Perhaps you are right," said M. Wilhelm, who did not seem disposed to continue the conversation; the boiled tasajo and the cassavae bread he was consuming were then of paramount importance.

CHAPTER XXV.

EIGHTH AND NINTH DAYS ON THE LLANOS.

LONG before the dawn on Monday morning we were on our route from Aguassai, and had crossed the Guanipa. From the few days' rest we had had at Aguassai, we found the walk very distressing, and it was arranged that M. Wilhelm, Mr M'Donald, and I should in turn mount one of the donkeys; and that we should each have our fair proportion of the privilege, the guide was requested to say when it was time for each one to have his turn. By this mode of travelling we got through a greater distance than we had done on any previous day. We crossed the Aribe and Nabo at their heads, and encamped and slung our chinchoras on a bank of the Aritupano.

On Tuesday, crossing the Aritupano and rios Chive and Pando, and passing eastward of the village of Merecural, we encamped on the open

savanna of the Morechal Largo, a mile from the west bank of the rio Tigre. We were then in the public highway, and as a deserted ox-cart lay temptingly in our way, it decided our halt. Beds were made for the tender ones under the cart, which was a convenient canopy from the dew. The men wrapped themselves in their cobijas, and made themselves as comfortable as they could. They had gathered sticks and dry brushwood, which after serving for the dinner fire, was gathered up and rekindled for the night: but the fire soon failed altogether.

The whole mesa or table-land of the Morechal Largo presents, until one gets to the cultivated districts, a gloomy appearance. It is weird-like, and induces melancholy in persons predisposed to dejected thoughts.* The extensive flat surface

* "There is something sublime, yet mournful, in the uniform spectacle of these steppes. Everything in them appears immoveable, except that perchance, occasionally, the shadow of a small cloud, which passes over the zenith and announces the approach of the rainy season, falls on the savanna. I know not whether the first feeling of surprise at the first view of the Llanos is not as great as at the first view of the chain of the Andes. Mountainous regions, however high even their highest points may be, have an

A Changeful Life.

247

was, however, somewhat relieved in the distance by the appearance of numerous Morich palms (Mauritia flexuosa), some of which were scattered about

near us.

"A quartillo for your thoughts, Señor M'Donaldo," said the guide, after rousing up from his first sleep, and seeing the Scotchman sitting apart, his elbows on his knees, and his hands supporting his head.

"I was in a reverie on the changes and chances of life. From the time I left home, twelve years ago, three years have not left me in any one. place; and I was thinking that lately every night finds me in another spot, and with the consciousness of further travels; and the goal, the ultima Thule, Bolivar, a terra incognita, a myth, as far as my personal acquaintance with it is concerned. And there even, who knows how long I shall

analogous physiognomy; but it is only with difficulty that the eye can accustom itself to the Llanos of Venezuela . . . which incessantly, and during journeys of from twenty to thirty days, remind one of the watery mirror of the tropic sea. The plains of the west and north of Europe afford but a faint image of the immeasurable Llanos of South America."-HUMBOLDT.

remain. I seem doomed, like the wandering Jew, to incessant change of location. I shall one day lay my weary bones down somewhere far away from friends.”

"Your experience just now," said 'Nor Gabriel, "is in change of places. I think every one must have felt the change in persons and things. Every journey I make in these Llanos finds me not only confronting fresh individuals, but old faces changed in one or more ways from what I found them the journey before. And not a spot of the road continues always the same: the trees are growing, or blooming, or bearing, or dying; and the grass springing, luxuriant, or withering."

"You feel this the more, 'Nor Gabriel, because you yourself are daily changing," said the German, puffing at a cigar that he had just rolled. "The lugubrious Señor Mack, sitting like a disconsolate outcast, is not singular in his state of continual change. We, some of us, shrink from the thought of death, principally, I believe, on account of the great change of circumstance and place - the awful and unknown state and distance hence to