of me at times, and it was destined to be a trip of which I shall always retain very vivid recollections.  On this occasion, owing to the excessive rains, all the little mountain streams, which under normal circumstances are of no inconvenience to travellers, had been converted into veritable roaring torrents, causing me on more than one occasion to think twice before attempting a crossing.  To condense matters as much as possible, let me remark that it rained all day; travelling was not only difficult but positively dangerous, and I, being so ill, could hardly keep my seat on my mule.  All this made travelling so slow that I was still a long way from “El Injenio,” my objective point for the night, when darkness overtook me.  I had the narrow, dangerous paths to go along which I have already described, and I therefore did not trust to getting over them on muleback, but took the safer and, in my opinion, more sensible plan of leading my animal.  This was tedious work, but it was to become worse very soon.  I arrived at one of those swollen mountain streams, the appearance of which in the darkness fairly frightened me.  My mule would not look at it, and for a while I did not know exactly what to do.  I could judge that it was four or five feet deep, and rushing past at a great rate.  Neither mule nor I could ever have hoped to keep our feet if we had attempted crossing, as it was about thirty feet wide.  I left my mule and commenced to reconnoitre along the side, when I came to what had been a bridge, but which was partly washed away, leaving a gap of about four feet in the middle, as far as I could judge in the uncertain light, and over which it was impossible for a mule to go.  Leaving my mule, I made a good jump, and, fortunately, got over all right, but, after all, I did not know in the least where I was, and, before attempting to return to my animal, I started to go forward in the hope of at least striking some sheltered spot where I might pass the night.  Meantime, however, I heard a crash, and, as it turned out, away had gone the remainder of the bridge, leaving me on one side, and now completely isolated from my mule and saddle-bags.  There was no use fretting, so I continued moving on—­it was now dark—­feeling my way, and keeping very carefully away from the river.  I had not proceeded very far before my progress was all too suddenly arrested.  I did not until the next morning know what actually did take place, but the facts are as follows:  In groping my way along I had actually been walking on the very edge of a sort of precipice, and apparently had simply stepped over the side.  At any rate, I rolled to the bottom, which, luckily for me, was only about fifteen feet; but it was quite a bump, and I wondered where I had actually landed.  As it was so black, and I did not know anything of my surroundings, I simply made up my mind to remain where I had fallen until morning.  I ought to tell you that, although I had plenty of matches, they were all wet with the rain, so that they would not