266 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



Here we were obliged to take another set of Indians, 

 and perhaps we should have lost the day but for the 

 padre, who called off some men working at the church. 

 At a quarter past eleven we set off again ; at a quarter 

 before one we stopped at the side of a stream to lunch. 

 At this place a young Indian overtook us, with a very 

 intelligent face, who seated himself beside me, and said, 

 in remarkably good Spanish, that we must beware of 

 the Indians. I gave him some tortillas. He broke off 

 a small piece, and holding it in his fingers, looked at 

 me, and with great emphasis said he had eaten enough ; 

 it was of no use to eat ; he ate all he could get, and did 

 not grow fat ; and, thrusting his livid face into mine, 

 told me to see how thin he was. His face was calm, 

 but one accidental expression betrayed him as a ma- 

 niac ; and I now noticed in his face, and all over his 

 body, white spots of leprosy, and started away from him. 

 I endeavoured to persuade him to go back to the vil- 

 lage, but he said it made no difference whether he went to 

 the village or not ; he wanted a remedio for his thinness. 



Soon after we came upon the banks of the River of 

 Yahalon. It was excessively hot, the river as pure as 

 water could be, and we stopped and had a delightful bath. 

 After this we commenced ascending a steep mountain, 

 and when high up saw the poor crazed young Indian 

 standing in the same place on the bank of the river. At 

 half past five, after a toilsome ascent, we reached the top 

 of the mountain, and rode along the borders of a table of 

 land several thousand feet high, looking down into an 

 immense valley, and turning to the left, around the corner 

 of the forest, entered the outskirts of Tumbala. The 

 huts were distributed among high, rugged, and pictu- 

 resque rocks, which had the appearance of having once 

 formed the crater of a volcano. Drunken Indians were 



