cream, but we did
not mind the want of either, as those who travel in the wilderness find
coffee very palatable without them--perhaps quite as much so as it is,
when mixed with the whitest of sugar and the yellowest of cream, to the
pampered appetites of those who live always at home. But, after all, we
should not have to drink our coffee without sweetening, as I observed
that Frank, while extracting the beans of the locust, was also scraping
the honeyed pulp from the pods, and putting it to one side. He had
already collected nearly a plate full. Well done, Frank!

"The great mess-chest had been lifted out of the wagon; and the lid of
this, with a cloth spread over it, served us for a table. For seats we
had rolled several large stones around the chest; and upon these we sat
drinking the delicious coffee, and eating the savoury steaks of venison.

"While we were thus pleasantly engaged, I observed Cudjo suddenly
rolling the whites of his eyes upwards, at the same time exclaiming,--

"`Golly! Massa--Massa--lookee yonder!'

"The rest of us turned quickly round--for we had been sitting with our
backs to the mountain--and looked in the direction indicated by Cudjo.
There were high cliffs fronting us; and along the face of these, five
large reddish objects were moving, so fast, that I at first thought they
were birds upon the wing. After watching them a moment, however, I saw
that they were quadrupeds; but so nimbly did they go, leaping from ledge
to ledge, that it was impossible to see their limbs. They appeared to
be animals of the deer species--somewhat larger than sheep or goats--but
we could see that, in place of antlers, each of them had a pair of huge
curving horns. As they leaped downward, from one platform of the cliffs
to another, we fancied that they whirled about in the air, as though
they were `turning somersaults,' and seemed at times to come down heads
foremost!

"There was a spur of the cliff that sloped down to within less than a
hundred yards of the place where we sat. It ended in an abrupt
precipice of some sixty or seventy feet in height above the plain. The
animals, on reaching the level of this spur, ran along it until they had
arrived at its end. Seeing the precipice they suddenly stopped, as if
to reconnoitre it; and we had now a full view of them, as they stood
outlined against the sky, with their graceful limbs and great curved
horns almost as large as their bodies. We thought, of co