About noon every thing was deadly still,--the cattle had betaken themselves to the small river, where they stood listlessly chewing their cuds, as if overpowered by the density of the air. Not a bird was hopping in the no longer vocal trees; the very lizards were still: the negroes employed in cleaning the coffee pieces worked in silence, in place of shouting and laughing, and gabbling to each other, as is their wont--and when the driver or black superintendent gave his orders, the few words he uttered sounded loud and hollow, echoing from hill to hill. I could hear distinctly what he said on the opposite mountain side, situated above a mile off, although I was persuaded at the same time that he spoke in his natural tone, and with no greater exertion than he used in common conversation. The very clink of the negroes' hoes in the rocky soil was unaccountably distinct and sharp. Several inexplicable noises had been heard during the forenoon from the head of the ravine; and once or twice a strong rushing sound, like the wind amongst trees, passed over our heads, although there was not a zephyr moving; a poet might have fancied it cohorts of invisible spirits charging each other in the air. At other times, a gradually increasing subterraneous grumbling noise would spring up, at first undistinguishable from distant thunder, but coming apparently nearer, it would end in a series of deadened reports, like a distant cannonade; and this again would be followed by a sharp hissing or hurtling in the sky, altogether different from the rushing noise already described; more resembling that made by streamers in a high latitude, or the flight of a congreve rocket than any thing else. But the most startling sound of all was the solitary wild cry of a crane, now and then; resembling for all the world the high note of a trumpet, blown short and quick. We had all been puzzling ourselves with these appearances and strange noises during the forenoon,--some arguing that a hurricane was impending, others that they betokened an earthquake; but the stillness continued without either occurring, and the day wore on very much as usual. In the evening, the sun was again shorn of his flaming beams, as he sank in the west, and became magnified as in the morning, when he dipped in the haze near the horizon, into a broad moonlike globe. "Come," said our excellent host, "we have had no exercise to-day, I calculate, so let us order the mules, and ride to Helen's beautiful bay, that she raves about; we shall at least breathe fresher air there." "Oh, papa, I don't _rave_ about it," said she; "it is only Sophia and Mr Listado who _rave_;" whereupon the ladies vanished, but soon reappeared all ready, when we mounted and set off.