an. Even the great alligators, unless they could find him
at a disadvantage in their native element, would rush off through the
mud and undergrowth to plunge into the water and seek safety right at
the bottom of the river. The jaguars were timid in the extreme; and
though they would have fought perhaps if driven to bay, their one idea
seemed to be to seek safety in flight. It was the same with the
poisonous serpents, the most dangerous being a kind of miniature
rattlesnake which was too sluggish and indifferent to get out of the
traveller's way, and many a poor fellow suffered from their deadly bite.

In fact the most dangerous and troublesome creatures we had to encounter
on our journey down the river, excepting man, were the mosquitoes--which
swarmed all along the river borders and pestered us with their bites--
and an exceedingly small fish that seemed to be in myriads in parts of
the stream, and to make up in absolute ferocity for their want of size.
This savageness of nature was of course but their natural instinctive
desire for food, but it was dangerous in the extreme, as I knew later
on. Our experience was in this wise:--

It was one lovely afternoon when we were floating dreamily along between
two of the most beautiful walls of verdure that we had seen. Many of
the trees were gorgeous with blossoms, the consequence being that
bright-winged beetles, painted butterflies, and humming-birds abounded.

My uncle was seated half asleep with the heat, and his gun across his
knees, waiting for an opportunity to shoot some large bird that would be
good for food; I was dipping in my paddle from time to time so as to
keep the canoe's head straight and away from the awkward snags that
projected from the river here and there--the remains of trees that had
been washed out of the bank by some flood--and I was thinking
despondently about the loss of poor Tom.

Then my thoughts reverted to home and those I had to meet there, with
our accounts of how it was that poor Tom had met his death.

"All due to my miserable ambition," I said to myself; "all owing to my
wretched thirst for gold. And what has it all come to?" I said
bitterly. "I had far better have settled down to honest,
straightforward labour. I should have been better off."

I gave the paddle a few dips here, and noted that the water was much
purer and clearer than it had seemed yet. We were very close in to the
shore, but we had floated down so far that w