surprise him. Sumichrast availed himself
of this inspection to tell him that the cactus, a word derived from the
Greek, and meaning _thorny_, is a native of America, and that it grows
spontaneously in dry and sandy soil.

[Illustration: "Everywhere the cactus might be seen assuming twenty
different shapes."]

"You have forgotten to tell him," added l'Encuerado, "that the tender
shoots of the _tunero_, baked under the ashes, will furnish us this
evening with a most delicious dish."

A little farther on, the prickly pears were succeeded by another species
called the _Cierge_ (the _Cactus cereus_ of _savants_). Several of these
plants were growing with a single stem, and measured from ten to twelve
feet in height, looking like telegraph poles; others had two or three
shoots springing from them, which made them look still more singular. A
third species, creeping over the ground, added much to the difficulty of
our walking, and obliged us very often to take long strides to avoid
them. In spite of all the care we could take, we scratched our limbs
several times against their sharp spines.

I again took the lead--for there was not room between the _cierges_ to
walk abreast--and, climbing up a small hillock, surveyed a wide
prospect. Such a complete change could not possibly have taken place in
so short a time in any other country. More trees, more shrubs, more
bushes! Everywhere the cactus might be seen assuming twenty different
shapes--round, straight, conical, or flattened, and really seeming as if
it delighted in assuming appearances so fantastic as almost to defy
description. Here and there the _cierges_, standing side by side, seemed
to vie with each other in height, sometimes attaining to as much as
twenty to thirty feet, while the young shoots resembled a palisade, or
one of those impenetrable hedges with which the Indians who live on the
plateau surround their dwellings. Farther on, there were vast vegetable
masses of a spherical shape, covered with rose-colored, horny, and
transparent thorns, which displayed across our path all their huge
rotundity, really exhibiting nothing vegetable to the eye but their
color. Here and there, too, some creeping species, with their branches
full of thorns, formed a perfect thicket; one might almost have fancied
that they were a hundred-headed hydra.

"We might almost imagine we were in a hot-house full of rich-growing
plants and golden-colored flowers," said Sumichrast to me.