A FAERY TRANSFORMATION. 225 



When the overpowering heat of the day is followed by the cooler 

 temperature of the night, which is always of the same length in these 

 latitudes, even then the cattle can obtain no repose. Enormous bats 

 suck their blood like the fabled vampires during their sleep, or attach 

 themselves to their backs, causing festering wounds in which mos- 

 quitoes, horse-flies, and a host of stinging insects, niche themselves. 

 Thus the animals lead a weary life during the hot season. But at 

 length, after the long drought and the parching glow, comes the 

 welcome rain ! Then takes place a transformation such as the fancy 

 of the poet never surpassed or equalled. The deep blue of the hitherto 

 unclouded sky grows lighter ; the dark space in the constellation of 

 the Southern Cross is hardly distinguishable at night ; the soft phos- 

 phorescent lustre of the so-called Magellanic clouds " fades, fades, and 

 falls away;" even the stars in Aquila and Ophiucus in the zenith 

 beam with a tremulous and less planetary radiance. And lo, yonder 

 in the south, a single cloud, like the peak of some remote mountain, 

 soars perpendicularly from the horizon. Gradually the gathering 

 vapours fold over the sky. Hark ! The thunder is pealing in the 

 distance, and louder and nearer come its awful reverberation. It 

 heralds the life-restoring rain ! Scarcely has the genial moisture 

 refreshened earth, before a blessed fragrance breathes from the pre- 

 viously barren Steppe, and its nakedness is clothed upon with the 

 bloom and beauty of a thousand grasses. The herbaceous mimosas, 

 with renewed sensibility to the influence of light, open their drooping 

 leaves to greet the rising sun ; and the rosy-fingered morn is saluted 

 with a glad chorus of birds, and by the opening blossoms of the water- 

 plants. Now the horse bounds over the plain in keen ecstasy of 

 spirit, and the cattle grazes plentifully on the fresh green herbage. 

 Yet the new life is not without its peril. Anguis latet in herbd. 

 Among the tall thick grass lurks the spotted jaguar, the tiger of the 

 New World, and measures carefully the distance that separates him 

 from his unsuspecting victim. 



Sometimes (so say the natives) the moistened clay on the margin 

 of the swamps will blister and swell slowly into a kind of mound. 



15 



