nor gleam of twinkling star by night. The rivers had overflowed, and the lowlands were inundated. There was no visible object to direct the traveller; no shelter, no defence, no aid, no guide. Was it Providence-was it the strong instinct of maternal love, which led this courageous woman through the depths of the pathless woods-where rivulets, swollen to torrents by the rains, intercepted her at every step; where the thorny lianas, twining from tree to tree, opposed an almost impenetrable barrier; where the mosquitoes hung in clouds upon her path; where the jaguar and the alligator lurked to devour her; where the rattlesnake and the waterBerpent lay coiled up in the damp grass, ready to spring at her; where she had no food to support her exhausted frame, but a few berries, and the large black ants which build their nests on the trees? How directed-how sustained-cannot be told; poor woman herself could not tell. All that can be known with any certainty is, that the fourth rising sun beheld her at San Fernando; a wild, and wasted, and fearful object; her feet swelled and bleeding her hands torn-her body covered with wounds, and emaciated with famine and fatigue; -but once more near her children! the For several hours she hovered round the hut in which she had left them, gazing on it from a distance with longing eyes and a sick heart, without daring to advance: at length she perceived that all the inhabitants had quitted their cottages to attend vespers; then she stole from the thicket, and approached, with faint and timid steps, the spot which contained her heart's treasures. She entered, and found her infants left alone, and playing together on a mat; they screamed at her appearance, so changed was she by suffering; but when she called them by name, they knew her tender voice, and stretched out their little arms towards her. In that moment, the mother forgot all she had endured-all her anguish, all her fears, every thing on earth but the objects which blessed her eyes. She sat down between her childrenshe took them on her knees—she clasped them in an agony of fondness to her bosom-she covered them with kisses-she shed torrents of tears on their little heads, as she hugged them to her. Suddenly she remembered where she was, and why she was there; new terrors seized her; she rose up hastily, and, with her babies in her arms, she staggered out of the cabin-fainting, stumbling, and almost blind with loss of blood and inanition. She tried to reach the woods, but too feeble to sustain her burden, which yet she would not relinquish, her limbs trembled, and sank beneath her. moment an Indian, who was watching the public oven, perceived her. He gave the alarm by ringing a bell, and the people rushed forth, gathering round Guahiba with fright and astonishment. They gazed upon her as if upon an apparition, till her sobs, and imploring looks, and trembling and wounded limbs, convinced them that she yet lived, though apparently nigh to death They this looked upon her in silence, and then at each other; their savage bosoms were touched with commiseration for her sad plight, and with admiration, and even awe, at this unexampled heroism of maternal love. While they hesitated, and none seemed willing to seize her, or to take her children from her, Father Gomez, who had just landed on his return from Javita, approached in haste, and commanded them to be separated. Guahiba clasped her children closer to her breast, and the Indians shrunk back. "What!" thundered the monk: "will ye suffer this woman to steal two precious souls from heaven? -two members from our community? See ye not, that while she is suffered to approach them, there is no salvation for either mother or children ?-part them, and instantly!" The Indians, accustomed to his ascendency, and terrified at his voice, tore the children of Guahiba once more from her feeble arms; she uttered nor word, nor cry, but sunk in a swoon upon the earth. While in this state, Father Gomez, with a cruel mercy, ordered her wounds to be carefully dressed; her arms and legs were swathed with cotton handages; she was then placed in a canoe, and conveyed to a mission, far, far off, on the river Esmeralda, beyond the Upper Orinoco. She continued in a state of exhaustion and torpor during the voyage; but after being taken out of the boat and carried inland, restoratives brought her back to life, and to a sense of her situa tion. When she perceived, as reason and consciousness returned, that she was in a strange place, unknowing how she was brought thereamong a tribe who spoke a language different from any she had ever heard before, and from whom, therefore, according to Indian prejudices, she could hope nor aid nor pity;-when she recollected that she was far from her beloved children;when she saw no means of discovering the bearing or the distance of their abode. -no clue to guide her back to it :-then, and only then, did the mother's heart yield to utter despair; and thenceforward refusing to speak or to move, and obstinately rejecting all nourishment, thus she died. The boatman, on the river Atabapo, suspend his oar with a sigh as he passes the ROCK OF THE MOTHER. He points it out to the trav eller, and weeps as he relates the tale of her sufferings and her fate. Ages hence, when these solitary regions have become the seats of civilization, of power, and intelligence; when the pathless wilds, which poor Guahiba traversed in her anguish, are replaced by populous cities, and smiling gardens, and pastures, and waving harvests,--still that dark rock shall stand, frowning o'er the stream; tradition and history shall pre |