d armadillos, and deer, and many
others, that would take _pages_ to enumerate and whole books to
describe.

But the noise was the great point. That was the thing that took Martin
and Barney quite aback, although it was by no means new to them; but
they could not get used to it. And no wonder! Ten thousand paroquets
shrieking passionately, like a hundred knife-grinders at work, is no
joke; especially when their melodies are mingled with the discordant
cries of herons, and bitterns, and cranes, and the ceaseless buzz and
hum of insects, like the bagpipe's drone, and the dismal croaking of
boat-bills and frogs,--one kind of which latter, by the way, doesn't
croak at all, but _whistles_, ay, better than many a bird! The
universal hubbub is tremendous! I tell you, reader, that you _don't_
understand it and you can't understand it; and if, after I had used the
utmost excess of exaggerated language to convey a correct impression of
the reality, you were to imagine that you really _did_ understand it,
you would be very lamentably mistaken--that's all!

Nevertheless, you must not run away with the idea that the whole empire
of Brazil is like this. There are dark thick solitudes in these vast
forests, which are solemn and silent enough at times; and there are wide
grassy campos, and great sandy plains, where such sounds are absent.
Yet there are also thousands of such spots as I have just described,
where all nature, in earth, air, and water, is instinct with noisy
animal life.

After two hours' walk, Martin and his companion reached the lake, and
here active preparations were making for the alligator hunt.

"Is that the only place ye have to spind the night in, Sambo?" said
Barney to their conductor, as he pointed to a wooden shed near which
some fifteen or twenty Negro slaves were overhauling the fishing tackle.

"Yis, massa," answered the black, showing his white teeth; "dat is de
hottle of dis great city." Sambo could speak a little English, having
wrought for several years on the coffee plantation of a Yankee settler.
He was a bit of a wag, too, much to the indignation of his grave master,
the Senhor Antonio, who abhorred jesting.

"Ye're too cliver, avic," said Barney, with a patronising smile; "take
care ye don't use up yer intellect too fast. It hurts the constitution
in the long-run."

"I say, Barney," cried Martin, who had gone ahead of his companions,
"come here, man, and just look at this pond. It's l