Seen and Lost. 373 
slope, we began our ijaborious ascent. Now the 
gaucho when taken from his horse, on which he 
lives like a kind of parasite, is a very slow-moving 
creature, and I soon left my friends far behind. 
Coming to a place where ferns and flowering herbage 
grew thick, I began to hear all about me sounds of 
a character utterly unlike any natural sound I was 
acquainted with—innumerable low clear voices 
tinkling or pealing like minute sweet-toned, resonant 
bells—for the sounds were purely metallic and per- 
fectly bell-hke. I was completely ringed round 
with the mysterious music, and as I walked it rose 
and sank rhythmically, keeping time to my steps. 
I stood still, and immediately the sounds ceased. 
I took a step forwards, and again the fairy-bells 
were set ringing, as if at each step my foot touched 
a central meeting point of a thousand radiating 
threads, each thread attached toa peal of little bells 
hanging concealed among the herbage. I waited 
for my companions, and called their attention to 
the phenomenon, and to them also it was a thing 
strange and perplexing. ‘It is the bell-snake !” 
cried one excitedly. This is the rattle-snake; but 
although at that time I had no experience of this 
reptile, I knew that he was wrong. Yet how 
natural the mistake! The Spanish name of “ bell- 
snake”? had made him imagine that the whirring 
sound of the vibrating rattles, resembling muffled 
cicada music, is really bell-like in character. Hvyen- 
tually we discovered that the sound was made by 
grasshoppers ; but they were seen only to be lost, 
for L could not capture one, so excessively shy and 
cunning had the perpetual ringing of their own 
