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“A week passed. Each night, so the watchers told, the flower took to itself the heat of the fever, while Maria, feverless, slept soundly. And on the morning of the eighth day she was convalescent. But the beautiful blossom was but a withered, brown, shapeless nothing.

“‘La flor de la calentura has performed its task,’ exclaimed the joyful natives, but Maria, lovely once more with returning strength, said, ‘Alas! La flor de la calentura, the flower that saved my life, is dead.’

“And thus it was told by Maria to her grandchildren and retold by them to their grandchildren and is now known by every one in the region. Surely it must be true! Why shouldn’t it be? At any rate, it is accepted as literally by my Indians as the less pleasing story of Jonah and the whale.”

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IT has been said that civilization is but a layer-cake of eras—a building up of strata, with the brute state at the bottom. Layer upon layer, each succeeding generation adds its small bit of culture or knowledge, until a golden age is finally reached. And, sadly enough, from that age of enlightenment, the hope of the world, there has always been a rapid decline, until centuries later, perhaps, again begins the tedious gradual uplift.