The next day found us at work building our raft, and l'Encuerado went off with Lucien in quest of some flexible creepers, to be used for binding together the various portions of it. When our companions joined us, Sumichrast was squaring out the last trunks. Lucien, laden with creepers wound all round his body, carried besides, at the end of his stick, the carcass of a horned snake—Atropos Mexicanus—which has scales standing erect behind its eyebrows, like little horns, which have obtained for it its Indian name of mazacoatl. The reptile was nearly two feet long, and of a grayish color, and gaped with formidable jaws, more than usually dilated by the blows, I suppose, which l'Encuerado had given it.

Sumichrast, with infinite precaution, showed to his pupil the tubular fangs, by means of which serpents inoculate the terrible venom with which some of them have been endowed by nature.

"When the reptile bites," said my friend, "its two fangs press on a small bladder at their base, and the poison is thus injected into the wound."

Our naturalist rendered his explanation still clearer by pressing on one of the fangs, from the end of which oozed out an almost imperceptible drop of liquid.

"How is it that the serpent does not poison itself?" asked Lucien.

"In the first place, it does not chew its prey; and, secondly, its venom is only dangerous when it penetrates direct into the blood; and a man, if there is no scratch in his mouth or in the digestive tube, can swallow the poison with impunity, although a very small quantity introduced into his veins would cause immediate death."

After our meal, which consisted of turtle and some palm cabbage, which in flavor resembles an artichoke, I set the example of commencing work. In less than two hours the materials for the raft had been carried to the edge of the stream, and the frail bark which was to carry us down to the plains was constructed and afloat. A little before sunset, l'Encuerado, provided with a long pole for a boat-hook, pushed it out on the water to ascertain its powers of buoyancy; and the trial having been judged satisfactory, the raft was moored, and we all lay down in front of our "Villa" to enjoy a siesta.

At last, when every thing was arranged for the voyage, l'Encuerado, naked down to his waist, went behind as pilot. We gave a farewell salute to the "Villa," by a loud hurrah, which seemed to frighten our menagerie, and with a last look at the forest in which I had spent so many miserable hours the mooring was cut, and the raft floated slowly and silently down the current.

The raft soon drifted into a lagoon, covered with waders and web-footed birds, which scarcely moved as we passed them, and some time was lost before we could regain the course of the stream. At length, guided by the palm-trees, our skiff glided between two banks bordered by trees, the high tops of which sheltered us with their shade.

Every thing was calm around us, and we remained silent, awed by the majesty of nature. The stream flowed on in one single sheet; creepers hanging from the tree-tops drooped down into the water; while kingfishers skimmed from one shore to the other, and humming-birds, with their varied and shining plumage, fluttered about the flowers. Every now and then a low-hanging tree impeded our passage, and we had to bend down on the raft to avoid being struck by such obstacles. A mass of under-wood often hid the interior of the woods from our view; but here and there a break in the foliage allowed us a glimpse into its depths. Ebony-trees, cotton-wood, pepper-trees, and palms, were intermixed with tree-ferns, magnolias, white oaks, and willows. Here and there, too, a sunbeam marked out a vast circle of light upon the dark water, and myriads of aquatic insects, gnats, dragon-flies, and butterflies sported in the air or swam over the glittering surface.

After a time, the state of inaction to which we were doomed, aggravated by the stings of mosquitoes and large green-eyed flies, became a perfect torture.

"Those are horse-flies," said Sumichrast to Lucien; "they are very fond of blood, and are a misery to all kinds of mammals from one end of America to the other."

"Their bite is more painful than that of the mosquitoes," answered the boy, from whose hand a drop of blood was trickling.

"That is because their proboscis is armed with lancets which are sharp enough to pierce the hides of bulls and horses."

During this voyage, Lucien amused himself by teaching the two parrots to repeat the names of his brother and sister; but the birds, with one foot held up and their heads bent down, although they paid great attention to the words repeated by the boy, as yet did not profit much by the lesson.

In the course of our voyage we were constantly losing trace of the current in some vast lagoon, and had often a long search till we found it. In one of these searches, I caught sight of such a picturesque bay that I proposed a halt. In front of us opened a tolerably deep glade, bordered by tall palm-trees. L'Encuerado pushed the raft to land over the aquatic plants, and I jumped ashore to moor our craft.

A fallen tree tempted us into the forest, and on the damp ground Lucien caught sight of a magnificent rattlesnake, seemingly torpid. Sumichrast discharged his gun at the reptile, which reared itself up, and then fell down dead. A noise immediately resounded in several directions, and two or three snakes of the same family appeared, one of them followed by three young ones. The snake killed by my friend measured more than a yard in length. Its skin was speckled with black, brown, and gray spots, and its flat, triangular head had a very repulsive look. Lucien, with a blow from his machete, cut off the rattles which give to the reptile its name. These horny appendages, of which there were seven, were given to l'Encuerado, who, like all his fellow-countrymen, believed them to be endued with miraculous virtues—among others, that of tuning guitars and preventing the strings from breaking.

A shot fired by the Indian led us back to the bivouac; our companion had just killed an ocelot, called by the Indians ocotchotli.

"You see this animal, Chanito?" cried l'Encuerado, who was stroking its black and brown spotted fur; "well, its tongue is poisonous. When it kills a stag or peccary, it buries its prey under some leaves, then climbs the nearest tree, and howls until it attracts all the carnivorous animals near. When they have feasted, it comes down and devours what is left."

"But why does it call the animals?" I asked.

"Didn't I tell you its tongue is poisonous? If it ate first, the venom would be communicated to the food, and the animals that feasted on the remains would die."

This fable narrated by Hernandez, and still told by the Indians, must have originated in some as yet unobserved habit of the ocotchotli.

After dinner, when Lucien was going towards his pets to give them some fruit, he saw an unfortunate tortoise between Master Job's paws. The monkey was turning it over, smelling at it, and then depositing it on the ground, persistently poking his fingers into its shell, a proceeding which by no means tended to enliven the melancholy animal. According to l'Encuerado's advice, Lucien stuck up some branches near the water, and put the tortoise into this miniature inclosure.

Night came on, and Lucien was still teaching the birds to say "Hortense" and "Emile." To our great astonishment, Gringalet went and stretched himself close to Master Job, who, without hesitation, commenced freeing him from the vermin which were lodged among his hair; then the two friends went to sleep side by side. About nine o'clock, when I was making up the fire before going to rest myself, Janet opened one of her eyes and chattered a short sentence; but l'Encuerado was much too fast asleep to answer her.