er than themselves;" with this, he commended me to a sound
sleep, and the words were scarcely spoken ere I obeyed the summons.

Before day broke, I was aroused by the noise of approaching departure;
the band were strapping on knapsacks, slinging muskets, and making other
preparations for the march; Halkett, as their captain, carrying
nothing beyond his weapons, and in his air and manner assuming all the
importance of command.

The "Lepero," as I was called, was ordered to follow the column at
about a hundred paces to the rear; but as I was spared all burden, in
compassion to my weak state, I readily compounded for this invidious
position, by the benefits it conferred. A rude meal of rye-bread and
cold venison, with some coffee, made our breakfast, and away we started;
our path lying through the vast prairie I have already spoken of.

As during my state of "quarantine," which lasted seven entire days,
we continued to march along over a dreary tract of monotonous
desolation,--nothing varying the dull uniformity of each day's journey,
save the chance sight of a distant herd of buffaloes, the faint traces
of an Indian war-party, or the blackened embers of a bivouac,--I will
not weary my readers by dwelling on my own reflections as I plodded on:
enough, when I say they were oftener sad than otherwise. The uncertainty
regarding the object of my fellow-travellers harassed my mind by a
thousand odd conjectures. It was clear they were not merchants, neither
could they be hunters, still less a "war-party,"--one of those marauding
bands which on the Texan frontier of Mexico levy "black-mail" upon the
villagers, on the plea of a pretended protection against the Indians.
Although well armed, neither their weapons, their discipline, nor, still
less, their numbers, argued in favor of this suspicion. What they could
possibly be, then, was an insurmountable puzzle to me. I knew they were
called Gambusinos,--nothing more. Supposing that some of my readers
may not be wiser than I then was, let me take this opportunity, while
traversing the prairie, to say in a few words what they were.

The Gambusinos are the gold-seekers of the New World,--a class who,
in number and importance, divide society with the "Vaqueros," the
cattle-dealers, into two almost equal sections. Too poor to become
possessors of mines, without capital for enterprise on a larger scale,
they form bands of wandering discoverers, traversing the least-known
districts of t