During its
absence, the nights had been cold and stormy, the rain had fallen in
torrents, the days cloudy, and there was no sun to dry the wet hammocks.
Exposed thus, day and night, to the chilling blast and pelting shower,
strength of constitution at last failed, and a severe fever came on. The
commander's answer was very polite. He remarked, he regretted much to
say that he had received orders to allow no stranger to enter the
frontier, and this being the case, he hoped I would not consider him as
uncivil. "However," continued he, "I have ordered the soldier to land
you at a certain distance from the fort, where we can consult together."

We had now arrived at the place, and the canoe which brought the letter
returned to the fort, to tell the commander I had fallen sick.

The sun had not risen above an hour the morning after when the Portuguese
officer came to the spot where we had landed the preceding evening. He
was tall and spare, and appeared to be from fifty to fifty-five years
old; and, though thirty years of service under an equatorial sun had
burnt and shrivelled up his face, still there was something in it so
inexpressibly affable and kind, that it set you immediately at your ease.
He came close up to the hammock, and taking hold of my wrist to feel the
pulse, "I am sorry, sir," said he, "to see that the fever has taken such
hold of you. You shall go directly with me," continued he, "to the fort;
and though we have no doctor there, I trust," added he, "we shall soon
bring you about again. The orders I have received forbidding the
admission of strangers were never intended to be put in force against a
sick English gentleman."

As the canoe was proceeding slowly down the river towards the fort, the
commander asked, with much more interest than a question in ordinary
conversation is asked, where was I on the night of the first of May? On
telling him that I was at an Indian settlement a little below the great
fall in the Demerara, and that a strange and sudden noise had alarmed all
the Indians, he said the same astonishing noise had roused every man in
Fort St. Joachim, and that they remained under arms till morning. He
observed that he had been quite at a loss to form any idea what could
have caused the noise; but now learning that the same noise had been
heard at the same time far away from the Rio Branco, it struck him there
must have been an earthquake somewhere or other.

Good nourishment and re