Laguerre and Garcia, but I was too sleepy to try to listen, and, as I
said, Sagua did not seem to me to be the place for conspiracies and
revolutions. I left it with real regret, and as though I were parting
with friends of long acquaintanceship.

From the time we left Sagua the path began to ascend, and we rode in
single file along the edges of deep precipices. From the depths below
giant ferns sent up cool, damp odors, and we could hear the splash and
ripple of running water, and at times, by looking into the valley, I
could see waterfalls and broad streams filled with rocks, which
churned the water into a white foam. We passed under tall trees
covered with white and purple flowers, and in the branches of others
were perched macaws, giant parrots of the most wonderful red and blue
and yellow, and just at sunset we startled hundreds of parroquets
which flew screaming and chattering about our heads, like so many
balls of colored worsted.

When the moon rose, we rode out upon a table-land and passed between
thick forests of enormous trees, the like of which I had never
imagined. Their branches began at a great distance from the ground and
were covered thick with orchids, which I mistook for large birds
roosting for the night. Each tree was bound to the next by vines like
tangled ropes, some drawn as taut as the halyards of a ship, and
others, as thick as one's leg; they were twisted and wrapped around
the branches, so that they looked like boa-constrictors hanging ready
to drop upon one's shoulders. The moonlight gave to this forest of
great trees a weird, fantastic look. I felt like a knight entering an
enchanted wood. But nothing disturbed our silence except the sudden
awakening of a great bird or the stealthy rustle of an animal in the
underbrush. Near midnight we rode into a grove of manacca palms as