of the forest could be seen a plantation of bananas, a field of sugar-cane, with groves of coffee, orange-orchards and gardens of sweet potato and pineapple.  The white visitors could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise at the neatness and civilization of such an Eden in the desert.  At this point, Juan of Aragon, who had been going on ahead, turned around with an air of splendid welcome, and explained that the farm belonged to his uncle, the gobernador of Marcapata, who prayed them to make themselves at home.  Introducing his guests into the largest of the houses, Juan presented them with some fine ripe fruit which he culled from the garden.  Colonel Perez, who never lost occasion to give a sly stab to the mozo, asked, as he peeled a banana, if he was duly authorized to dispose so readily of the property of his uncle:  the youth, without losing a particle of his magnificent adolescent courtesy, replied that as nephew and direct heir of the governor of Marcapata it was a right which he exercised in anticipation of inheritance; and that just as Pepe Garcia, the interpreter-in-chief, had regaled the party in his residence, he, Juan of Aragon, proposed to do in the family grange of Sausipata.

Meantime, the examinador, who had pushed forward with his men, returned with a couple more specimens of quinquina, which they had discovered close by in clambering amongst the forest.  Neither had flowers, but the one was recognizable by its flat leaf as the species called by the Indians ichu-cascarilla, from the grain ichu amongst which it is usually found at the base of the Cordilleras; and the other, from its fruit-capsules two inches in length, as the Cinchona acutifolia of Ruiz and Pavon.  To moderate the pleasures of this discovery, the examinador came up leaning upon the shoulder of his principal assistant, Eusebio, complaining of a frightful headache, and a weakness so extreme that he could not put one foot before the other.

The sudden illness of their botanist-in-chief cast a gloom upon the party, and utterly spoiled the festive intentions of young Aragon.  Lorenzo was put to bed, from which retreat, at midnight, his fearful groans summoned the colonel to his side.  The latter found him tossing and murmuring, but incapable of uttering a word.  His faithful Eusebio, at the head of the bed, answered for him.  The honest fellow feared lest his master might have caught again a touch of the old fever which had formerly attacked him in searching for cascarillas in the environs of Tipoani in Bolivia.  These symptoms, recurring in the lower valleys of the Cconi, would make it impossible for the brave explorer safely to continue with the party.  As the mestizo propounded this inconvenient theory, a new burst of groans from the examinador seemed to confirm it.  The grave news brought all the party to the sick bed.  Colonel Perez, whom the touching comparison of wives made in the hammocks of Morayaca had sensibly attached to Lorenzo, endeavored to feel his pulse; but the patient, drawing in his hand by a peevish movement, only rolled himself more tightly in his blanket, and increased his groans to roars.  Presently, exhausted by so much agony, he fell into a slumber.