Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/367

Rh night. The mule I was riding insisted on following him, and heeded neither bit nor whip, but nearly left me in a ditch. Our cargo mule took advantage of the scrimmage to bolt in an opposite direction. And it was at this crisis especially dark and cloudy. We lost nearly an hour in collecting again, as we could not see each other nor any path. It seemed a very long two leagues (eight miles) before breakfast. As soon as it was light we could see a church tower of Barbacena on a neighbouring hill, apparently about three miles from us, but in reality fifteen miles distant.

At 7.10 we encamped in a clearing. My grey horse (the change) was tied up to a tree preparatory to being saddled, and got the staggers, threw himself down, and rolled and kicked so that, when we left again at eight o'clock, I had to remount my mule "Camondongo." We passed a village outside Barbacena, and met a very large Brazilian family travelling somewhere with horses, mules, and liteiras. There were so many girls that it looked like a school. We stopped at the ranch of Boa Vista that I might change saddles. The grey seemed all right again. The mule was done up. I sent the cargo mules, servants, and animals on to Registro, a league farther than Barbacena, and rode to Hermlano's Hotel, where we had originally put up at Barbacena when we started. Here I found Godfrey, our former German coach driver, and arranged my passage, and found that Hermlano or some other scoundrel had changed my cão de féla pup for a white mongrel, which I presented to Godfrey. I paid a visit of twenty minutes to a