There were indeed--the flames had consumed the dry roof and walls with incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the fire, but it might have been fancy. Again, the white ashes heaved, and a half-consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then a human head, with the scalp burnt from the skull, and the flesh from the chaps and cheekbones; the trunk next appeared, the bleeding ribs laid bare, and the miserable Indian, with his limbs like scorched rafters, stood upright before us, like a demon in the midst of the fire. He made no attempt to escape, but reeling to and fro like a drunken man, fell headlong, raising clouds of smoke and a shower of sparks in his fall. Alas! poor Oreeque, the newly risen sun was now shining on your ashes, and on the dead bodies of the ill-starred Bondia and her child, whose bones, ere his setting, the birds of the air, and beasts of the forest, will leave as white and fleshless as your own. The officer, who belonged to the army investing Carthagena, now treated us with great civility; he heard our story, and desired his men to assist us in burying the remains of our late commander. We remained all day on the same part of the coast, but towards evening the party fell back on the outpost to which they belonged--after travelling an hour or so we emerged from a dry river course, in which the night had overtaken us, and came suddenly on a small plateau, where the post was established on the promontory of “Punto Canoa.” There may be braver soldiers at a charge, although that I doubt, if they be properly led, but none more picturesque in a bivouac than the Spanish. A gigantic wild cotton-tree, to which our largest English oaks would have been but as dwarfs, rose on one side, and overshadowed the whole level space. The bright beams of the full moon glanced among the topmost leaves, and tipped the higher branches with silver, contrasting strangely with the scene below, where a large watch-fire cast a strong red glare on the surrounding objects, throwing up dense volumes of smoke, which eddied in dun wreaths amongst the foliage, and hung in the still night air like a canopy, about ten feet from the ground, leaving the space beneath comparatively clear.