LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| Frontispiece. | |
| We were just then passing through a plantation | Page [28] |
| At last, lagging a little, our party reached the foot of the mountains | [44] |
| The basket and its bearer chased one another down the hill | [50] |
| Almost immediately the foliage was pushed aside | [56] |
| On hearing the uproar two Indian women came running towards us | [65] |
| Behind us opened a dark, narrow ravine, with perpendicular sides | [74] |
| We now entered one of those glades | [82] |
| It was really a capital dinner | [101] |
| The dog began to howl desperately | [114] |
| A flock of vultures attracted our attention | [121] |
| Lucien loudly called out to me | [126] |
| Sumichrast halted near three gigantic stones | [146] |
| A labyrinth of rocks brought us out in front of a stony rampart more than a hundred feet in height | [152] |
| Sunset surprised us ere we had finished our labor | [156] |
| A shrub kept him from falling into the gulf | [169] |
| The cataract | [174] |
| Fall of Ingénio (from a drawing by the Marquis of Radepoint) | [177] |
| A tiger-cat bounded forward and seized the pheasant | [191] |
| The kite avoided the shock, and continued to rise in the air. | [202] |
| It looked like an immense pedestal, surmounted by two bronze statues | [210] |
| Above us, the trees crossed their branches | [218] |
| Then Sumichrast slid down the cord to the tree | [223] |
| I then ordered the Indian to light the fire | [227] |
| The wildest dreams could not picture a stranger style of architecture | [241] |
| Five or six skulls seemed to glare at me through their empty orbits | [245] |
| Crater of Popocatepetl | [249] |
| Our two scouts climbed some enormous heaps of rocks | [262] |
| The animal continued to retreat before him, and led him to the mouth of a cave | [266] |
| They were at once saluted by a platoon fire | [273] |
| I at once recognized the black sugar-cane snake | [279] |
| Following in Indian file, we ascended the course of the stream | [287] |
| The rocks came rolling down; dashing together under the impulse of a liquid avalanche | [291] |
| L'Encuerado set to work to plait us hats | [295] |
| I used to go iguana hunting with my brothers | [301] |
| The moon rose, and rendered the illusion more striking | [307] |
| The sand rose rapidly, whirling round and round | [314] |
| Everywhere the cactus might be seen assuming twenty different shapes | [318] |
| The water disappeared under a low arch | [341] |
| Four children appeared | [346] |
| An animal came tumbling down about ten paces from us | [358] |
| The sun was just setting | [362] |
| L'Encuerado was pressing his arm and uttering cries of pain | [365] |
| The Terre-Chaude was stretched out at my feet | [373] |
| And the Indian went away, saluting | [379] |
| I threw a stone at the beast | [383] |
| There was a whole tribe of monkeys frolicking about | [397] |
| I looked in vain for the cougar | [403] |
| L'Encuerado turned three somersets | [407] |
| It stood up on its hind legs | [417] |
| The bank to the right was covered with cranes, and that to the left with spoonbills | [422] |
| The head and bright eyes of a superb jaguar appeared about fifty paces from us | [426] |
| We now came upon some creeping plants | [430] |
| The monkey slid down, and fell dead at our feet | [435] |
| In front of us opened a glade, bordered by tall palm-trees | [442] |
| A band of peccaries were pursuing us | [447] |
| The banks of the river were covered with alligators | [454] |
| The Indian and his branch descended with a splash into the river | [458] |
| The entire drove dashed at full gallop into the stream | [461] |
| The reeds were pushed aside | [468] |
| The deer sank down under the weight of a puma | [472] |
| While the moon dimly lighted up the landscape. | [475] |
| Lucien began to repeat to the parrots the names of Hortense and Emile | [479] |
| We had to cross some muddy marshes | [486] |
Also numerous Woodcuts embodied in, and illustrative of, the text.
INTRODUCTION.
The evening before leaving for one of my periodical excursions, I was putting in order my guns, my insect-cases, and all my travelling necessaries, when my eldest son, a lad nine years old, came running to me in that wheedling manner—using that irresistible diplomacy of childhood which imposes on fathers and mothers so many troublesome treaties, and which children so well know how to assume when they desire to obtain a favor.
"Are you going to make as long a journey as you did last month?" he asked.