nearer and nearer, and we thought he was going to clamber up the bluff, when he suddenly wheeled and shot down-hill with surprising agility-his

this our home!" cried Tommy, when we had spread our blankets at the foot of a majestic bignoniatree, with mighty arms stretched over the water.

quick eye had discovered a suspicious movement in the bush. He was too late, however; before he reached the beach the Moro was ready for him, and just when his feet touched the water, the harpoon went crashing through his scaly hide. His violent plunges nearly jerked the line out of the skipper's hands, but this time the rope could be hitched a Spanish willow-tree need not be very large to resist the pull of the largest cart-horse; and when we came to the rescue, the Moro had already secured his captive, and coolly proceeded to drag him up, hand over hand, as an angler would haul in a refractory cat-fish.

"What a pity we can not stay here and make

It would, indeed, have been an exquisite place for a summer-house; the bluff overlooked the entire breadth of the vast river, and behind us rose a terrace-land of rocks and wooded heights-the eastern slope of the Sierra Marina, that stretches away to the head-waters of the Orinoco. The current at our feet murmured strange lullabies,-tales, perhaps, of the thousand and thousand wild woods and lovely valleys its waves had passed on the way from the distant Andes,-but through the whispering of the water we heard now and then another and still stranger sound-a musical twang, resembling the slow vibration of a harp-string.

"What can that be?" I asked. "It is like the singing of a telegraph-wire, but it must be something else." "You can hear that at several places along this river," said the Moro; "they call it the castle-bells of the Villa India."

"The Villa India? Where is that?"

"Quien sabe [who knows]?" said the skipper. "It is supposed to be a hidden city of the nation that owned this country before the Spaniards came. There is a tradition that the mother of the Inca princes took refuge in a village where they let the woods grow all around it, to conceal its whereabouts from the Spaniards, and that the inhabitants leave it only in night-time, by a subterranean cave leading to the river. In moonlight nights, strange boats and strange people are sometimes seen on the shore."

"Have you ever seen them?" asked Tommy.

"Not I," said the skipper. "I only tell you what I heard from the Brazilian sailors; but so much is sure, that the woods along this river are thick enough to conceal more than one city; there are here hundreds of square miles which no white man has ever been able to penetrate. And on the

"Never mind," said I; "we shall perhaps go to Africa next year, and see still greater wonders-ostriches, riverhorses, and crocodiles, apes as big and strong as a man, and camelopards with legs as long as our boat-mast."

"I should like to go along and see that country," said Daddy Simon; "but in the first place I have promised my wife to be home by next Christmas, and in the second place I am getting old, and I might be put to hard shifts if one of those long-legged leopards should get after me."

Menito said nothing, but he looked thoughtful, and after a while took Tommy aside for a private consultation; and then sat down at the other end of the fire to give his spokesman a chance.

"Do you know what he wants?" whispered Tommy. "He is dying to go along and see all those things, and he says he will take the best care of our pets if you could find him a place in the Zoological Garden; but he is afraid to ask you for it."

"I don't know why he should be," said I. "Come here, Menito; would you like to go to France?"

"Yes, Señor; but it is such a long way," faltered Menito, and I have no money hardly. I do not know how I shall pay my passage."

"Oh, please let him go!" begged Tommy. "He is going to sell Rough, he says, and I will give him all my pocket-money." "No, no, that is all right," I laughed; "we will keep Rough and Menito, too. But what about your folks at home? Will they not miss you?" "Oh, no," said Menito, gayly. "I promised them to be back before the end of the year, but my step-mother has laid a big wager that I would break my word, so I don't want to disappoint her." The next day the wind turned to the west, our skipper hoisted every sail, and we had a quick and pleasant voyage to the end of the river, if that

name can be applied to the lower Amazon. There were places where the shore on either side faded entirely out of view, and we seemed to drift on a flowing ocean, like the sailors that commit themselves to the current of the Gulf-stream. As the river grew wider, its shores became lower and lower, till they flattened into mud-banks, fringed with unbroken thickets, excepting on points where wild animals had made gaps on their way to drink

