BLAST THEIR EYES ! 
107 
men gave out, ami, throwing themselves down on a shady 
spot, declared that they could go no farther. Several of 
us therefore pushed on to the nearest water ; and, after 
satisfying our own thirst, returned with two bottles of it 
to their relief, after -which they exerted themselves, and 
with occasional assistance reached the boat. 
“ The total revulsion of feeling which had followed the 
announcement of the two men’s safety was amusing in 
the extreme. 
“‘Blast their eyes!’ said the man who had torn his 
clothes in rushing to the snake-scene, (all along it had 
been nothing but ‘poor fellows!’ ‘poor fellows!’) ‘I wish 
I had the nigger by the throat; I’d show him what it is to 
make white people hunt him through the woods for three 
days.’ 
“ ‘I wish he had the rest of that snake shoved down his 
throat!’ continued he who had been bitten, and whose 
wound had been pronounced poisonous, but not fatal, by 
the natives. 
‘“I hope the captain pays fifty dollars each for the kind 
treatment they've had from the natives, and charges it to 
their accounts^' put in the man who had started back so 
violently from the edge of the jungle on the first night of 
our hunt. 
“‘Silence !’ exclaimed the captain; ‘you ought to be 
thankful that half of us a’n’t dead.’ ” 
I will now pass over several pages of my journal until 
I come to our arrival on board with the headman and 
his two relatives : — 
“It was quite late when we reached the schooner, and 
we experienced considerable difficulty in persuading the 
