Richard says, "Fools make feasts and wise men eat them;" but I should like to hear M. Wilhelm reason out the assertion he made, by the quotation from Goethe.

66

'Well," replied M. Wilhelm-“let me see. Nothing in nature is lost ultimately."

"True; but I do not see what that has got to do with the question before us."

"But although nothing is lost ultimately," continued the German ;-" Yet very many things get lost to present use; or at least get twisted out of their legitimate use." Now for an illustration to save thought. A youth with heavier purse than brains is sowing his money broadcast to reap happiness; but his harvest is the whirlwind: good. He loses; but who gains? Nobody, you might say, but you would be wrong; for these are the gainers (1) his paramours and purveyors, and (2) their thieving customers, and through them (3) the hard-worked slaves kept in their shops to sew, sew, sew, and weigh, weigh, weigh, and parcel off all day and these last have dependents which may be only little brothers or sisters, or aged

A Song in Argument.

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parents who eke out an existence sufficiently attenuated to render them soon like Hannah More's 'spirits light as air,' 'compelled to starve at an unreal feast.' Now if a man of spirit, a wise man, if you will, appear, circumvent numbers 1 and 2 and to parody your English Pope-catch Folly's coin as it flies; don't you see that he stops the moral gap by transferring to his own wise use and dispensation what lust and thievery would have perverted?"

A very lame case, M. Wilhelm. M. Wilhelm. I fail to see in the quasi wise man's appropriation, ought else than a transference from lust to lust; lust of the flesh to lust for gold; dishonesty to dishonesty, for the fool parts not with his money without cajolery. Nor do I see how by taking the place of numbers 1 and 2, you better the condition of number 3.

"Well, let me sing you a song to put the matter in its clearest light: pity I am the only German in the company." And off he went in his rich guttural, making one laugh at some of his droll impersonations, and for the time quite dispelling the unpleasant thoughts of the conversation.

CHAPTER XXII.

SECOND DAY ON THE LLANOS.

WE arose with the moon, packed up our chinchoras, and culinary materials; crossed the Mapirito; and resumed our journey on these now seeming interminable Llanos.

The early morning travelling, aided and comforted by the moonlight, was very pleasant. By nine o'clock we reached one of the mountain ranges of the Mesa Pelona, between which runs the broad river of Tonero, a tributary of the Guanipa, one of the contributaries to the Laguna Grande. For three hours we travelled on a pedernales, a very flinty way, the pebbles having no mercy whatever on our thin and flimsy Maturin shoes. It was, however, shaded all the way by large trees, and seemed more like an extensive but neglected park, than a forest. Descending at last from this pebbly but umbrageous tract, we

crossed the Rio Tonero, and mounting another range, traversed it and halted at a hamlet just at the outskirts of the wood and savanna. To get to this sleeping place, the guide told us that we had had half an hour's journey out of our course.

The tenement in which we were about to seek a night's rest, appeared miserably squalid and unprepossessing. Several skinny pigs were roaming about, of a very good size, but wanting to be filled out with good flesh and fat. In the common room was an unhinged door on two barrels, on which was laid out and covered what we afterwards found to have been a dead body. A woman was lying down on a bench apparently ill. To lodge in such a place, would be obviously inconvenient for all parties, so we took our lodgings in a kitchen and another small hut that may have been a calf-pen or pig-stye. But what with mosquitoes and fleas, we had to keep a forced vigil with the watchers of the dead.

Our guide, while describing to us the water resources of this part of the country, said that we were then in the midst of a series of streams,

namely, the Amana, Maparita, Tonero, Caris, and Guanipa, which empty themselves into the Great Lagoon, and issue thence in one large river, the Guanipa, taking the name of the lengthiest feeder to the Lagoon, until it flows into the sea at the Boca Vagre.

"I had a donkey drowned in that same river Guanipa;" said he, “but a great way down below the Lagoon, where the water is dirty, and the banks covered with slimy mud. One of the reasons for which I like this part of the country is, not only that it is more healthy and pleasant, but fewer accidents of that sort occur. It is the same water, but it is so clear and clean, that evil things are shy of it, and play their tricks mostly where it is dark and dirty. But, as I was saying," continued 'Nor Gabriel, " I had got to the river too late to cross over that night;

ness to transact on the spot.

my donkey's legs and let him

besides, I had busiSo, as usual, I tied graze while I hung I did my business

my chinchora in the house. with the master that night, and slept there. Early in the morning, while I was warming a