th the
tropic moon; sun-dried and lean, but strong and bold as ever, with the
quiet fire of English courage burning undimmed in every eye, and the
genial smile of English mirth fresh on every lip; making a jest of
danger and a sport of toil, as cheerily as when they sailed over the bar
of Bideford, in days which seem to belong to some antenatal life. Their
beards have grown down upon their breasts; their long hair is knotted
on their heads, like women's, to keep off the burning sunshine; their
leggings are of the skin of the delicate Guazu-puti deer; their shirts
are patched with Indian cotton web; the spoils of jaguar, puma, and ape
hang from their shoulders. Their ammunition is long since spent, their
muskets, spoilt by the perpetual vapor-bath of the steaming woods, are
left behind as useless in a cave by some cataract of the Orinoco: but
their swords are bright and terrible as ever; and they carry bows of
a strength which no Indian arm can bend, and arrows pointed with the
remnants of their armor; many of them, too, are armed with the pocuna
or blowgun of the Indians--more deadly, because more silent, than the
firearms which they have left behind them. So they have wandered, and so
they will wander still, the lords of the forest and its beasts; terrible
to all hostile Indians, but kindly, just, and generous to all who will
deal faithfully with them; and many a smooth-chinned Carib and
Ature, Solimo and Guahiba, recounts with wonder and admiration the
righteousness of the bearded heroes, who proclaimed themselves the
deadly foes of the faithless and murderous Spaniard, and spoke to them
of the great and good queen beyond the seas, who would send her warriors
to deliver and avenge the oppressed Indian.

The men are sleeping among the trees, some on the ground, and some in
grass-hammocks slung between the stems. All is silent, save the heavy
plunge of the tapir in the river, as he tears up the water-weeds for
his night's repast. Sometimes, indeed, the jaguar, as he climbs from one
tree-top to another after his prey, wakens the monkeys clustered on the
boughs, and they again arouse the birds, and ten minutes of unearthly
roars, howls, shrieks, and cacklings make the forest ring as if all
pandemonium had broke loose; but that soon dies away again; and, even
while it lasts, it is too common a matter to awaken the sleepers,
much less to interrupt the council of war which is going on beside
the watch-fire, between the three