INDIAN FIG-TREES-SHOWING THE AIR-ROOTS.

ing-places. We saw tapirs and herds of peccaries, and one day we surprised a troop of capybaras, or water-hogs, basking in the sun at the end of a long sand-bank. Our skipper landed at a point where the bank joined the shore, and we had a grand chase; with the aid of another dog or two we could have captured the whole troop, but we caught about as many as we had room forthree old ones and two little pixies, looking very much like tailless rats. Giant-rats, indeed, would be a more appropriate name than "water-hogs,"

for capybaras are a species of rodents, or gnawing animals, though nearly three feet long and two high; with pigs they have nothing in common but the voice-a sort of grunting squeak.

Angling, and spearing fish, were likewise entertaining pastimes, but after dark the mosquitoes were terrible, and we were all glad when we transferred our baggage to a coasting-schooner that carried us to the sea-port of La Guayra. There we met the agent who had brought our monkeys and panthers from the Orinoco, and four days after our arrival all our pets were quartered in the caboose of the ocean steamer that was to carry us back to Europe and Marseilles. The bay of La Guayra is strangely land-locked, the view toward the sea being almost completely barred by a circle of mountains, and ships leaving the port seem to sail on a narrow lake till they reach the Punta Peñas, or "Promontory Point," where the open sea and the peaks of the West Indian Islands rise suddenly to view; but this same peculiarity makes the harbor of La Guayra the safest port of the Western Atlantic, and for this reason it is a great resort for sailors and all kinds of people seeking profit or employment.

Our captain had engaged fifty South American sailor-boys as coal-heavers for the French navy, and when our ship weighed her anchor, the rela

tives and comrades of those poor fellows crowded around the wharf to bid them good-bye and load them with farewell presents-baskets full of fruit, and handkerchiefs embroidered with parrot-feathers, as mementos of their home in the tropics. Old Daddy, too, insisted on exchanging a Mexican dagger for Menito's little pocket-knife, and shook hands with us all again and again, not forgetting the spider-monkeys and Bobtail Billy. When I offered to take him along and find him a home in the Zoological Garden, he seemed halfinclined to take me at my word; yet the thought of his own home in the Mexican sierra finally prevailed, and when our ship fired her farewell gun, he leaped suddenly down into one of the last market-boats and helped the boatman to row as fast as possible, as though he could not trust himself, and wanted to get ashore before he could have time to change his mind.

"A revernos! A revernos!-Good-bye till we meet again!" we heard the people call from the shore when we approached the Punta Peñas; and when the sailors on the wharf tossed up their caps, our officers leaped upon the bulwarks to wave their hats in reply.

In a few minutes the steamer had passed the promontory, and only the scream of the sea-gulls answered our farewell to the American Tropics.

Don't tell me they 're only driven by the wind;
I am sure they 're doing just as they 've a mind.
See those two go racing swiftly down the street!
Red 's ahead, now yellow, which think you will
beat?

Over in that corner there's a dancing-class,
See them wildly waltzing o'er the withered grass.
They have lively music, led by Mr. Breeze,
Listen to his whistling up there in the trees.
Some have gone in swimming down in yonder
nook,

See that host of bathers diving in the brook.
There a crowd has gathered in an eager talk,
Now they're widely scattered all along the walk.
So they gayly frolic through the sunny hours,
Careless of the winter with its icy showers;
But the cold is coming, and the snow-drifts deep,
When, their playtime over, quietly they 'll sleep.

IT was a particularly fascinating kite, to begin with. It was made of gay Japanese paper, ornamented with figures even more grotesque and charming than usual. A woman, who seemed to be dressed in a pink-and-yellow meal-bag, with a red parasol over her head, was blowing soap

bubbles from a queer, long pipe, while three or four children-apparently put together after the fashion of jumping-jacks, and experiencing no difficulty in extending their legs at right angles with their bodies-were capering, to show their delight, and five curious animals stood on their heads.