fled precipitately.

"Now, run for life!" cried the hermit, setting the example. Barney
hesitated to follow what he deemed a cowardly flight, but the yells of
the natives returning in strong force decided the question. He and
Martin took to their heels with right good will, and in a few minutes
the three friends were far on the road which led to their night bivouac;
while the villagers, finding pursuit hopeless, returned to the village,
and continued the wild orgies of their festa.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

COGITATIONS AND CANOEING ON THE AMAZON--BARNEY'S EXPLOIT WITH AN
ALLIGATOR--STUBBORN FACTS--REMARKABLE MODE OF SLEEPING.

It is pleasant, when the sun is bright, and the trees are green, and
when flowering shrubs and sweet-smelling tropical trees scent the balmy
atmosphere at eventide, to lie extended at full length in a canoe, and
drop easily, silently, yet quickly, down the current of a noble river,
under the grateful shadow of overhanging foliage; and to look lazily up
at the bright blue sky which appears in broken patches among the verdant
leaves; or down at the river in which that bright sky and those green
leaves are reflected; or aside at the mud-banks where greedy vultures
are searching for prey, and lazy alligators are basking in the sun; and
to listen, the while, to the innumerable cries and notes of monkeys,
toucans, parrots, orioles, bemtevi or fly-catchers, white-winged and
blue chatterers, and all the myriads of birds and beasts that cause the
forests of Brazil, above all other forests in the world probably, to
resound with the gleeful songs of animated nature!

It is pleasant to be thus situated, especially when a cool breeze blows
the mosquitoes and other insects off the water, and relieves you for a
time from their incessant attacks. Martin Rattler found it pleasant as
he thus lay on his back with his diminutive pet marmoset monkey seated
on his breast quietly picking the kernel out of a nut. And Barney
O'Flannagan found it pleasant, as he lay extended in the bow of the
canoe with his head leaning over the edge gazing abstractedly at his own
reflected visage, while his hands trailed through the cool water, and
his young dog--a shaggy indescribable beast with a bluff nose and a
bushy tail--watched him intently, as a mother might watch an only child
in a dangerous situation. And the old sun-dried, and storm-battered,
and time-shrivelled mulatto trader, in whose canoe they were embarked
and who