to a part of the river where there were a good
many sandbanks, as well as extensive reaches of sand along shore.

On one of these low-lying spits they drew up the canoe, and encamped for
that night in the bushes, close enough to the edge to be able to see the
river, where a wide-spreading tree canopied them from the dews of night.

Solemn and inexpressibly sad were the views of life taken by Lawrence
that night as he stood by the river's brink in the moonlight, while his
companions were preparing the evening meal, and gave himself up to the
contemplation of things past, present, and to come,--which is very much
like saying that he thought about nothing in particular. What he felt
quite sure of was that he was horribly depressed--dissatisfied with
himself, his companions and his surroundings, and ashamed in no small
degree of his dissatisfaction. As well he might be; for were not his
companions particularly agreeable, and were not his surroundings
exquisitely beautiful and intensely romantic? The moon in a cloudless
sky glittered in the broad stream, and threw its rippling silver
treasures at his very feet. A gentle balmy air fanned his cheek, on
which mantled the hue of redundant health, and the tremendous puffs and
long-drawn sighs of the alligators, with the growl of jaguars, croak and
whistle of frogs, and the voice of the howling monkey, combined to fill
his ear with the music of thrilling romance, if not of sweetness.

"What more could I wish?" he murmured, self-reproachfully.

A tremendous slap on the face--dealt by his own hand, as a giant
mosquito found and probed some tenderer spot than usual--reminded him
that some few things, which he did not wish for, were left to mingle in
his cup of too great felicity, and reduce it, like water in overproof
whisky, to the level of human capacity.

Still dissatisfied, despite his reflections, he returned to the fire
under the spreading tree, and sat down to enjoy a splendid basin of
turtle soup,--soup prepared by Tiger the day before from the flesh of a
turtle slain by his own hand, and warmed up for the supper of that
evening. A large tin dish or tureen full of the same was placed at his
elbow to tempt his appetite, which, to say truth, required no tempting.

Manuela, having already supped, sat with her little hands clasped in her
lap, and her lustrous eyes gazing pensively into the fire. Perhaps she
was attempting to read her fortune in the blazing embers. Perc