We were now in a great perplexity. I could not imagine any possible means of getting across; the muleteers held a noisy talk together about what was to be done, and at last led the way along the bank down stream. I asked where we were going, and was told that at the mouth of the river was a sand-bar, firm enough to allow us to cross upon it. In about a quarter of an hour, we came to the sea-shore. There was a smooth, sandy beach all along the coast, and the tide ran out of the river with a pretty rapid current. The bar was several feet under water, and the heaving of the sea, with the rapidity of the tide, made a great surf. I thought it a very dangerous thing to ride out into the ocean through the surf of a sand-bar, for the purpose of crossing a river, but there was no other way, and we pushed on. The head mule was frightened as he entered the sea, and seemed unwilling to proceed. One of the muleteers dismounted, and led him by the bridle into the surf, wading up to his middle in the water. By a good deal of coaxing and pulling, he made him advance. The mules are so accustomed to follow one another in a string, that the head one is sure to lead all the rest wherever he goes, so the whole file of them plunged in after him. When I had got a considerable distance out on the bar, my animal became frightened at the waves that were tumbling about his legs, and he sidled off into deep water. I expected hardly anything less than to be drowned, for, on finding the water rising up to his back, he grew so bewildered that he was unable to tell which way he was going, and would have carried me directly out to sea if I had not pulled in the reins with all my might, and brought him to a full stop. After allowing him to recover his breath a little, I drew his head round in the proper direction, and forced him onward; by repeated trials, I regained a shallower spot, where he grew more quiet, and finally got to land. All the others crossed the bar in safety. The country after we passed the river was sandy and wild, abounding in marshes and lagoons, where we saw a great many wild ducks. Late in the afternoon we came to another stream, much broader and deeper than any of the others. There was a large ferryboat like a mud-scow, which carried us over, mules and all. The animals made a terrible uproar on board, kicking, pushing and biting each other at a furious rate. The boat had neither oars nor sail, but was moved by a rope stretched across the stream from shore to shore. The banks of the river were soft and clayey, and there was a clumsy sort of wharf for a landing-place, made of sticks and bushes tied together.