76 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



have the effect of calming our varioxis sufferings, or of 

 making us forget them; and we soon thought no 

 more of the fever, or of stings or mosquito bites. 

 It was a ride for life or death, and our horses stepped 

 out as if they knew how much depended on their 

 exertions. 



In the hurry and confusion we had been mounted 

 on horses instead of on our own mules ; and splendid 

 animals they were. I doubt if our Virginians could 

 beat them, and that is saying a great deal. There 

 was no effort or straining in their movements; it 

 seemed mere play to them to surmount the numerous 

 difficulties we encountered on our road. Over moun- 

 tain and valley, swamp and barranca, always the 

 same steady surefootedness, crawling like cats over 

 the soft places, gliding like snakes up the steep rocky 

 ascents, and stretching out with prodigious energy 

 when the ground was favourable, yet with such easy 

 action that we scarcely felt the motion. "We should 

 have sat in the roomy Spanish saddles as comfortably 

 as in arm-chairs, had it not been for the numerous 

 obstacles in our path, which was strewed with fallen 

 trees and masses of rock. We were obliged to be 

 perpetually stooping and bowing our heads to avoid 

 the creeping plants that swung and twined and 

 twisted across the track, intermingled often with 

 huge thorns as long as a man's arm. These latter 

 stuck out from the trees on which they grew like so 

 many brown bayonets ; and a man who had run up 



