nto God's repose!"

SCOUTING NEAR VERA CRUZ.

A SKETCH OF THE LATE CAMPAIGN.

BY ECOLIER.

Hours before day, Lieutenant Rolfe and his party were threading the
mazes of the chapparal. The moon glistened upon their bayonets and
bright barrels. Their path lay in a southwesterly direction, near the
old road to Orizava. Here it passed through a glade or opening, where
the moonbeams fell upon a profusion of flowers, there it reentered
dark alleys among the clustering trees, where the "trail arms" was
given in a half whisper. The boughs met and locked overhead, and the
thick foliage hid the moon from sight. Now a bright beam escaping
through some chance opening in the leaves, quivered along the path,
and scared the wolf in his midnight wanderings. Out again upon the
open track through the soft grass, and winding around the wild maguey,
or under the claw-shaped thorns of the musquit. A deer sprung from his
lair among the soft flowers--looked back for a moment at the strange
intruders, and frightened at the gleaming steel, dashed off into the
thicket. The woods are not silent by night, as in the colder regions
of the north. The southern forest has its voices, moonlit or dark. All
through the livelong night sings the mock-bird--screams the "loreto."
From dark till dawn, you hear the hoarse baying of the "coyote," and
the dismal howl of the gaunt gray wolf. The cicada fills the air with
its monotonous and melancholy notes. In all these sounds there is a
breathing, a wild voluptuousness that tells you you are wandering in
the clime of the sun--amidst scenes like those rendered classical by
the pen of St. Pierre. They who have read the sweet French romance,
will recognize his faithful painting of tropical pictures. The sunny
glades--and shady arbors--the broad green and yellow leaves--the tall
palm-trees, with their long, lazy feathers and clustering fruits
waving to the slightest breeze, and looking the same as in that sea
island where they flung their changing shadows over the loves of Paul
and Virginia. Scouting at night, and to strangers (as were Rolfe and
his men) in the land, was not without its perils. Objects of alarm
were near and around. The nopal rose before you like the picket of an
enemy. Its dark column gleaming under the false light of the moon is
certainly some sentinel on the outpost. A halt is the consequence, and
silent and cat-like one of the party, on his hands and knees, steals
nearer and nearer, t