Martin laughed heartily at the grave, anxious expression of his comrade’s face.  “Never mind, Barney,” he said, “a beard and moustache will improve you vastly.  Besides, they will be a great protection against mosquitoes; for you are such a hairy monster, that when they grow nothing of your face will be exposed except your eyes and cheek-bones.  And now,” continued Martin, climbing into his hammock again and addressing the hermit, “since you won’t allow me to go out a-hunting to-day, I would like very much if you would tell me something more about this strange country.”

“An’ may be,” suggested Barney, modestly, “ye won’t object to tell us something about yersilf,—­how you came for to live in this quare, solitary kind of a way.”

The hermit looked gravely from one to the other, and stroked his beard.  Drawing his rude chair towards the door of the hut, he folded his arms, and crossed his legs, and gazed dreamily forth upon the rich landscape.  Then, glancing again at his guests, he said, slowly:  “Yes, I will do what you ask,—­I will tell you my story.”

“An’, if I might make so bould as to inquire,” said Barney, with a deprecatory smile, while he drew a short black pipe from his pocket, “have ye got such a thing as ’baccy in them parts?”

The hermit rose, and going to a small box which stood in a corner, returned with a quantity of cut tobacco in one hand, and a cigar not far short of a foot long in the other!  In a few seconds the cigar was going in full force, like a factory chimney; and the short black pipe glowed like a miniature furnace, while its owner seated himself on a low stool, crossed his arms on his breast, leaned his back against the door-post, and smiled,—­as only an Irishman can smile under such circumstances.  The smoke soon formed a thick cloud, which effectually drove the mosquitoes out of the hut, and through which Martin, lying in his hammock, gazed out upon the sunlit orange and coffee trees, and tall palms with their rich festoons of creeping plants, and sweet-scented flowers, that clambered over and round the hut and peeped in at the open door and windows, while he listened to the hermit, who continued for at least ten minutes to murmur slowly, between the puffs of his cigar, “Yes, I will do it; I will tell you my story.”

CHAPTER XI

THE HERMIT’S STORY

“My ancestors,” began the hermit, “were among the first to land upon Brazil, after the country was taken possession of in the name of the King of Portugal, in the year 1500.  In the first year of the century, Vincent Yanez Pinçon, a companion of the famed Columbus, discovered Brazil; and in the next year, Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese commander, took possession of it in the name of the King of Portugal.  In 1503, Americus Vespucius discovered the Bay of All Saints, and took home a cargo of Brazil-wood, monkeys and parrots; but no permanent settlement was effected upon the shores of the new continent, and the rich treasures of this great country remained for some years longer buried and unknown to man,—­for the wild Indians who lived here knew not their value.