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 THROUGH THE FOREST. 201 présentations that they did not like solitude, but would be found plentifuUy at San Felice, where they would be heard ail day long humming like a spinning-wheel. Already Jack said he longed to be there, a wish that was so una- nimously echoed by ail the rest, that they resolved that no stoppage should be allowed beyond what was absolutely indispensable. After a time the forest began to alter its aspect The trees were even less crowded, opening now and then into wîde glades. The soil, croppîng up above its carpet of verdure, exhibited veins of rose granité and syenite, like plates of lapis lazuli ; on some of the hîgher ground, the fleshy tubers of the sarsaparilla plant, growing in a hope- less entanglement, made progress a matter of still greater difficulty than in the narrow tracks of the dense forest. At sunset the travellers found that they had accomplished about eight miles from their starting-point They could not prognosticate what hardshîps might be in store for them on future days, but it was certain that the expériences of the first day had been neither eventful nor very fatiguing. It was now unanimously agreed that they should make a hait for the night, and as little was to be apprehended from the attacks either of man or beast, it was considered un- necessary to form anything like a rcgular encampment. One man on guard, to be relieved every few hours, was presumed to be sufficient. Admirable shelter was offered by an enormous mango, the spreading foliage of which formed a kind of natural verandah, sweeping the ground so thoroughly that any one who chose could find sleeping- quarters in its very branches. Simultaneously with the halting of the party there was heard a deafening tumult in the upper boughs. The mango was the roosting-place of a colony of grey parrots, a noisy, quarrelsome, and rapacious race, of whose true characteris- tics the spécimens seen in confinement in Europe give no true conception. Their screeching and chattering were such a nuisance that Dick Sands wanted to fire a shot into the middle of them, but Harris seriously dissuaded him, urging that the report of firearms would only serve to reveal