I had now been so long or in the forests and among the Indians, that I began to be in want of some of those things that are only to be found in the abodes of civilized men. My shoes, in particular, began to fail me; and I dreaded the idea of going barefooted day after day. But as good luck would have it, or rather, perhaps I ought to say, as a kind Providence _designed_ it, I fell in with an India rubber tree, into which somebody had made incisions, and from which the gum was now flowing. So I let it flow upon my shoes, in order to form a new sole. In this undertaking, however, I was not quite so successful as in making a new hat to supply the place of my old one. I found a species of aloe, from the tough thick leaves of which, by splitting them I made me a very good hat, especially for the dry season. In the rainy season, it would not have been quite so comfortable, I suppose. One night, as I had taken up my quarters on the verge of a forest, and had got seated in my cradle, which you know was among the thick branches of some huge tree, I saw a light glancing among the trees. I came down from my roosting place, almost in an instant, and went towards it, hoping there was a village near; for I was sadly in want of a better rope to fasten myself with; and the Indians of these villages make some very ingenious ones, by twisting together the long fibres of the leaves of the cocoa-tree. Well, as I said, I followed the light, but _where_, do you think? Why out of the forest, to be sure, but into something worse than a forest. I found myself, ere I was aware of the nature of my guide, up to my knees in a quagmire: and what was more mortifying still, I was not much nearer the light than when I set out. I began now to suspect what it was. It was evidently one of those things to which they give the name of _ignis fatuus_, or _will-o’-the-wisp_. They are seen, as you know, (and as I might have known had my wits been about me) in low swampy places, peeping and dodging about. They are supposed to be _gaseous_; but perhaps you do not all of you know what _gaseous_ means; and I am hardly philosopher or chemist enough to tell you. The atmosphere or air which we breathe is composed of two ingredients, or _gases_, as the chemists call them. One is oxygen. This is the supporter of life and flame, for if it could be taken out of the air we could not breathe again, and every candle and lamp would be extinguished in a moment. The other is nitrogen or azote, which _destroys_ life.