We cannot, therefore, too earnestly recommend the scientific study of plants to our young readers. It is not only an innocent and pleasing pursuit--it not only leads to much useful knowledge, but it lifts the heart in admiration to that great and good Being, who, in providing for the wants of his creatures, has mingled beauty and pleasure with almost every cup of life. A PERFECT orchestra consists of eighty-two stringed instruments, twenty-two wind instruments, and one hundred and forty-six voices; in all, two hundred and fifty, with an organ. Dick Boldhero. CHAPTER XI. We continued our journey with great industry, generally travelling about forty miles a day. My Indian guide had the usual taciturnity of his race, but occasionally he entered into conversation, and I then discovered that he had led a life of adventure, and possessed the happy talent of describing what he had seen. I had by this time acquired a knowledge of the Spanish language, and I therefore found his narratives quite a resource during the tedious hours during which we seemed to be creeping like snails over the almost interminable plain. He had frequently officiated before as a guide over the road we were now travelling, and he gave me an account of several occurrences in which he had taken part, which might have graced the pages of romance. It appears that the Pampas are inhabited by a peculiar race of men, called Gauchos. These are the descendants of Spaniards of wild and irregular character, who had fled from civilized society and settled upon the plains, subsisting almost entirely by hunting and rearing cattle. The son followed the vocation of the father, and thus several succeeding generations of hunters had been scattered over these prairies. At the time of which I am speaking, they consisted of considerable numbers of people, though they lived apart from each other in families, dwelling in small huts, and spending the greater part of their time on horseback. These men generally respected travellers, but occasionally they would take to the highway and commit desperate acts of robbery. There were small bands of Indians, also, whose homes were along the southern borders of the Pampas, but possessing fleet horses, they occasionally made incursions even into remote portions of the plains, and after having struck a sudden blow upon some unprotected family, they would speed to another and another, marking their route with blood and conflagration. Of these wild and savage people, my guide told me various anecdotes. I have not space to recount them, but in order to give an idea of the scenes which are constantly occurring in this remote region of the world, I will repeat one of the tales which he told me.