New Scenes and Pleasant Travelling.  
A new and agreeable sensation is a pleasant thing. It was on as bright an evening as ever shone upon Brazil, and in as fair a scene as one could wish to behold, that Martin Rattler and his friend Barney experienced a new sensation. On the wide campos, on the flower-bedecked and grassy plains, they each bestrode a fiery charger; and, in the exultation of health, and strength, and liberty, they swept over the green sward of the undulating campos, as light as the soft wind that fanned their bronzed cheeks, as gay in heart as the buzzing insects that hovered above the brilliant flowers.
 
“Oh, this is best of all!” shouted Martin, turning his sparkling eyes to Barney, as he reined up his steed after a gallop that caused its nostril to expand and its eye to dilate.
 
“There’s nothing like it! A fiery charger that can’t and won’t tire, and a glorious sweep of plain like that! Huzza! whoop!” And loosening the rein of his willing horse, away he went again in a wild headlong career.
 
“Och, boy, pull up, or ye’ll kill the baste!” cried Barney, who thundered along at Martin’s side enjoying to the full the spring of his powerful horse; for Barney had spent the last farthing of his salary on the two best steeds the country could produce, being determined, as he said, to make the last overland voyage on clipper-built animals, which, he wisely concluded, would fetch a good price at the end of the journey. “Pull up! d’ye hear? They can’t stand goin’ at that pace. Back yer topsails, ye young rascal, or I’ll board ye in a jiffy.”
 
“How can I pull up with that before me!” cried Martin, pointing to a wide ditch or gully that lay in front of them. “I must go over that first.”
 
“Go over that!” cried Barney, endeavouring to rein in his horse, and looking with an anxious expression at the chasm. “It’s all very well for you to talk o’ goin’ over, ye feather; but fifteen stun—Ah, then, won’t ye stop? Bad luck to him, he’s got the bit in his teeth! Oh then, ye ugly baste, go, and my blissin’ go with ye!”
 
The leap was inevitable. Martin went over like a deer. Barney shut his eyes, seized the pommel of the saddle, and went at it like a thunder-bolt. In the excitement of the moment he shouted, in a stentorian voice, “Clap on all sail! d’ye hear? Stu’n sails and skyscrapers! Kape her steady! Hooray!”
 
It was well for Barney that he had seized the saddle. Even as it was, he received a tremendous blow from the horse’s head as it took the leap, and was thrown back on its haunches when it cleared the ditch, which it did nobly.
 
“Hallo! old boy, not hurt, I hope,” said Martin, suppressing his laughter as his comrade scrambled on to the saddle. “You travel about on the back of your horse at full gallop like a circus rider.”
 
“Whist, darlint, I do belave he has damaged my faygur-head. What a nose I’ve got! Sure I can see it mesilf without squintin’.”
 
“So you have, Barney. It’s a little swelled, but never mind. We must all learn by experience, you know. So come alone.”
 
“Hould on, ye spalpeen, till I git my wind!”
 
But Martin was off again at full speed; and Barney’s horse, scorning to be left behind, took the bit again in its teeth and went—as he himself expressed it,—“screamin’ before the wind.”
 
A new sensation is not always and necessarily an agreeable thing. Martin and Barney found it so on the evening of that same day, as they reclined (they could not sit) by the side of their fire on the campo under the shelter of one of the small trees which grew here and there at wide intervals on the plain. They had left the diamond mine early that morning, and their first day on horseback proved to them that there are shadows, as well as lights, in equestrian life. Their only baggage was a single change of apparel and a small bag of diamonds,—the latter being the product of the mine during the Baron Fagoni’s reign, and which that worthy was conveying faithfully to his employer. During the first part of the day they had ridden though a hilly and woody country, and towards evening they emerged upon one of the smaller campos, which occur here and there in the district.
 
“Martin,” said Barney, as he lay smoking his pipe, “’tis a pity that there’s no pleasure in this world without something crossgrained into it. My own feelin’s is as if I had been lately passed through a stamping machine.”
 
“Wrong, Barney, as usual,” said Martin, who was busily engaged concluding supper with an orange. “If we had pleasures without discomforts, we wouldn’t half enjoy them. We need lights and shadows in life—what are you grinning at Barney?”
 
“Oh! nothin’, only ye’re a remarkable philosopher, when ye’re in the vein.”
 
“’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.
 
Under one of these trees they reined up after a ride of two hours, and picketing their horses, prepared breakfast. It was soon despatched, and then remounting, away they went once more over the beautiful plains.
 
About mid-day, as they were hasting towards the shelter of a grove which appeared opportunely on the horizon, Barney said suddenly—
 
“Martin, lad, we’re lost! We’re out of our course, for sartin.”
 
“I’ve been thinking that for some time, Barney,” replied Martin; “but you have your compass, and we can surely make the coast by dead reckoning—eh?&rdquo............