We rode on and downward, toward a spot where we expected to find water.  Our Negroes had lagged behind with the provisions; and, hungry and thirsty, we tethered our horses to the trees at the bottom of a gully, and went down through the bush toward a low cliff.  As we went, if I recollect, we found on the ground many curious pods, {224} curled two or three times round, something like those of a Medic, and when they split, bright red inside, setting off prettily enough the bright blue seeds.  Some animal or other, however, admired these seeds as much as we; for they had been stripped as soon as they opened, and out of hundreds of pods we only secured one or two beads.

We got to the cliff—­a smugglers’ crack in the rock, and peered down, with some disgust.  There should have been a pole or two there, to get down by:  but they were washed away; a canoe also:  but it had been carried off, probably out of the way of the surf.  To get down the crack, for active men, was easy enough:  but to get up again seemed, the longer we looked at it, the more impossible, at least for me.  So after scrambling down, holding on by wild pines, as far as we dare—­during which process one of us was stung (not bitten) by a great hunting-ant, causing much pain and swelling—­we turned away; for the heat of the little corner was intolerable.  But wistful eyes did we cast back at the next point of rock, behind which broke out the tantalising spring, which we could just not reach.

We rode on, sick and sorry, to find unexpected relief.  We entered a clearing, with Bananas and Tanias, Cacao and Bois Immortelle, and better still, Avocado pears and orange-tree, with fruit.  A tall and stately dame was there; her only garment a long cotton-print gown, which covered her tall figure from throat to ankle and wrist, showing brown feet and hands which had once been delicate, and a brown face, half Spanish, half Indian, modest and serious enough.  We pointed to a tall orange-tree overhead, laden with fruit of every hue from bright green to gold.  She, on being appealed to in Spanish, answered with a courteous smile, and then a piercing scream of—­’Candelaria, come hither, and get oranges for the Governor and other senors!’ Candelaria, who might have been eighteen or twenty, came sliding down under the Banana-leaves, all modest smiles, and blushes through her whity-brown skin.  But having no more clothes on than her mother, she naturally hesitated at climbing the tree; and after ineffectual attempts to knock down oranges with a bamboo, screamed in her turn for some Jose or Juan.  Jose or Juan made his appearance, in a ragged shirt.  A lanky lad, about seventeen years old, he was evidently the oaf or hobbedehoy of the family, just as he would have been on this side of the sea; was treated as such; and was accustomed to be so treated.  In a tone of angry contempt (the poor boy had done and said nothing) the two