The male inhabitants of Las Sandias were occupied in
catching these fishes with hand-nets, in the rifts and currents; and
the women were busy in cleaning and drying them. Their offal had
accumulated around the huts in offensive heaps, and gave out an odor
which was almost insupportable, but of which the women appeared to take
no notice. We did not, therefore, trespass long on their hospitality,
but returned to our boat and started back to La Union. As night came
on, the trees along the river's bank were thronged with _chachalacas_,
which almost deafened us with their querulous screams. Two
well-directed shots gave us half a dozen,--for the young _chachalaca_
is not to be despised on the table,--and we added them to our stock of
water-fowls and melons as tempting trophies to our companions from the
new Canaan on which they were venturing.
[To be continued.]
KEPLER.
The acceptance of a doctrine is often out of all proportion to the
authority that fortifies it. There are sweeps of generalization quite
permeable to objection, which yet find metaphysical support; there are
irrefragable dogmas which the mind drops as futile and fruitless. It is
recorded of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it
found reception from no physician then over forty years old.
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