skin and yellow hair.  It was sound asleep, and so I did not see its eyes, but otherwise it was a perfect albino; even here at home and as a normal child it would have been regarded as unusually fair.  The pack had now got up, and Mr. Worcester began his issue.  At his feet stood a little lassie, whom he overlooked, and whose countenance, as she saw the red cloth diminishing and likewise her chances, displayed the most vivid play of emotion.  Finally, when the last yard of the stuff had been given out and she had got none of it, two large tears formed and ran down her cheeks.  Poor little thing, but ten minutes ago she had braved it with the best of them, but her skirt had now suddenly gone out of style!  The eternal feminine!  I neither saw nor heard any other child cry during the whole trip.  As we rode off, our banana-grove accompanied us part way, singing, and, disappearing behind a hillock on our left,

       “Unrobed and unabashed in Arcady,”
    shifted from Nature’s weave to man’s.

From this point to the stream at its foot, the ridge on which we found ourselves was completely bare of trees, and presented a different appearance from any other so far seen or to be seen, tremendous rounded masses.  One of these had been split through the middle by a recent earthquake:  the right half, as we looked at it, dropping down eight or ten feet below the other, a splendid example of convulsive power.  Across the stream and nearly at the top of the climb that followed we halted for chow and sleep under some tall pines.  Two hours later we were off again, through a country from which all visible suggestion of the tropics had disappeared.  We were passing through red soil uplands, grass and pines, with a clear view in all directions.

Passing on, we now faced one of the most disagreeable ascents of the whole trip:  a bare, mountainous hill facing south, so steep that we had to switch-back it to the top, with the sun blazing down on our backs, the hour being three of the afternoon, and not a breath of wind going.  It was too steep to ride, and our water-bottles were empty.  When we got to the top, Gallman and I, we could both have exclaimed with Villon,

    “Je crache blanc comme coton.”

What wonder, then, that on finding a clear, cold spring at hand, Gallman should have drunk his fill of the cool water, and that he should have persuaded me, against my better judgment, to take a swallow of it, just one swallow, no more?  Who would have believed that a mere taste of such innocent-looking, refreshing water could have had such dire consequences?  For it made me ill for six weeks, at times all but disabling me.  However, as water, it was irreproachable; and, anyway, as though to compensate the tiresome climb just finished, we had before us now one of the most glorious views imaginable.  From far to the south—­indeed, from the blue mountains bounding the view miles away, the silver ribbon of the Rio