nd."

"Grows!" ejaculated his guests.

"Yes, he grows. I will show him to you one day."

The hermit's broad shoulders shook with a quiet internal laugh. "I will
explain a little of that you behold on my table.

"The coffee I get from the trees. There are plenty of them here. Much
money is made in Brazil by the export of coffee,--very much. The cakes
are made from the mandioca-root, which I grow near my house. The root is
dried and ground into flour, which, under the general _name farina_, is
used all over the country. It is almost the only food used by the Indians
and Negroes."

"Then there are Injins and Niggers here, are there?" inquired Barney.

"Yes, a great many. Most of the Negroes are slaves; some of the Indians
too; and the people who are descended from the Portuguese who came and
took the country long ago, they are the masters.--Well, the honey I get
in holes in the trees. There are different kinds of honey here; some of
it is _sour_ honey. And the fruits and roots, the plantains, and
bananas, and yams, and cocoa-nuts, and oranges, and plums, all grow in
the forest, and much more besides, which you will see for yourselves if
you stay long here."

"It's a quare country, intirely," remarked Barney, as he wiped his mouth
and heaved a sigh of contentment. Then, drawing his hand over his chin,
he looked earnestly in the hermit's face, and, with a peculiar twinkle in
his eye, said--

"I s'pose ye couldn't favour me with the lind of a raazor, could ye?"

"No, my friend; I never use that foolish weapon."

"Ah, well, as there's only monkeys and jaguars, and sich like to see me,
it don't much signify; but my mustaches is gitin' mighty long, for I've
been two weeks already without a shave."

Martin laughed heartily at the grave, anxious expression of his
comrade's face. "Never mind, Barney," he said, "a beard and moustache
will improve you vastly. Besides, they will be a great protection
against mosquitoes; for you are such a hairy monster, that when they
grow nothing of your face will be exposed except your eyes and
cheek-bones. And now," continued Martin, climbing into his hammock again
and addressing the hermit, "since you won't allow me to go out a-hunting
to-day, I would like very much if you would tell me something more about
this strange country."

"An' may be," suggested Barney, modestly, "ye won't object to tell us
something about yersilf,--how you came for to live in this quare,
solitary kind of a