l night, for whenever I awoke I saw him, through an opening in
our hut, walking about or making up the fire. We spent the morning on
the bank, watching in the hope of seeing you come to look for us. As
soon as the wind changed, I entreated Domingos to put off, and at last,
though somewhat unwillingly, he consented to do so; but he blamed
himself very much for yielding to my wishes, when the wind began to blow
so violently. Had you, indeed, not arrived to assist us, I suspect that
our raft would have been in great danger of being overwhelmed."

"We have reason to be thankful, dear Ellen, that you were preserved,"
said John. "I am very sure Domingos acted for the best. I wish for
your sake that our expedition had come to a favourable end, although the
rest of us may enjoy it."

"Oh, if it were not for anxiety about papa and mamma, and dear Fanny,
and Aunt Martha, I should like it too," said Ellen. "When we once find
them, I am sure that I shall enjoy our voyage down the river as much as
any of you."

"You are a brave girl," said the stranger, who at that moment returned,
"though, perhaps, you scarcely know the dangers you may have to
encounter. Yet, after all, they are of a nature more easily overcome
than many which your sisters in the civilised regions of the world are
called to go through. Here you have only the elements and a few wild
beasts to contend with; there, they have falsehood, treachery, evil
example, allurements of all sorts, and other devices of Satan, to drag
them to destruction."

While we were seated at supper, the rain came down in tremendous
torrents, as the recluse had predicted. The strength of his roof was
proved, as not a drop found its way through.

"I am protected here," he remarked, "from the heat of the summer months
by the leafy bower overhead; while, raised on these poles, my habitation
is above the floods in the rainy season. What can man want more? Much
in the same way the natives on the Orinoco form their dwellings among
the palm-trees; but they trust more to Nature, and, instead of piles,
form floating rafts, sufficiently secured to the palm-trees to keep them
stationary, but rising and falling as the floods increase or diminish."

I was struck with many of the remarks of our eccentric host, but the
more I saw of him the more I was surprised that a man of his information
should have thus secluded himself from the world. We had just time to
give Ellen an account of our ad