Adventures of a Young Naturalist
dead man's flower." Afterwards I heard him sobbing.
"Oh Chema! what is the matter?" cried Lucien, running up to his friend.
The Indian raised himself and took the boy in his arms.
"Once I had a mother, brothers, and a country," he said, sadly; "and
this flower reminds me that all those are now sleeping in the grave."
"Then you don't love me?" replied Lucien, embracing him.
The only answer l'Encuerado made was pressing the boy so tightly against
his breast as to draw from him a slight cry.
This scene quite affected us, and I and my friend, side by side, walked
back to the hut deeply sunk in thought.
Hunger soon brought with it more commonplace ideas. The white and juicy
flesh of the iguana was quite a feast for us all. Our meal we sat over a
longer time than usual; for in conversation we entered upon the subject
of our native countries, and the theme appeared inexhaustible. I
reminded my friend that, only a few days before, he had shown as much
emotion as the Indian on seeing two butterflies which he fancied
belonged to a Swiss species; and I brought forward these feelings to
oppose the intention he so often expressed of taking up his abode in the
midst of the wilderness, so as to live and die in solitude.
On the great plateau the sun shines rather later than in the lower
regions. As the luminary approached the earth, the sky was lighted up
with a purple color, and I saw standing out on our left in bold relief
the jagged outline of the Cordilleras of l'Encuerado's country. The
whitish ground gradually assumed a transparent appearance; our eyes
deceived us to such an extent that we fancied we saw an immense tract of
water, above which the trees, appearing as if they were submerged,
raised their green heads.
The moon rose, and, far from destroying the mirage, it rendered the
illusion still more striking. I resolved to descend from the hill in
order to convince Lucien how much our vision was deceived.
"There is no mistake about the plain being dry," said he, as we returned
to the bivouac, "and yet one might fancy that, as we were mounting the
hill, the water was rising behind us."
"The layers of the air," I replied, "are unequally warmed, and their
refraction, which causes the rays of light to deviate in their course,
reverses the objects which cover the plain, and, on the other hand,
causes them to appear more elevated than they really are."
"So we see water in a place where in reality there is none."
"You don't take the sky into account, which is reflected on the ground
beneath us as in a mirror. But the air is becoming cooler, and you will
soon see the phenomenon slowly disappear, as if some invisible hand was
pushing the mist back towards the horizon."
While we were looking down over the plateau, and watching the mirage
gradually fade away, a distant light suddenly shone out. Loud
exclamations hailed the sight of this unknown bivouac; and, fixing our
eyes on it, we all formed endless conjectures. We had not expected to
meet with any habitation before the next day; and the cry of "land!" on
board ship after a long voyage could not have made a stronger impression
than the sight of this fire. The air was cool; still l'Encuerado was not
allowed to kindle a light, which would perhaps have betrayed us to foes.
It was now twenty days since we had met with a human being, and our
first feeling, after the instinctive joy at the idea of seeing our
fellow-creatures, was, alas! one of distrust.
CHAPTER XX.
THE MORNING AND NIGHT DEW.--THE TERRE-FROIDE.--WATER-SPOUTS AND
WHIRLWINDS.--THE BARBARY FIG-TREES.--THE CACTUS-PLANTS.--THE
VIZNAGA.--OUR HOPES DISAPPOINTED.--DON BENITO COYOTEPEC.
The sun had not risen when we were up and ready to start. We shivered
with cold, for on the great plateau which we had now reached, to which
the inhabitants of the lower regions give the name of _Terre-Froide_,
the mornings are frosty. The profound darkness was succeeded by a dim
twilight, afterwards by a fog, which penetrated our clothing as much as
rain.
"There has been no shower," cried Lucien, "and yet we are all wet."
"It is the dew, Chanito; it is almost as abundant as the night dews in
the _Terre-Chaude_."
"Are not morning and night dews the same thing?"
"Not exactly," I replied; "the morning dew is generally of a beneficial
nature; but the Mexicans dread the other, which falls after sunset, and
is said to be productive of fever."
"But from whence does all this moisture come?"
"From the air, which always contains a certain quantity, some of which
it deposits on the ground, on stones and plants, as they become cool by
radiation."
Just at this moment our attention was attracted by the first ray of the
sun, which, piercing through a light cloud, shot across the plain like a
bright arrow. The horizon, which had been visible, was now obscured by a
mist, which gradually rolled towards us. By degrees, however, it drew
off, and the trees a short distance away showed their rounded tops;
while wide breaks opened here and there in the semi-transparent veil,
and vanished as quickly as they had arisen.
The telescope was passed from hand to hand, and each tried to discover
if there was a hut where the glimmering fire had been descried the night
before. The search was in vain; the reflection of the sun's rays quite
dazzled us, and restricted the prospect; but, once in the right course,
we might advance without fear of missing our point, and, according to
our calculations, we would meet with habitations the next day or the
following.
Gringalet's tongue hung out of his mouth; he found the journey over the
nitrous soil very irksome, and the scanty leaves of the mimosa failed to
screen him from the sun. What a contrast it was to the pleasant regions
we had hitherto travelled through!
