MARTIN RATTLER. 269

“Tis always in vain to talk philosophy to you,
Barney, so good night t’ye. Oh, dear me, I wish I

could sit down! but there’s no alternative—either bolt

 

upright or quite flat.”

In quarter of an hour they both forgot pleasures
and sorrows alike in sleep. Next day the sun rose
on the edge of the campo as it does out of the ocean,
streaming across its grassy billows, and tipping the
ridges as with ruddy gold. At first Martin and
Barney did not enjoy the lovely scene, for they felt
stiff and sore; but after half-an-hour’s ride they began
to recover, and when the sun rose in all its glory on
the wide plain, the feelings of joyous, bounding freedom
that such scenes always engender obtained the mastery,
and they coursed along in silent delight.

The campo was hard, composed chiefly of a stiff red
clay soil, and covered with short grass in most places;
but here and there were rank bushes of long hairy
grasses, around and amongst which grew a multitude
of the most exquisitely beautiful flowerets and plants
of elegant forms. Wherever these flowers flourished
very luxuriantly, there were single trees of stunted
growth and thick bark, which seldom rose above
fifteen or twenty feet. Besides these there were rich
flowering myrtles and here and there a grotesque

cactus or two.