A European rarely visits an Indian tribe in which the Chiefs do not ask him news of Napoleon, and beg him to tell anecdotes about his reign; and strangely enough, their primitive natures will not allow that the great man is dead. When told so, the Chiefs content themselves with smiling cunningly. One day, after a lengthened hunt in Apacheria, I demanded hospitality of a party of Opata Indians. The Chief, on hearing that I was a Frenchman, did not fail to speak to me about the Emperor. After a long conversation, I concluded by describing, in a way that the men who surrounded and listened to me with the most profound attention could understand, the death of the great man after long and painful sufferings. The Chief, an old man of venerable appearance, interrupted me, and laying his left hand on my arm to attract my attention, while with the right he pointed to the sun, whose fiery disc was sinking in the horizon in clouds of vapour, asked me with a most significant smile-- "Is the sun about to die?" "Certainly not," I answered, not knowing what the Redskin was driving at. "Wah!" he continued, "If the sun never dies, how can the great pale Chief be dead, who is the son of that planet?" The Indians applauded this conclusion; I tried to alter their opinion in vain, and at length grew so tired, that I allowed them to be right. All my efforts had only produced the result of convincing them still more of the immortality of the hero whom they are accustomed to regard as a divinity. However, I believe that if a person would take the trouble to seek carefully, he would find in France peasants whose opinion is precisely similar. Asking the reader's pardon for this long digression, we will resume our narrative at the point where we interrupted it. By the care of Doña Garillas and No Eusebio, a frugal meal was prepared for the travellers, who now sate down to table. Tranquil, especially, who had made a long journey, experienced that feeling of internal comfort which is produced after long fatigue, by finding, during a desert halt, a fugitive reflex of civilisation. The meal was most simple; it consisted of pigoles with pimento, a lump of venison, and maize tortillas, the whole washed down with smilax water and a few mouthfuls of pulque, a wonderful luxury in these regions, and among the Comanches, the only Indians who never drink strong liquors. No Eusebio sate down with the hunter. The lady waited on them, and did the honours of her house with that kindly and graceful attention so rarely met with in our civilized countries, where everything is so expensive, even a kind reception. When the meal was ended, which was not long first, the three men rose from table and seated themselves round a copper brasero full of hot ashes, when they began smoking. The dogs, like vigilant sentries, had lain down across the door, with outstretched heads and pricked-up ears.