e-blue
flowers. It produces a gum used especially by the English in the
preparation of tooth-powder; but the hardness of its wood, which would
have blunted our weapons, induced me to pass it by. A little farther on,
l'Encuerado spied out a _liquid-amber_ tree, valuable on account of the
balsam that oozes from its branches when cut, which is burned by the
Indians as incense. He climbed the knotty trunk of this colossus, and
cut off some branches, which Sumichrast split into small pieces, after I
had cleared off their leaves. Our work was interrupted by the approach
of night, and we made our way to our bivouac, each loaded with a heavy
fagot.

As soon as we arrived, Lucien had the satisfaction of trying one of our
flambeaux. The branch crackled when lighted, and, as we entered the
cavern, five or six bats flew out. I led Lucien by the hand, and very
soon he was the only one who could stand upright. Afterwards we entered
a vast chamber with a dome-shaped roof, which became lower the farther
we penetrated; this was rather a disappointment, as we had fancied there
was something more to be seen than a mere cave. A heap of reddish earth
in one corner attracted Sumichrast's attention, who examined it to see
if he could discover some fossil bones. Standing all together, we must
have formed, by the smoky light of our odoriferous torches, rather a
fantastic-looking group. More than half an hour elapsed without
discovering any results from our digging. L'Encuerado, who had tried to
crawl in between the roof and the ground, suddenly raised an
exclamation; he had, in fact, all but fallen into a deep pit. In an
instant I was laid down flat on my stomach and crawling towards the
Indian; Lucien, owing to his size, was able to creep on his hands and
feet, and consequently soon got in front of me. We could soon see down
into the bottom of the hole; the burning fragments of our torches fell
upon a heap of stones at a depth of twelve or fifteen feet. L'Encuerado
threw one of the torches into the chasm, and the vague glimmer showed us
a yawning opening on the left. Delighted with this discovery, we now
beat a retreat, deferring a more thorough exploration until the next
day.

The night was dark, and during our absence the fire had almost gone out.
Just below us, a tree, the outline of which we could scarcely
distinguish, seemed covered with animated sparks. Lucien opened his eyes
very widely indeed, not being in the least able to understan