tion
being near them. The mud-bank was hard and dry, and cracked with the
heat; for it was now the end of the dry season, and the river had long
since retired from it.

"Not a very comfortable place, Barney," said Martin, looking round, as
he threw down one of the bales which he had just carried up from the
canoe. "Hallo! there's a hut, I declare. Come, that's a comfort
anyhow."

As he spoke, Martin pointed to one of the solitary and rudely
constructed huts or sheds, which the natives of the banks of the Amazon
sometimes erect during the dry season, and forsake when the river
overflows its banks. The hut was a very old one, and had evidently been
inundated, for the floor was a mass of dry, solid mud, and the palm-leaf
roof was much damaged. However, it was better than nothing, so they
slung their hammocks under it, kindled a fire, and prepared supper.
While they were busy discussing this meal, a few dark and ominous clouds
gathered in the sky, and the old trader, glancing uneasily about him,
gave them to understand that he feared the rainy season was going to
begin.

"Well, then," said Barney, lighting his pipe and stretching himself at
full length in his hammock, with a leg swinging to and fro over one side
and his head leaning over the other, as was his wont when he felt
particularly comfortable in mind and body; "Well then, avic, let it
begin. If we're sure to have it anyhow, the sooner it begins the
better, to my thinkin'."

"I don't know that," said Martin, who was seated on a large stone beside
the fire sipping a can of coffee, which he shared equally with Marmoset.
The monkey sat on his shoulder gazing anxiously into his face, with an
expression that seemed as if the creature were mentally exclaiming, "Now
me, now you; now me, now you," during the whole process. "It would be
better, I think, if we were in a more sheltered position before it
begins. Ha! there it comes though, in earnest."

A smart shower began to fall as he spoke, and, percolating through the
old root descended rather copiously on the mud floor. In a few minutes
there was a heaving of the ground under their feet!

"Ochone!" cried Barney, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking
down with a disturbed expression, "there's an arthquake, I do belave."

For a few seconds there was a dead silence.

"Nonsense," whispered Martin uneasily.

"It's dramin' I must have been," sighed Barney, resuming his pipe.

Again the ground heaved