o, "paradise am gone a'ready!"

Larry turned upon his friend with a look that betokened no good, and
appeared to meditate an assault, when Will Osten said quietly,--"Never
mind, Larry; I luckily observed your omission, and put it into the canoe
myself."

"Ah, then, doctor, it's not right of 'e to trifle wid a poor man's
feelin's in that way, especially in regard to his stummick, which, wid
me, is a tinder point. Howsever, it's all right, so I'll light another
o' thim cigarettes. They're not bad things after all, though small an'
waik at the best for a man as was used to twist an' a black pipe since
he was two foot high."

The Irishman lay down and once more sought to recover his lost paradise,
but was interrupted by an exclamation from one of the canoe-men, who
pointed to a part of the river's bank where no fewer than eight
crocodiles were lying basking in the sun. They were of various sizes,
from eight to twenty feet in length, and slept with their jaws wide
open, and their formidable rows of teeth exposed to view.

"Well, wot's to do?" asked Larry, half rising.

"Oh! hums only want you to look to de brutes--'tink you hab never seed
him 'fore to-day," said Bunco.

"Tell him he's mistaken, then," replied Larry testily; "we've often seed
'em before, an' don't want to be roused up by such trifles."

Saying this, the Irishman once more sank into a recumbent state of
felicity; but his peaceful tendency was doomed to frequent
interruptions, not only on that day, but on many other occasions during
the voyage down the Orinoco.

In the evening of that same day he had an adventure which induced him to
suspect, more strongly even than Bunco, that terrestrial paradise was
indeed still a long way off. The party landed at a small clearing,
where they were hospitably received by a professional tiger-hunter, who,
although nearly half-naked and almost black, was a very dignified
personage, and called himself Don Emanuel. This Don invited them up to
smoke and eat at his residence, which turned out to be a very large
one--no less than the wild forest itself, for he disdained houses, and
was wont to sling his hammock, nightly, between two trees. At his
encampment they were introduced to his wife and two daughters, who were
as wild and as lightly clad as himself, and the only evidence (if
evidence it was) that the ladies belonged to the gentler sex was, that
Donna Isabella--the elder sister--fondled a large cat, for which sh