quiries regarding the wonderful machines. So great were the numbers attracted to the 'festival,' as they called it, that an honest fellow of the vicinity deemed the occasion a propitious one for driving a lively trade in figs, pomegranates and watermelons, which he brought to the spot on an ass's back and sold rapidly to the assemblage, drinking-water being scarce and the fruit serving elegantly to quench the thirst of the curious company.

On the fourth day, in the afternoon, the sails of the expected vessel appeared above the tops of the group of rocks that form Cape Islay, and about the same time an Indian arrived with a letter to Leroux from the British consul informing him that, as it would be dangerous for the ship to approach too near the beach, owing to the heavy surf, her captain had resolved to land the machines on a raft to be composed of the material for the sheds. While Leroux was reading this letter the ship came up and dropped anchor at about two-thirds of a mile from shore.

Although the labour of building the raft was begun at once, two days elapsed before the hoisting of the Peruvian colours aboard the vessel announced that all was ready for the landing. The process of transferring the machinery to the shore was simple enough, for while the ship's crew would pay out' a line attached to their side of the raft, the people on shore were to pull the latter toward them by means of another. A fisherman went out to the ship on his balsa, or inflated sealskin raft, procured the end of the shore-line and brought it safely to the beach. As soon as he landed the hawser was seized by a hundred officious individuals, who hauled away vigorously at the raft, which by this time had been released from the vessel's side. Leroux, Marcoy, and the spectators watched the progress of the frail tossing platform with varying emotions. Suddenly a great shout arose from the volunteers

who were pulling the rope. The hawser had parted! For an instant the raft swayed about helplessly in the great waves. Then a wave bore down on it, and in a few minutes all that remained was a mass of planks and beams tossing wildly against the beach. Leroux looked on at this ruin of his hopes like one thunderstruck, and for a little while Marcoy feared that his reason was about to leave him; but he recovered himself slowly, and, gazing with a despairing glance at the timber lying on the beach, he turned to Marcoy and said with a sigh, 'Well, here is another fortune to make.'

At some distance from them stood groups of the spectators discussing the event. Although they appeared to belong to the well-to-do class, and their faces bore a commiserative expression suitable to the occasion, still it could be seen, when they turned their glances on Pierre Leroux with a half smile, that the catastrophe had not caused them much regret. Along the shore were ranged the cholos (natives of mixed Spanish and Indian extraction) and Indians who had assisted in dragging the raft, and who now seemed to be amusing themselves with the erratic movements of the beams and planks as the waves threw them on the beach and then floated them back into the sea. Presently, having come to the conclusion that the flotsam belonged to the first claimant, they began to load their shoulders with the wood. Some of them were already trudging off with their burdens along the road to Tambo,when suddenly an individual, whom nobody had hitherto noticed, emerged from the crowd and in an uncouth sort of Spanish ordered the pillagers to throw down their spoils. As the rogues seemed to take no notice of this admonition, the newcomer administered a few kicks and cuffs to them, which soon caused them to drop their prizes and fall back in disorder.

The stranger who thus championed so zealously Pierre Leroux's interests

was a Frenchman, who, having deserted from his ship, a three-masted vessel from Marseilles, at the port of Arica in Bolivia, about three months before, had been wandering since that time from village to village near the coast, earning a precarious livelihood while awaiting an opportunity to ship on some other vessel. His name was Moïse, and he was a native of Pro

vence.

He was a carpenter by trade, and having heard while at Islay of the intended landing of the machinery, he had come to Mollendo with the hope of obtaining work in the erection of the sheds. This information he imparted to Marcoy, who stepped forward to question him, and who recognized in him, when the man's story was told, a member of the restless maritime fraternity known in that region as 'Brethren of the Coast '-in other words deserters from ships who lead vagrant lives until they can once more find employment before the mast.

Moise was a vigorous specimen of the brotherhood. He was about forty years old, with regular features, a complexion bronzed like that of an Indian, and a waving mass of tawny hair and beard that imparted to him a leonine look. His costume consisted of a ragged straw hat that might have done duty as a scarecrow, a tattered red woollen shirt and a pair of sailcloth trousers patched in a dozen places and upheld by a leathern belt. He carried a long staff, and the rest of his wardrobe was tied up in a handkerchief.

The idea occurred to Marcoy to make this adventurer the guardian of the wood-which represented a certain value in money to Pierre Lerouxuntil the latter could have it transported to the hacienda. He therefore proposed to him to remain on the beach and preserve the property from pillage, with the understanding that his services were to be paid for at the rate of four reals (fifty cents) a day, and that provisions should be sent to him from Tambochico. Moise ac

cepted the offer, which Pierre Leroux authorized with a motion of his head when Marcoy broached the matter to him. Thus constituted supervisor of the wreck, Moise seated himself in the sand, and, twirling his staff, fixed his eyes on the crowd, and observed in broken Spanish, 'I'll smash the head of the first fellow that touches this wood. You hear me?'

His words-and his manner, perhaps, more than his words-had the effect of causing the would-be pillagers to draw off, and the servants having collected in one spot all the wood that had floated ashore, Moise constructed a rude sort of shed with the remains of the raft, in which he could lodge comfortably with the three peons who were to remain with him until further orders. When this work was completed, and nothing remained for the curious to discuss and ponder, the spectators departed like a congregation retiring from church, leaving only Marcoy, Pierre Leroux, General Cerdeña (who had been among the interested lookers-on from the beginning), Moïse, the servants and the ship as witnesses of the day's failures and disappointments. After dark the vessel weighed anchor and sailed away.

The period fixed by Marcoy as the limit of his stay in the valley was now approaching. A few days more would see him on his way from the coast and across the mountains, travelling through the sierra in a climate and amid a vegetation-or a lack of vegetation, as the case might be-altogether different from the climate and vegetation of the tropical estate of Tambochico. As the hour of departure drew near an idea that in the beginning had been only a fugitive thought took firm hold on his mind. This idea was to withdraw his friend and host from the contemplation of his loss by associating him with the journey he was about to undertake. Leroux at first positively refused to listen to the suggestion. Nothing

opaline hue, and the wind, striking the mist, blew it back rolling on itself in the shape of ocean billows. The struggle between the fog on one side and the sun and wind on the other was not of long duration, for, rent asunder by the wind, the curtain of vapour was hurried in broken fragments

toward the north, and the atmosphere was left clear. The plateau on which the party found themselves overlooked the valley of Tambo from a height of twenty-four hundred feet. Beyond it lay the wide-spreading ocean, its azure waters confused at the horizon with the blue of the sky. Before, in