hrough all round the outside.
Before long the Indians will cover up the opening at the top, over which
the blue flame is hovering. The fire will then be quite deprived of air,
and soon afterwards go out. In about eight days your mamma may perhaps
buy this very charcoal which you have seen burned."

"Suppose the charcoal went on burning?"

"Then the Indian, to his great vexation, would find nothing left but
ashes. But he will take good care not to lose the fruit of his labor. He
will use as many precautions to prevent the fire burning up again as he
does now to hinder it going out."

A little farther on a man was filling up his rush bags with charcoal
which had cooled. As it would take him more than one day to reach the
town, he was lining his sacks with a kind of balm, the penetrating odor
of which always announces, in Mexico, the approach of a
charcoal-carrier. This plan is adopted to preserve the charcoal from
damp.

"When I used to see the Indians carrying on their backs their four
little sacks of charcoal," said Lucien, "I had no idea that they were
obliged to live in the woods, and cut down great trees to procure it;
and that they had to pass several nights in watching the oven."

"No more idea, perhaps," I replied, "than the little boys in Europe have
of the sugar-cane plantations; and that without the plant all those
beautiful _bon-bons_, which delight the sight as much as the taste,
could not be made."

"But, papa, haven't I heard you tell the Mexicans that in France they
make sugar with beet-root?"

"Yes, certainly you have; and, in case of need, it might be extracted
from many other roots, plants, or fruit; but beet-root alone yields
enough sugar to repay the trouble of extraction."

It was quite time for us to be off; so I put an end to the ceaseless
questions of the young traveller.

Our host told me that if we went on along the same path which had led us
to their place, we should come, in less than two hours, to a hut
situated on the plateau of the mountain. The Indians certainly seemed to
forget that Lucien's short legs might delay our progress.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV.

A DIFFICULT ASCENT.--THE GOAT.--THE INDIAN GIRLS.--THE
TOBACCO-PLANT.--THE BULL-FIGHT.--GAME.--LUCIEN'S GUN.--OUR ENTRY INTO
THE WILDERNESS.

Our way led through nothing but scrub oaks, for all the larger trees had
gradually disappeared from the mountain-side, which had for some time
been cultivated by the I