"You judge too hastily," replied Sumichrast; "wait till our path leads along the edge of some stream." "All right," muttered the boy, shaking his head and turning towards his friend; "the woods we have gone through are much more pleasant. It is so silent, and the boughs are so high that we might fancy we were in a church." The boy's remark was far from incorrect. The dark arches of the intersecting branches, the black soil formed by the accumulated vegetable _debris_ of perhaps five or six thousand years, the dim obscurity scarcely penetrated by the sunlight making its way through the dark foliage--all combined to imbue the mind with a kind of vague melancholy. The limited prospect and the profound silence (for birds rarely venture into this forest-ocean) also tend to fill the soul with gloomy thoughts, and prove that health of mind as well as of body depends upon light. A furnace-like heat compelled us to keep silence, and tree succeeded tree with sad monotony. The moist soil gave way under our feet, and retained the traces of our footsteps. At a giddy height above our heads the dark foliage of the spreading branches entirely obscured the sky. Every now and then I gave a few words of encouragement to Lucien, who was walking behind me quite overcome with the heat; especially, I recommended him not to drink, in the first place, because the water must be economized, and next because it would only stimulate his thirst. "Then we shall never drink any more," said the boy. "Oh yes! Chanito," rejoined the Indian, "when we form our bivouac, I shall make plenty of coffee, and if you sip it, in a quarter of an hour your thirst will be quenched." "Then I hope we shall soon reach our bivouac," said Lucien, mournfully. If I had consulted my own feelings, I should now have given the word to halt; but reason and experience enabled me to resist the desire. It would really be better for Lucien to suffer for a short time than for us to lose several hours, especially if we failed to find the stream we were seeking. It was necessary to cross without delay the inhospitable forest which we had entered, instead of waiting until hunger and thirst imperiously cried--Onward! when perhaps we might be too exhausted to move. The ground became undulating, and I hastened forward, thinking to meet with what we wished for, when a glade, which enabled us to catch a glimpse of the sun, enlivened us a little. Here there was some grass, and a few shrubs and creepers. I called Lucien to show him what to us was a new plant, the _Bromelia pinguin_ of botanists. Its ripe pink fruit was symmetrically placed in a circle of green leaves. Lucien, kneeling down, tried to pluck them. "Pull one from the middle, Chanito," cried l'Encuerado; "that's the only way to get them."