Were the inmates fiends that they let me sit there, knowing well that there was no other habitation within miles? As the minutes slowly lengthened out, and the door remained closed, my spirits sank lower and lower. After a silence of thirty-five minutes, the man again made his appearance, and, coming right out this time, stared me through and through. After this close scrutiny, which seemed to satisfy him, but elicited no response to a further appeal from me, he went to an outlying building, and, bringing a strong hide lasso, tied it around my horse's neck. Not until that was securely fastened did he invite me to dismount. Presuming the lasso was lent me to tie out my horse, I led him to the back of the house. When I returned, my strange, unwilling host was again gone, so I lay down on a pile of hides in the shade of the wall, and, utterly tired out, with visions of banquets floating before my eyes, I dropped off to sleep. Perhaps an hour afterwards, I awoke to find a woman, black as night, bending over me. Not seeing a visitor once in three months, her feminine curiosity had impelled her to come and examine me. Seemingly more amiable than her husband, she spoke to me, but in a strange, unmusical language, which I could not understand; and then she, too, left me. As evening approached, another inmate of the house made his appearance. He was, I could see, of a different race, and, to my joy, I found that he spoke fluently in Spanish. Conducting me to the aforementioned outhouse, a place built of canes and mud, he told me that later on a piece of meat would be given me, and that I could sleep on the sheepskins. I got the meat, and I slept on the skins. Fatigued as I was, I passed a wretched night, for dozens of huge rats ran over my body, bit my hands, and scratched my face, the whole night long. Morning at last dawned, and, with the first streaks of coming day, I saddled my horse, and, shaking the dust of the Brazilian estancia off my feet, resumed my journey. THE BURSTING OF A MAN. A friend of mine came upon an ostrich's nest. The bird was not near, so, dismounting, he picked up an egg and placed it in an inside pocket of his coat. Continuing the journey, the egg was forgotten, and the horse, galloping along, suddenly tripped and fell. The rider was thrown to the ground, where he lay stunned. Three hours afterwards consciousness returned. As his weary eyes wandered, he noticed, with horror, that his chest and side were thickly besmeared. With a cry of despair, he lay back, groaning, "I have burst!" The presence of the egg he had put in his pocket had quite passed from his mind! I FIND A LONE SCOTSMAN.