"Nor Gabriel," said M. Wilhelm, in his mildest

manner, "I respect your feelings. You are an “I honest man, than whom there is nothing on earth nobler."

"Honest, certainly," replied the guide, who probably did not well understand the German. "Those who have said that I am not honest, have said so in ill will, and because I have sometimes overreached them in their attempts to overreach me."

A broad smile lighted the German's face.

"They take you," said he, "to be what you take them to be, and possibly you are, neither of you, mistaken, or both mistaken; it is not likely that one party is altogether right in his conjecture, and the other totally wrong. In spite of our opinion to the contrary, there is so little difference in the character and faith of mankind as to amount to no difference. You are angry at what you suppose to be my want of belief, and with your opinions you very properly look upon me with distrust and aversion. But do you know there are many people who would look upon your belief

Fresh Discussions.

255

as contemptible, because it is so tarnished with absurdities, and is not as deep, as broad, and as pure as theirs? Ay, indeed; and there are others who would regard you as dangerous and condemned as an unbeliever, as you now consider me, because you will not and are not likely to believe you are in error. Which of the three types is nearest the whole truth is another matter; but undoubtedly a broad stream of Truth runs through the whole, sullied more or less. But are we not all, whether we know and acknowledge it or not, selfish and self-seeking? all pursuing after the same object in different ways, urged on by the same motive. And do we not all in one way or another acknowledge our dependence on the Eternal Ruler? Depend upon it, that in actual belief in purity of Faith, I am not so far removed from many with whom you would be proud to be associated in a common faith."

"I do not pretend to understand all you say, Señor Wilhelm, for besides that you speak with a foreign tongue, you have a peculiar mode of speaking of certain things which to me is unfami

liar. You say in way of a question that you acknowledge your dependence on God, and yet you are a Pagan, an infidel. I do not ask you how you reconcile your words, for I would not probably understand it."

CHAPTER XXVI.

TENTH DAY ON THE LLANOS.

We did not hurry ourselves to start, but at five o'clock gathered dried palm fronds and their large spathes or seed-guards for our fire, cooked coffee, breakfasted, and then started. We soon reached the bridge of the rio Tigre.

It was

The bridge deserves some notice. made by rustic improvised engineers, of wood cut in the immediate neighbourhood, lashed together with bejuco (lianes or bush rope), and made to span a rapid river of about fifty feet breadth. We unloaded the donkeys and the guide got them over one-by-one, by attaching a rope to the neck and making them swim across while he walked over the bridge, holding the other end of the rope. It was a nervous sight to see the crazy bridge trembling, and swaying, and cracking at each step; and not pleasant, just then, to contemplate

R

the flow of the eddying water. But it was the only present way of getting over, so we each took a part of the load on our shoulders and went over, one at a time, to avoid excessive vibration. We had to cross frequently until we had transferred everything from the one bank to the other.

We were now in a cultivated country. Corn and cane-fields gladdened our eyes. The busy creaking of cane-mills worked by oxen; the cracking whips and pleasant insouciance of the carters taking their loads from the plantations to San Pedro and further on to the town of Soledad to be ferried over to the city of Bolivar, afforded a pleasant change from the solitary grandeur of the past days. One met with carts having iron axle, nave, spokes and fellys, and carts with solid wheels sawn from the trunks of trees and roughly rounded; carts dragged by horses and mules, but chiefly by

oxen.

One would fain have rested a while in this lovely cultivated district, but our guide gave us, as he always could do, a good reason for not delaying, a specious one we all knew, still a good one.