Lippincott's Magazine, February 1873

air and water, under the form of a squirrel, a pair of toucans and a variety of fish, afforded a meal which the porters described as comida opipara or a sumptuous festival. Lulled and comforted by the sensation which a contented stomach wafts toward the brain, the explorers, after washing their hands and rinsing their mouths at the riverside, betook themselves to a cheerful repose _sub jove_, the locality offering no reeds of the articulated species with which to construct a shelter.

The party, then, betook themselves to slumber with unusual contentment, repeating the splendid supper in their dreams, with the addition of every famous wine that Oporto and Rheims could dispense, when they were awakened by a sudden and terrible storm. A waterspout stooped over the forest and sucked up a mass of crackling branches. The camp-fire hissed and went out in a fume of smoke. A continuity of thunder, far off at first, but approaching nearer and nearer, kept up a constant and increasing fusillade, to whose re