of funereal crape. There were
camp-fires at the wooding stations, the flames of which painted the
foliage extraordinary colors and spangled it with sparks. Great flocks
of unfamiliar birds flew over us, their brilliant plumage taking a
deeper dye as they flashed their wings in the firelight. The chattering
monkeys skirmished among the branches; sometimes a dull splash in the
water reminded us that the alligator was still our neighbor; and ever
there was the piping of wild birds whose notes we had never heard
before, and whose outlines were as fantastic as those of the bright
objects that glorify an antique Japanese screen.

Once from the shore, a canoe shot out of the shadow and approached us.
It was a log hollowed out--only the shell remained. Within it sat two
Indians,--not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down the
river; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudeness
that served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adorned
themselves--necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal,
wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo. They
drew near us for a moment, only to greet us and turn away; and very
soon, with splash of dipping paddles, they vanished in the dusk.

These were the flowers of the forest. All the winding way from the sea
the river walls had been decked with floral splendor. Gigantic blossoms
that might shame a rainbow starred the green spaces of the wood; but of
all we had seen or heard or felt or dreamed of, none has left an
impression so vivid, so inspiring, so instinct with the beauty and the
poetry and the music of the tropics, as those twilight mysteries that
smiled upon us for a moment and vanished, even as the great fire-flies
that paled like golden rockets in the dark.

III.

ALONG THE PACIFIC SHORE

All night we tossed on the bosom of the lake between San Carlos, at the
source of the San Juan river, and Virgin Bay, on the opposite shore. The
lake is on a table-land a hundred feet or more above the sea; it is a
hundred miles in length and forty-five in width. Our track lay
diagonally across it, a stretch of eighty miles; and when the morning
broke upon us we were upon the point of dropping anchor under the cool
shadow of cloud-capped mountains and in a most refreshing temperature.

Oh, the purple light of dawn that flooded the Bay of the Blessed Virgin!
Of course the night was a horror, and it was our second