te their vengeance on all
who were compromised. Don Pablo would have been a victim among others,
had he not had timely warning and escaped; but as it was, all his
property was taken by confiscation, and became the plunder of the
rapacious tyrant.

We are introduced to him just at the period of his escape. By the aid of
the faithful Guapo he had hastily collected a few things, and with his
wife and family fled in the night. Hence the incompleteness of his
travelling equipage. He had taken one of the most unfrequented paths--a
mere bridle-road--that led from Cuzco eastward over the Cordillera. His
intent was to gain the eastern slope of the Andes mountains, where he
might conceal himself for a time in the uninhabited woods of the Great
_Montana_, and towards this point was he journeying. By a _ruse_ he had
succeeded in putting the soldiers of the despot on a false track; but it
was not certain that they might not yet fall into the true one. No
wonder then, when he gazed back towards Cuzco, that his look was one of
apprehension and anxiety.

CHAPTER III.

THE POISON-TREES.

Following the rugged and winding path, the travellers had climbed to a
height of many thousand feet above the ocean level. There was very
little vegetation around them. Nothing that deserved the name of tree,
if we except a few stunted specimens of quenoa trees, and here and there
patches of the Ratanhia shrub, which covered the hill-sides. Both these
are used by the mountain Indians as fuel, but the Ratanhia is also a
favourite remedy against dysentery and blood-spitting. Its extract is
even exported to European countries, and is to be found in the shop of
the apothecary.

Now and then a beautiful species of locust was seen with its bright red
flowers. It was the "Sangre de Christo" of the Peruvian _flora_.

Don Pablo Romero was a naturalist, and I may here tell you a pleasant
and interesting fact--which is, that many of the earliest patriots and
revolutionists of Spanish America were men who had distinguished
themselves in natural science--in fact, were the "savans" of these
countries. I call this a pleasant fact, and you may deem it a curious
one too, because men of science are usually lovers of peace, and not
accustomed to meddle either in war or politics.

But the truth of the matter is this,--under the government of the
viceroys all books, except those of a monkish religion, were jealously
excluded from these countries. No politic