244 JOUENEY BY MOONLIGHT. Book II. 
At the Rock Creek we met a party of Indians, armed 
with lance and tomahawk ; and the next morning we found 
them seated on one side of our camp, and a troop of wolves 
on the other, awaiting our departure to seize any food or 
other articles we might leave behind. 
One night a terrible storm burst over our heads. I was 
lying with two companions under the tent, when the wind 
blew it down upon us. We immediately raised it again ; 
but in a few minutes it was once more overthrown. The 
rain poured in torrents, and we had no shelter, no resource 
but to remain lying quietly. The wet canvas lay cold on 
my face, and soon a stream of water was running down my 
neck. I crept under the counterpane, and at last fell 
asleep. 
A few days afterwards we encamped on the ^Fish 
Creek — an appropriate name. Here we caught with 
our rods a number of small perch, and as these fish 
sparkled on my line brilliant humming-birds chirped 
around me. 
We continued our journey by moonlight. The long 
row of waggons, with their white tilts, and shadows all 
of the same shape and size, moving along the road at 
equal distances, offered a curious sight. No sound was 
heard but the tinkling of the bell borne by a horse in the 
rear of the caravan, which was now and then drowned in 
the song of lament from one of our Mexicans. Later on I 
often heard this same song in night journeys in Mexico. 
It must be of Indian origin. Perhaps the Aztec prisoners 
of war, before being sacrificed to the great Huitzilopochtli, 
may have sung such a funeral song ; an opera-composer 
might very well adopt the motive : it begins with a loud 
continued scream of anguish, modulating into a few minor 
intervals, expressive rather of physical than mental pain. 
