Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/577

Rh we had not given any personal superintendence; and when we came on board, though the logwood seemed of a rather hard species for sleeping on, we did not discover the extreme discomfort of the place until forced below by the rain. Even the small place engaged, and paid for accordingly, we had not to ourselves. The Peten lads crawled under with us, and the patron and señores followed. We could not drive them out into a merciless rain, and all lay like one mass of human flesh, animated by the same spirit of suffering, irritation, and helplessness. During this time the rain was descending in a deluge; the thunder rolled fearfully over our heads; lightning flashed in through the crevices of our dark burrowing-place, dazzling and blinding our eyes; and we heard near us the terrific crash of a felling tree, snapped by the wind, or, as we then supposed, shivered by lightning.

Such was our position. Sometime the knots in the logwood fitted well into the curves and hollows of the body, but in general they were just where they should not be. We thought we could not be worse off, but very soon we found our mistake, and looked back upon ourselves as ungrateful murmurers without cause. The mosquitoes claimed us as waifs, and in murderous swarms found their way under the hatches, humming and buzzing—

I now look back upon our troubles at that place with perfect equanimity; but at the moment, with the heat and confinement, we were in anything but an amiable humour, and at ten o'clock broke out furious, upbraided the patron and his lazy señores for not reaching the mouth of the river before night, as is usually done, and as he had been charged by the alcalde to do, and insisted upon his hauling out into the stream.

The rain had ceased, but the wind was still furious, and dead a-head. By the misty light we saw a large bungo, with one sail set, seemingly flying up the river like a phantom. We made the patron haul out from the bank, but we could not keep the river, and, after a few zig-zag movements, were shot across to the opposite side, where we brought upon us new and more hungry swarms. Here we remained an hour longer, when the wind died away, and we pushed out into the stream. This was a great relief. The señores, though more used to the scourge of mosquitoes than we, suffered quite as much. The clouds rolled away, the moon broke out, and, but for the abominable insects, our float down the wild and desolate river would have been an event to