bout, leaving a trail of
light behind them, and fireflies darting to and fro peopled the air and
gave additional animation to the scene.

In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white
travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of
metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that
weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.

But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his
own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his
flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which
caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that
time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one
which gleamed through intense darkness.

How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry
bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his
life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with
the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously,
and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his
flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another--with
growing confidence--and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope.
At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust
into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs,
kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and
converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious
light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the
unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the
wilderness fled away.

When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they
had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had
encamped.

Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend
that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable
portion of both in sleep--at least such parts of both as were not
devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way
that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused
the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of
course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for
no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the
utmos