The birds sang their most enlivening songs. It was like our May at home. On walking out of our tents, we perceived the huge foot-prints of the grisly bear at just twenty-six paces distant, and there were the holes where he had scratched up the ground in pursuit of the ants and bugs, which he devours with avidity. The centipedes and tarantulas occasioned us no little apprehension and uneasiness. After the rain commenced, we frequently found them between and under our blankets. On one of the mornings of our march, my feet being lame, I started in advance of the train, that I might take time to rest, not expecting to see the party again till they overtook me at the end of the day’s march. When I left, all preparations for a start had been made, and the muleteers had gone out for their mules. Two of them, however, were missing, and so much of the day was spent before they were found, that the guide concluded to remain in camp till the next morning. Upon reaching the spring where I supposed we were to encamp, and having quenched my thirst, hungry and weary, I went to a large and shady tree a short distance from the path, and sat down to await my companions. For some time I occupied my mind with reading the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which I had in my pocket. Soon, however, Bunyan’s dream began to mingle with my own, and I fell into a long, deep sleep. When I awoke, bewildered and confused, it was near night, and nowhere were my companions to be seen. Had they passed me during the day, and gone on to the next encampment, or had some accident delayed them, were becoming anxious questions to me. I perceived, by new tracks, that several trains had passed while I was asleep. Was mine one of them? I determined--why, I hardly know--to retrace my morning steps. But soon a new source of anxiety arose. My course in the morning had been across a plain at the foot of the mountains, till at length it brought me up among them. As I descended the last steeps of these, and saw the plain extended out below me, far in the distance, and very far from the trail I had come, I saw a mule-train which I thought must be mine, and concluded that I had been all this time wandering out of my way. Fixing their direction in my mind before descending upon the plain, and while the sun was setting, I struck across, leaving my path, and hoping to intersect theirs by the time they should come into camp. If I could not effect this, I must spend the night without food, or water, or blankets, with also the prospect of being _lost_ among the mountains. This, in my situation, would be attended with much inconvenience and some danger. Several have been lost in this manner, and never seen again. At length I succeeded in reaching the train, and found it was not mine; but I had the satisfaction of hearing from my companions, and that they were still at their last night’s camp. At about ten o’clock I reached our encampment. Tired and hungry as I was, I stood for some time struck with the scene