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We followed the counsel of the missionary. 

 He caused torches of copal to be lighted, of 

 which we have spoken above. They are tubes 

 made of bark of trees three inches in diameter, 

 and filled with this resin. We walked at first 

 on beds of rock, that were bare and slippery, 

 and then entered a thick grove of palm trees. 

 We were twice obliged to pass a stream on 

 trunks of trees hewn down. The torches had 

 already gone out. Being formed on a strange 

 principle, the ligneous wick surrounding the 

 resin, these torches yield more smoke than light, 

 and are easily extinguished. Our fellow-traveller, 

 Don Nicolas Soto, lost his balance in crossing 

 the marsh on a round trunk. We were at first 

 very uneasy on his account, not knowing from 

 what height he had fallen ; but happily the gully 

 was not deep, and he received no hurt. The 

 Indian pilot, who expressed himself with some 

 facility in the Spanish, did not fail to talk to us 

 of snakes, water-serpents, and tigers, by which 

 we might be attacked. Such conversations are 

 matters of course, when you travel at night with 

 the natives. By intimidating the European tra- 

 veller, the Indians believe, that they shall render 

 themselves more necessary, and gain the confi- 

 dence of the stranger. The rudest inhabitant 

 of the missions understands the deceptions, 

 which every where arise from the relations 

 between men of unequal fortune and civiliza- 



