The first trait of aboriginal character (after this parenthetical alacrity at drunkenness) was shown after some hours of marching and the passage of a dozen streams.  The porters, weakened by their drink and the extreme heat, squatted down on the side of a hill by their own consent and with a single impulse.  With that lamb-like placidity and that mule-like obstinacy which characterize the antique race of Quechuas, they observed to the chief interpreter that they were weary of falling on their backs or their stomachs at every other step, and that they were resolved to go no farther.  Pepe Garcia caused the remark to be repeated once more, as if he had not understood it:  then, convinced that an incipient rebellion was brewing, he sprang upon the fellow who happened to be nearest, haled him up from the ground by the ears, and, shaking him vigorously, proceeded to do as much for the rest of the band.  In the flash of an eye, much to their astonishment, they found themselves on their feet.

A judicious if not very discriminating award of blows from the sabre then followed, causing the Indians to change their resolve of remaining in that particular spot, and to show a lively determination to get away from it as quickly as possible.  Each porter, forgetting his fatigue, and seeming never to have felt any, began to trot along, no longer languidly as before, but with a precision of step and a firmness in his round calves which surprised and charmed the travelers.  Pepe Garcia, much refreshed by this exercise of discipline, and perspiring away his intoxication as he marched, began to give grounds for confidence from his steady and authoritative manner.  By nightfall the whole troop was in harmony, and the strangers retired with hopeful hearts to the privacy of the hammocks which Juan of Aragon slung amongst the trees on the side of Mount Morayaca.

No effect could seem finer, to wanderers from another latitude, than this first night-bivouac in the absolute wilderness.  The moon, seeming to race through the clouds, and the camp-fire flashing in the wind, appeared to give movement and animation to the landscape.  The Indians, grouped around the flame, seemed like swarthy imps tending the furnace of some fantastic pandemonium.  Meanwhile, amidst the constant murmurs of the trees, the nephew of Aragon was heard drawing the notes of some kind of amorous despair from the hollow of his melodious calabash.  The examinador and Colonel Perez lulled themselves to sleep with a conversation about the beauties and beatitudes of their wives, now playing the part of Penelopes in their absence.  To hear the eulogies of the examinador, an angel fallen perpendicularly from heaven could hardly have realized the physical and moral qualities of the spouse he had left in Sorata.  The Castilian tongue lent wonderful pomp and magnificence to this portrait, and as the metaphors thickened and the superb phrases lost themselves in hyperbole, one would have thought