suspicious rumours, and without much ado, we at once started on a farcical search of hide-and-seek along the outskirts of the jungles; and presently found ourselves floundering in treacherous quicksands which were terribly dangerous; so much so indeed that the local guides, who were slowly and cautiously directing our course, informed us that even elephants would not escape being swallowed up bodily, if they ventured over some of them.
Really, our adventurous ride across these quicksands, though it may not have been a military spectacle of an imposing kind, in the equestrian art it certainly presented a very laughable scene; and the climax in the comical performance was reached, when suddenly we were compelled to hold on like “grim death” to frantic horses plunging, rearing, struggling, wriggling, in short performing a sort of romping “Sir Roger de Coverley,” or a fantastic rocking-horse dance, in their nondescript efforts to get through these frightful sands. At length, however, we passed out of them, and found ourselves on the margin of a boundless ocean of bushes and brushwood foliage; but the sun was then setting, and it being too late, especially in a trackless wilderness like this, to proceed farther that day, we bivouacked for the night, and tried to forget our “roughings” — to use an impressive phraseology of the Corps — in repose. But the weather was bitterly cold, in fact the temperature was at freezing point, and the gnawing wind that moaned through the surrounding trees wafted slumber away.