"Your country, after all, is not so nice a one as mine," said Lucien,
addressing l'Encuerado.
"My real native country is much more beautiful than that we are now in,
Chanito; in the first place, it has mountains and woods, and there it
sometimes rains."
"Shall we see any snow fall, now that we are in the _Terre-Froide_?"
"No," replied Sumichrast, smiling; "you will not see any snow before
next year, when you will be in France. The winters of the Mexican
_Terre-Froide_ are like our European springs. It is, however, never warm
enough to allow tropical fruit to ripen; but the _Terre-Froide_ only
deserves its name when it is compared with the _Terre-Chaude_ and the
_Terre-Temperee_."
"It seems to me to have been very badly named, for it is as hot now as
the day when the south wind blew so strongly. Gringalet looks as if he
was of my opinion, for he lolls his tongue out much more than usual."
"Upon my word!" cried Sumichrast, "Master Sunbeam's remark shows that he
is a first-class observer. You are as right as you can be," continued
he, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder. "In the plains of the
_Terre-Froide_ the heat is much more uncomfortable than in the
_Terre-Chaude_ itself, where an insensible perspiration always mitigates
the oppressive rays of the sun. A few days' walking in this atmosphere
will do more in bronzing our skins than all the rest of the journey."
My companion suddenly stopped short, and pointed to the horizon with his
finger.
"That's smoke," cried Lucien.
"No, Chanito," replied l'Encuerado, "it is a _tornado_."
Seeing a slender column of dust rising up to the clouds, I had, at first
sight, formed the same idea as my son. It was, in fact, nothing but a
whirlwind of dust, which disappeared soon afterwards.
"There is no wind," observed Lucien; "how is it that the dust rises so
high?"
"There is every cause for wonder," I replied, "for no _savant_ has yet
explained the real cause of this phenomenon."
"If we happened to be caught in one of these whirlwinds would it carry
us away?"
"No, Chanito," replied the Indian, "it would be content with throwing us
down."
"Then you've had some experience of them?"
"Yes; when I used to play with the children in our village, and a
_tornado_ came within reach, we were always delighted to run through
it."
About a hundred paces from us, although there was not the slightest
breeze in the air, the sand rose rapidly, whirling round and round. The
rotation did not extend over a space of more than a few feet. There was
no apparent cause for it, and the phenomenon ceased as unaccountably as
it commenced.
Lucien was of course dying with anxiety to run through one of these
_tornadoes_; but all that we saw were quite beyond reach.
"I think," said Sumichrast, addressing me, "when it is thoroughly
studied on the great plains of Mexico, we shall be able to explain the
cause of this phenomenon. In a general point of view, these whirlwinds
are nothing but water-spouts in miniature."
"A water-spout!" asked Lucien; "what is that?"
"It is a natural phenomenon very like what you have just witnessed; but
it is of a far more formidable character, for it destroys every thing it
comes in contact with!"
"Did you ever see one, papa?"
"Only once, at sea. The English steamer on which I had embarked had just
left the port of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, and we were still
coasting the island; there was but a slight breeze blowing, the sky was
clear, and the water rippled with miniature waves, when, all of a
sudden, a large tract of the sea ahead of us was violently agitated. An
enormous column of water rapidly rose, and formed something like a dark
and terrible-looking column. After about a quarter of an hour, the
fearful phenomenon, which fortunately had kept on moving before us,
remained stationary. The volume, incessantly swelling, assumed a
dark-blue shade, while the column of water, which appeared to feed a
cloud, was of a gray color. A dull roaring noise like that of distant
thunder suddenly occurred. The column broke in the middle, and the
greater portion of the liquid fell into the sea with a tremendous shock;
but the upper portion sprinkled us with a heavy shower. Half an hour
afterwards we were sailing under a cloudless sky and over an unruffled
ocean."
"And what would have happened if the water-spout had reached the ship?"
"We should most likely have been swamped."
"How dreadfully frightened you must have been, Tatita!"
"Yes, of course; and I was not the only one who was in terror; for the
officers and sailors watched the course of the water-spout with evident
anxiety."
Chatting in this way, we were now penetrating among Indian
fig-trees--_Cactus opuntia_--commonly called prickly-pear trees. These
plants, covered with yellow flowers, would, a month later, have been
hailed with shouts of joy, for each of their upper stems would then bear
one of those juicy fruits of which the Creoles are so fond. Lucien
stopped in front of two or three of these plants, the dimensions of
which were well calculated to surprise him. Sumichrast availed himself
of this inspection to tell him that the cactus, a word derived from the
Greek, and meaning _thorny_, is a native of America, and that it grows
spontaneously in dry and sandy soil.
"You have forgotten to tell him," added l'Encuerado, "that the tender
shoots of the _tunero_, baked under the ashes, will furnish us this
evening with a most delicious dish."
A little farther on, the prickly pears were succeeded by another species
called the _Cierge_ (the _Cactus cereus_ of _savants_). Several of these
plants were growing with a single stem, and measured from ten to twelve