coughing, and
when they impatiently rubbed the tormented organs of respiration, they
but added to their discomfort, for their hands had unconsciously rubbed
against some leaves as they passed through, and communicated a burning
sensation to their noses and lips like that which cayenne pepper
provokes. Long creepers, armed upon all sides with ridges of thorn,
evoked many an impatient word, as at an unlucky moment they stumbled
against these, and were held fast to the great and severe wounding of
the epidermis, and pendulous arms, overhanging the road which they
traversed, caught them fast often with their crooked and sharp thorns by
the skin of the throat, causing severe and painful wounds. These pains
and penalties, which the jungles of that region impose upon the unlucky
travellers who are compelled to travel through them, were but a few of
the inconveniences and discomforts which our friends suffered. The
whole ground seemed strewn with the opened kernel of a seed thorn, which
is armed outside with as many straight, sharp thorns as there are quills
in a porcupine's back. Fancy men with naked feet walking over a ground
strewn with miniature porcupines, and you will agree with me that the
pain and torment would be as great almost as walking over hot embers.
At least such were the opinions of our friends, as they were compelled,
while their faces were wrinkled with pain, to stop every other minute to
extract the vile thorn kernels which had wounded their feet.

Apart from these miseries of the jungle were those which the heated and
cracked earth furnished. The red, drouthy ground was full of wide and
unsightly seams, rugged rents, which gaped open to receive the
incautious foot, and many a stumble and cry was elicited from the unwary
Arab boys, who, instead of watching against these mischances, permitted
their eyes to rove over the inhospitable scene.

And over all these shone the sun with a true tropic fervour, where,
untempered by the slightest breeze, with no friendly tree intervening
with its thick foliage between their heads and the full power of the
sun, their nude bodies seemed destined to be baked while they yet had
the power of locomotion. These several things, the heat of the sun, the
hot vapour from the earth surging upward like steam, the prickly bush
and the frequent stumblings, engendered a violent thirst which they all
began to feel, while the perspiration streaming from their bodies added
more and