.CHAPTER XXX. 



WE BUILD A RAFT. THE HORNED SERPENT. GOOD-BYE TO 



"PALM-TREE VILLA." MOSQUITOES AND HORSE-FLIES. 

 THE RATTLESNAKE. AN OCELOT. 



THE next day found us at work building our raft, and 

 1'Encuerado went off with Lucien in quest of some 

 flexible creepers, to be used for binding together the various 

 portions of it. When our companions joined us, Surni- 

 chrast was squaring out the last trunks. Lucien, laden 

 with creepers wound all round his body, carried besides, at 

 the end of his stick, the carcass of a horned snake Atropos 

 Mexicanus which has scales standing erect behind its 

 eyebrows, like little horns, which have obtained for it its 

 Indian name of mazacoail. The reptile was nearly two feet 

 long, and of a grayish color, and gaped with formidable 



