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thought, indeed, that we were very cruel.

      "He must learn to use his legs; that's the reason why God gave them to him," said Sumichrast, who delighted in an argument with the steward.

      "What good are horses, then?"

      "To break your neck. Besides, there are plenty of infirmities in life without making one out of the horse."

      "The horse an infirmity!" cried the Mexican.

      "Yes, certainly—among your caste at least; for you could no more do without a horse than a cripple without his crutch."

      Don Antonio whistled without making any reply, and, untying his horse, took Lucien up in front, and accompanied us for more than a league. At last, as his duties called him home, he shook us by the hand and turned back. Even after we had lost sight of him, we could still hear him wishing us a pleasant journey.

      We had to cross a wide prairie; the heat was suffocating, and we marched on side by side in dead silence. Lucien's walking was much hindered by his game-pouch and gourd, which, in spite of all his efforts, would work round in front of him. I soon noticed that he had got rid of the troublesome gear.

      "Hallo!" I cried, "what have you done with your provisions?"

      "L'Encuerado wished to carry them for me."

      "L'Encuerado's load is quite heavy enough now, and you must get accustomed to your own. In a few days you won't feel it. Habit makes many things easy which at first seem impossible."

      "Señor," said l'Encuerado, "Chanito (this was the name he gave to Lucien) is tired, and this is his first journey; I'll give him back all his things to-morrow."

      "It will be much better for him to get accustomed to them now. Give him back his baggage, it is not too heavy for him; if you don't, you will be the one to be scolded."

      The Indian grumbled before he obeyed; then, taking the boy by the hand, dropped behind, muttering to him:

      "When you don't want to walk any more, Chanito, you must tell me, and you shall ride on the top of my pack."

      "No," said I, turning round; "if you do any thing of the kind, I will send both of you home."

      "My shoulders are my own," replied the Indian, earnestly; "surely I have a right to employ them as I choose."

      Sumichrast burst out laughing at this logic, and I was obliged to go on in front, or I should have done the same. Nevertheless, I feared lest Lucien should learn, on the very first day of his journey, to depend too much on l'Encuerado's kindness. I was, therefore, pleased to hear him refuse several times the Indian's offer of putting him up on his pack, an idea which the faithful fellow persisted in with an obstinacy which I had long known him to possess. A little time after—thinking, doubtless, that his dignity compelled him to prove that he was easily able to increase the weight of his load—he seized Gringalet, who was walking close behind lolling out his tongue, and throwing the dog up on his back, and commencing an Indian trot, ran by us with a triumphant look. Gringalet was at first taken by surprise, and, raising a cry of distress, wanted to jump down; but he soon sat quiet enough, without displaying any uneasiness, to the great joy of my son, who was much amused at the incident.

      The plain which we were crossing seemed absolutely interminable.

      "It's no use our walking," said Lucien; "we don't appear to make any advance."

      "Fortunately, you are mistaken," replied Sumichrast. "Look in front of you, and you will see that the trees on ahead, which a short time ago looked like one uninterrupted mass of foliage, can now be discerned separately."

      "You mean the forest which we can see from here?"

      "What you take for a forest is nothing but a few trees scattered about the plain."

      "Isn't M. Sumichrast wrong in that, father?"

      "No, my boy; but those who have more experience than you might well be mistaken, for when objects are seen at a distance they always seem to blend together in a group. This morning, for instance, when we were walking along the main road, you were always exclaiming that it ended in a point; but you were convinced that your eyes deceived you. It is just the same now: these trees appear to be farther apart in proportion as we approach them; and you will be quite surprised presently when you see how distant they are from each other. The same illusion is produced by the stars, which are millions of miles apart, and yet appear so thick in the sky, that your brother Emile was regretting, the other night, that he was not tall enough to grasp a handful of them."

      "And don't forget," added Sumichrast, "that light and imagination often combine to deceive us."

      "Just as in the fable of the 'Camels and the floating sticks.'"

      "Bravo! my young scholar; you've heard that fable?"

      "Yes. One evening I was going into a dimly-lighted room, and I fancied I saw a great gray man seated in a chair; I cried out, and ran away, afraid. Then papa took me by the hand and led me into the dark room again, and I found that the giant which had frightened me so much was nothing but a pair of trowsers, thrown over the back of an arm-chair. The next day mamma made me learn the fable of the 'Camels.'"

       "At last, lagging a little, our party reached the foot of the mountains."

       I restrained his ardor, as I wished to keep our boxes andOn our road I called Lucien's attention to a small thorny shrub, a kind of mimosa, called huizachi by the Indians, who use its pods for dyeing black cloth, and for making a tolerably useful ink. The plain assumed by degrees a less monotonous aspect. Butterflies began to hover round us, and our young naturalist wanted to commence insect-hunting. needles free for the rarer species which we might expect to find as soon as we had reached more uninhabited districts. At last, lagging a little, our party reached the foot of the mountains.

      It was now five o'clock; night was coming on, so it was highly necessary to look out for shelter. We came in view of a bamboo-hut in the nick of time. An old Indian was reclining in front of it, warming his meagre limbs in the rays of the setting sun, clad in nothing but a pair of drawers and a hat with a torn brim. He rose as we came near, and proffered us hospitality. His wife, whose costume consisted of a cotton shirt edged with red thread, came running in answer to his call, and was quite in raptures at the prettiness of the "little white traveller," who completely ingratiated himself by saluting her in her own language. We had accomplished a journey of seven leagues, although Lucien, thanks to Don Antonio's horse, had not walked quite so far.

      The aborigines set before us rice and beans. After this frugal repast, washed down with cold water, I wanted Lucien to lie down on a large mat; but the restless little being took advantage of his elders being comfortably stretched out to sleep, and ran off to see our hostess's fowls roosting for the night on a dead tree, and then to prowl up and down in company with l'Encuerado. The latter had ferreted out a three-corded guitar which was in the hut, and strummed away at the same tune for hours together—no doubt to the great pleasure of the boy, although to us it was quite the reverse.

      At last our bedding was unrolled, and I enjoined repose on all. Gringalet couched down in the hut, at the feet of his young master. L'Encuerado, however, preferred sleeping in the open air, only too happy, as he said, to see the sky above, and to feel the wind blow straight into his face without having to be filtered through walls and windows.

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      WAKING UP IN THE MORNING.—THE PIGMY WORLD OF LILLIPUT.—L'ENCUERADO AND THE BOTTLES.—MASSACRE OF THISTLES.—THE CHARCOAL-BURNING INDIANS.

      I rose long

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