THE SALSE. 53 



two logs lay heavy ou my lieart for a mile ere I nearecl them. 

 He might get up over them : but how w^ould he get clowti 

 again ? And I w^as not surprised to hear more than one 

 behind me say, "I think I shall lead over." But being in 

 front, if I fell, I could only fall into the mud, and not on the 

 top of a friend. So I let the brown cob do what he would, 

 determined to see how far a tropic horse's legs could keep 

 him up : and, to my great amusement, he quietly leapt the 

 whole, descending five or six feet into a pool of mud, which 

 shot out over him and me, half blindino- us for the 

 moment ; then slid away on his hauDches downward ; picked 

 liimself up ; and went on as usual, solemn, patient, and seem- 

 ingly stupid as any donkey. 



We had some difficulty in finding our quest, the Salse, or 

 mud volcano. But at last, out of a hut half buried in ver- 

 dure on the edge of a little clearing, there tumbled the 

 quaintest little old black man, cutlass in hand, and, with- 

 out being asked, went on ahead as our guide. Crook-backed, 

 round-shouldered, his only dress a ragged shirt and ragged 

 pair of drawers, be had evidently thriven upon the forest 

 life for many a year. He did not walk nor run, but tumbled 

 along in front of us, his bare feet plashing from log to log 

 and mud-lieap to mud-heap, his grey w^oolly head wagging 

 riglit and left, and his cutlass brushing almost instinctively 

 at every bough lie passed, while he turned round every 



