest, broke the silence, and mingled at last with my
feverish dream.

In the morning a song our boatmen addressed to the Virgin roused me from
my sleep. It was a strain of plaintive notes in a few simple but most
expressive modulations. Several years later I heard them again, sung by
the Mexican miners in the subterraneous chapel of the quicksilver mine
of New Almaden in California, and I never shall forget the deep emotion
felt on both occasions, so widely different in every other respect. In
the latter the scene passed in a narrow excavation before a little altar
cut out of the natural rock, on which, before a gilded image of the
Virgin, two thin tallow candles were casting their scanty light over the
forms of fifteen or twenty men calling down the blessing of Heaven on
their day of work in the interior of the mountain. In the former, it was
in the brightness and splendor of a morning of which no description can
convey a full idea to one who has had no experience in the most favored
regions of a tropical climate. The sun was just rising, and as the
first rays, gilding the glassy leaves of the forest, fell upon the
bronze-colored bodies of our men, letting the naked forms of their
athletic frames appear in all the contrast of light and shade, while
accents plaintive and imploring strained forth from their lips, I
thought to hear the sacred spell by which, unconscious of its power,
these men were subduing their own half-savage natures.

At once the same song was repeated from behind a projecting corner
of the bank, and other voices joined those of our crew in the sacred
notes. Two canoes, covered from our view, had anchored near us during
the night. The song at last died away in the wilderness. A silent
prayer--our anchor was raised, and, with a wild shout of the crew,
twelve oars simultaneously struck the water. The sun was glittering in
the river. The tops of the trees were steeped in light, monkeys were
swinging in the branches, splendid macaws flew in pairs from bank to
bank; all around exhibited the glory and brightness of superabundant
nature.

Near the mouth of the river, as far up as the higher end of its delta,
the banks are almost on the wate