nabled me to resist the desire. It
would really be better for Lucien to suffer for a short time than for us
to lose several hours, especially if we failed to find the stream we
were seeking. It was necessary to cross without delay the inhospitable
forest which we had entered, instead of waiting until hunger and thirst
imperiously cried--Onward! when perhaps we might be too exhausted to
move.

The ground became undulating, and I hastened forward, thinking to meet
with what we wished for, when a glade, which enabled us to catch a
glimpse of the sun, enlivened us a little. Here there was some grass,
and a few shrubs and creepers. I called Lucien to show him what to us
was a new plant, the _Bromelia pinguin_ of botanists.

Its ripe pink fruit was symmetrically placed in a circle of green
leaves. Lucien, kneeling down, tried to pluck them.

"Pull one from the middle, Chanito," cried l'Encuerado; "that's the only
way to get them."

The boy seized the centre berry, which came out, and, like the stones of
an arch when the key-stone is taken out, all the cones fell. Under their
thick husk there was a white, acid, melting pulp, well adapted to quench
the thirst; but I recommended Lucien not to eat more than two or three
of them. A second clump, a little farther on, enabled us to gather a
good stock of them. Providence could not have placed in our path a more
valuable plant, for the hundreds of cones which we had gathered would
enable us to brave the necessities of thirst for two or three days. We
now walked on at a quicker pace, and Lucien, a little refreshed, kept
his place courageously by my side.

"Well!" said I, "you must confess now that virgin forests may have
something good in them. How do you like the _timbirichis_?"

"They are excellent; what family do they belong to?"

"They are akin to the pine-apples, and therefore belong to the
_bromelaceae_."

"But the pine-apple is a large fruit, which grows simply on its stalk."

"Yes, so it appears; but in reality it is formed by an assemblage of
berries all joined together. The strawberry, which belongs to the rose
family, is similarly formed, and few people would believe, when they
swallow a single strawberry, that they have eaten thirty or forty
fruits."

For an hour we scarcely exchanged a word, but walked silently on, soaked
with perspiration, and scarcely able to breathe the heated air.

"I think there is a glade," murmured Lucien, pointing to the left.

"So