ve myself up for lost. I could neither stand nor
walk, speak nor swallow. My throat seemed to be almost closed up, and
when I opened my eyes everything appeared to be going round and round in
the most dizzy and sickening manner. My heart beat with choking
violence, and my head ached, so that I thought I was going mad. My
bloodshot eyes (so Yamba subsequently told me) projected from their
sockets in the most terrifying manner, and a horrible indescribable
longing possessed me to kill my faithful Bruno, in order to drink his
blood. My poor Bruno! As I write these humble lines, so lacking in
literary grace, I fancy I can see him lying by my side in that glaring,
illimitable wilderness, his poor, dry tongue lolling out, and his piteous
brown eyes fixed upon me with an expression of mute appeal that added to
my agony. The only thing that kept him from collapsing altogether was
the blood of some animal which Yamba might succeed in killing.

Gradually I grew weaker and weaker, and at last feeling the end was near,
I crawled under the first tree I came across--never for a moment giving a
thought as to its species,--and prepared to meet the death I now
fervently desired. Had Yamba, too, given up, these lines would never
have been written. Amazing to relate, she kept comparatively well and
active, though without water; and in my most violent paroxysm she would
pounce upon a lizard or a rat, and give me its warm blood to drink, while
yet it lived. Then she would masticate a piece of iguana flesh and give
it to me in my mouth, but I was quite unable to swallow it, greatly to
her disappointment. She must have seen that I was slowly sinking, for at
last she stooped down and whispered earnestly in my ear that she would
leave me for a little while, and go off in search of water. Like a dream
it comes back to me how she explained that she had seen some birds
passing overhead, and that if she followed in the same direction she was
almost certain to reach water sooner or later.

I could not reply; but I felt it was a truly hopeless enterprise on her
part. And as I did not want her to leave me, I remember I held out my
tomahawk feebly towards her, and signed to her to come and strike me on
the head with it and so put an end to my dreadful agonies. The heroic
creature only smiled and shook her head emphatically. She took the
proffered weapon, however, and after putting some distinguishing marks on
my tree with it, she hurled