caution was observed. Therefore the order of march
was thus arranged: In the lead went, as guide and scout, fully armed
with bow and spear, the Cimarrone who of the whole tribe was most
intimately acquainted with the route which was to be followed. Then, in
single file, distant from each other about fifty yards, went five other
Cimarrones in the track of the leader, their duty being to watch for and
transmit to the main body any signals which the leader might make.
Then, some fifty yards in the rear of the rearmost of these five,
marched twenty Cimarrones whose duty it would be to make a stand should
the enemy by any chance appear in force, while the main body retired
upon the nearest defensive position. Fifty yards to the rear again
followed the aforesaid main body, consisting of half the Englishmen, the
mule train, and the other half of the Englishmen, while the remainder of
the Cimarrones constituted the rear guard.

The route lay almost entirely through dense, lofty forest, and wound
hither and thither in the most bewildering fashion; for in addition to
the giant trees which constituted the forest proper, there was a vast
quantity of thick, tangled undergrowth, through which a man might indeed
have forced his way with difficulty, but which was absolutely impassable
for laden mules; therefore it was necessary to follow the sinuosities of
the thinner parts of the jungle where a few occasional strokes of a
machete were all that were required to enable the laden animals to pass.
Under such circumstances progress was necessarily slow, and also
fatiguing; but the Englishmen forgot not only the snail-like nature of
their progress, but also the oppressive heat and fatigue of the march,
for they were now in a new and wonderful world, more strange and
beautiful than anything that the most fanciful imagination among them
had ever pictured. To men like themselves, seamen, accustomed day after
day, for months at a time, to the sight of the open sky, the boundless
sea, the invigorating breath of the salt wind, and the feeling of a
heaving deck beneath their feet, it was a novelty to be trudging upon
firm ground along a forest path, enveloped in the mystery of soft green
twilight, with dense masses of foliage overhead shutting out all sight
of the sky except at infrequent intervals, their horizon bounded by the
leafy brake within arm's reach of them on either hand, and to breathe
the hot, close atmosphere of the woods, pungent