302 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



unwieldy that when they fall they cannot rise again ; 

 and the Men stroaking their Faces and Hands with a 

 sort of Moisture that is in those Stars, seemed to be 

 afire as long as it lasted." 



It always gave us high pleasure to realize the ro- 

 mantic and seemingly half-fabulous accounts of the 

 chroniclers of the conquest. Very often we found their 

 quaint descriptions so vivid and faithful as to infuse 

 the spirit that breathed through their pages. We 

 caught several of these beetles, not, however, by call- 

 ing them by their names, but with a hat, as school- 

 boys used to catch fireflies, or, less poetically, light- 

 ning-bugs, at home. They are more than half an 

 inch long, and have a sharp movable horn on the 

 head ; when laid on the back they cannot turn over ex- 

 cept by pressing this horn against a membrane upon 

 the front. Behind the eyes are two round transparent 

 substances full of luminous matter, about as large as 

 the head of a pin, and underneath is a larger membrane 

 containing the same luminous substance. Four of them 

 together threw a brilliant light for several yards around, 

 and by the light of a single one we read distinctly the 

 finely-printed pages of an American newspaper. It was 

 one of a packet, full of debates in Congress, which I had 

 as yet barely glanced over, and it seemed stranger than 

 any incident of my journey to be reading by the light 

 of beetles, in the ruined palace of Palenque, the say- 

 ings and doings of great men at home. In the midst of it 

 Mr. Catherwood, in emptying the capacious pocket of a 

 shooting-jacket, handed me a Broadway omnibus ticket : 



" Good to the bearer for a ride, 

 " A. Brower." 



These things brought up vivid recollections of home, and 

 among the familiar images present were the good beds 



