liorses, Avliicli seemed to be strong enough for
anything and to know perfectly what they were
about, often absolutely refusing to take the path
indicated to them, and choosing one which to
onr less instructed eyes appeared ten times more
difficult. In our ride we crossed here and there
steep tracks Avinding through ravines among the
mountains, and at inteiwals an extraordinary amount
of noise, men shouting and cracking their long
hnllock AA'hips, cattle struggling and scrambling
among the loose boulders, and ahoA'e all the shrill
creaking of AA'heels announced the approach of one
of the huge drays, dragged hy ten or tAvelve pairs of
bullocks, carrying supplies to or produce from the
interior. The ponderous affair comes creaking and
groaning up to the bottom of AAdiat looks like, and
I suppose is, the dry bed of a torrent, and one cannot
at first imagine that they can mean to attempt to go
np ; after a spell of a fcAV minutes, however, they go
at it, the men shouting and lashing and every now
and then putting their shoulders to the great solid
spokeless Avheels, and to your surprise yon find that
they are making a little AAuy. One leader of a team
AA'liom AA'e spoke to had a very confident expectation,
in spite of appearances, of getting to his destination,
someAvhere a good Avay up country, in rather less than
a Aveek.
Mr. Wilson Avas obliged to he next day at Sto.
Amaro, a little toAvn about thirty miles distant, across
one of the ridges, on another river Avhere he had a
line of steamers plying, and he asked us to ride there
Avith him ; so Ave Avent back to his house and dined,
and spent the evening at his AvindoAV inhaling the