Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/357

Rh at about eight o'clock. Here I got a comfortable straw bed and some milk. Some of the inhabitants, about fifteen in number, came over to our ranch, which consisted of four bare, whitewashed walls, a ceiling of plaited bamboo, a mud floor, a wooden shutter for a window, two wooden benches and table, and three tallow dips. These good people sang songs and glees, and danced Minas dances for me to the native wire guitar, snapping their fingers, and beating time with their feet. They sing and dance at the same time. They were all very merry. At ten I retired to try and sleep, leaving them to continue their festivities; but what with the excitement of the day, and the still twanging guitars at the other side of the partition, I did not succeed.

At 2 a.m. I rose, and, calling to Senhor Jorge, asked him to send for the animals. The two slaves were sent to the pasture to look for them, drive them in, and feed them. While this operation was going on, I paid the master for my night's entertainment the sum of seven milreis, or fourteen shillings. When I mounted, it was 4 a.m. It was quite dark and foggy, but this I did not mind. I had heard from all quarters that the country was execrable. My mule, like Byron's corsair, possessed one virtue to a thousand crimes, and that was sure-footedness, and had an objection to deep holes; and were the whole journey to have been performed on a single plank, I would have ridden him in the dark without a bridle. I threw it on his neck, and tried to keep my hands warm. Soon the fog lifted, and the moon's last crescent showed us the way, aided by