orator's arguments, for nothing weakens the force of a speech so much as the total absence of the audience. Nevertheless, the chucker-out sees no humour in his job. It is all serious business to him, and so he goes through his chucking with uncompromising severity. Now and then, perhaps, he expels the wrong man, or visits the political offences of an enemy upon the innocent head of one of his own party; but in political discussions with the legs of tables and brickbats, such mistakes can hardly help occurring. And the beautiful undulating meadows continue, sprinkled over with shrub-like trees, and populous with rabbits and prairie-dogs and chapparal hens. Here and there we come upon small companies of cattle and horses, most contented with their pastures; but what an utter desolation this vast tract seems to be! The "stations" are, as yet, mere single houses, and we hardly see a human being in an hour. And then comes Colorado, a queer makeshift-looking town, with apparently only one permanent place of habitation in it--the jail. Beyond the town we passed some Mexicans supposed to be working, but apparently passing time by pelting stones at the snakes in the water, and soon after stopped to take up some Texan Rangers for the protection of our train during the night. These Rangers reminded me very much of a Boer patrol, and there is no doubt that both cowboys and Indians find them far too efficient for comfort. They are, as a rule, good shots, and all are of course good riders. The pay is good, and, "for a spell" as one of them said, the work was "well enough." And as the evening closed in, and we began to enter a country of dark jungle-looking land, the scene seemed as appropriate as possible for a Texan adventure. But nothing more exciting than cicadas disturbed our sleep. Somebody said they were "katydids," but they were not--they were much katydider. CHAPTER XXVIII. Nature's holiday--Through wonderful country--Brown negroes a libel on mankind--The wild-flower state--The black problem--A piebald flirt--The hippopotamus and the flea--A narrow escape--The home of the swamp-gobblin--Is the moon a fraud? IN the morning everything had changed. Vegetation was tropical. Black men had supplanted brown. Occasional tracts of rich meadow, with splendid cattle and large-framed horses wading about among the pasture, alternated with brakes of luxuriant foliage concealing the streams that flowed through them, while fields of cotton in lusty leaf, gigantic maize, and league after league of corn stubble, showed how fertile the negro found his land. And the wild flowers--but what can I say more about them? They seemed even more beautiful than before.