BAD ROADS.                               289
breakfast, or dinner, when, spreading a poncho upon the
rich herbage, a siesta forms a pleasant finale to the lazy
toying with that wondrous creation of Nature, the sensitive
plant, whose tender petals seem to fold themselves up even
at the breath of man.
Our afternoon journey of this day was not soon to be
forgotten, for we all had deep experience of St Domingo
mud on the roads, which were almost impassable.
The Professor led the way through one quagmire ; but
the author, coming next, turned a little aside, and in went
his horse up to the girths in sticky, pasty mud. Spurrings
and lashings, answered by wild efforts on the part of the
horse to extricate himself, only served to fix them deeper
in the ditch, until the horse, infuriated and frightened,
seemed ready to fall over on his rider.
** Jump for it ! " shouted the Professor ; and jump I did,
plump over my heavy boot-tops into the mud ; but throwing
myself forward to the solid ground with the reins still in
hand, succeeded, with whip and shouts, in pulling my now
unburdened horse through to terra firma, where he stood
trembling like an aspen, the only question between us
being which was the muddiest.
The Commissioner and the Doctor, profiting by my sad
example, wisely made a detour through a short bypath in
the woods, and came through without mishap ; but we
were all glad enough when the Professor turned aside into
the very bed of a stream in preference to taking the road,
and following up its course, we had sure, gravelly bottom,
even if it was at the cost of being occasionally splashed
with pure water. That wild, strange scene I think none
of us will ever forget, as, pursuing our way, we rode through
a narrow bottom-land, in the centre of which was the little
stream, over which and our heads would sometimes meet
and entwine so thickly the branches and foliage of the trees
on its banks, that sunlight was entirely excluded ; and then
through openings in the bushes we caught a view of groups
T