84 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



the sun, but to the left and in our front all was black 

 and dark. With the same glance we beheld the 

 deepest gloom and the brightest day, meeting each 

 other, but not mingling. It was a strange and 

 ominous sight. 



Ominous enough ; and the brute creation seem to 

 feel it so as well as ourselves. The chattering par- 

 rots, the hopping, gibbering, quarrelsome apes, all the 

 birds and beasts, scream and cry and flutter and 

 spring about, as though seeking a refuge from some 

 impending danger. Even our horses begin to tremble 

 and groan refuse to go on, start and snort. The 

 whole animal world is in commotion, as if seized with 

 an overwhelming panic. The forest is teeming with 

 inhabitants. Whence come they, all these living 

 things ? On every side is heard the howling and 

 snarling of beasts, the frightened cries and chirpings 

 of birds. The vultures and turkey-buzzards, that a 

 few minutes before were circling high in the air, are 

 now screaming amidst the branches of the mahogany- 

 trees ; every creature that has life is running, scamper- 

 ing, flying apes and tigers, birds and creeping 

 things. 



" Vamos, por la Santissima / On ! or we are all 

 lost." 



And we ride, we rush along neither masses of 

 rock, nor fallen trees, nor thorns and brambles, check 

 our wild career. Over everything we go, leaping, 

 scrambling, plunging, riding like desperate men, fly- 



