‘Guarda Costa,’ I said, carelessly. The man muttered something again, and his chin fell upon his breast. Like a phantom I glided up the hot and silent street. Not a soul was to be seen. The cloth of outside blinds and the gay draperies hanging from balconies, rustled in the cooling wind, while those thin slices of wood, forming what are called in the Indies, ‘jalousies,’ clattered with a merry rattle. Dogs lay listlessly stretched out in shady corners; bullocks, harnessed to clumsy carts, lay chewing the cud between the shafts, and two or three mendicants, as I judged them from their rags and filth, were stretched beneath gateways and under pillars, where the breeze came freshest. But the spell of sleep was everywhere. Midnight in New Spain might bring the time of gallant assignation and joyous revel, but the drowsy afternoon shone upon a city steeped in sleep, even as though one of the mighty charms which I used to read of in idle chronicles of old fancies, were abroad over the dreaming people, one of those charms of glamour and gramarye of the days when Michael Scott split the Eildon hills in three, and Thomas of Erceldoune was courted of the faery queen! ‘So, blessings on that good old Spanish custom, the siesta,’ I cried to myself, as I sped along the deserted thoroughfare. Carthagena is not large, neither is it fortified towards the land side. Very little time had therefore elapsed until I found myself fairly beyond the city, and running along a rough road, with great plenty of trees and bushes on either side, and patches of fields, wherein grew the broad brown-leaved tobacco plant, and here and there a hut, with a yam garden about it, or the country house of a Carthagena merchant, with prim terraces and avenues of limes, and fountains sparkling among the leaves. These I ran past as speedily as possible; but there was no appearance of aught stirring about them more than in the city. The siesta was everywhere, ay, even in the great woods, which at length I reached; the birds sitting motionless upon the branches, and the beasts of the earth hiding in dens and holes from the fervid noontide heat. The road which I had followed gradually disappeared, splitting as it were into many little tracks made by hunters or other wanderers in the woods. Around me there soon rose rocks and steep hills, and the tangled underwood and the long grass made walking difficult. However, I was in too great spirits to feel much weariness. Every step I took was almost as a year added to my life. So, at last, when I saw that I had really plunged fairly into the wilderness, I forced my way amid the rank vegetation, tearing through brake and thicket, and singing and shouting lustily in the fulness of my heart. The sun was my compass, and by him I steered eastwardly.