Explore "In Search of the Castaways" by Jules Verne on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They set out at daybreak. The horses advanced at a brisk pace among the tufts of paja-brava, a kind of grass that serves the Indians as a shelter during the storms. At certain distances, but less and less frequent, pools of shallow water contributed to the growth of willows and a certain plant which is found in the neighborhood of fresh water. Here the horses drank their fill, to fortify themselves for the journey. Thalcave, who rode in advance, beat the bushes, and thus frightened away the cholinas (vipers), while the agile Thaouka bounded over all obstacles, and aided his master in clearing a passage for the horses that followed.
Early in the afternoon, the first traces of animals were encountered -- the bones of an innumerable drove of cattle, in whitened heaps. These fragments did not extend in a winding line, such as animals exhausted and falling one by one would leave behind them. Thus no one, not even Paganel, knew how to explain this chain of skeletons in a space comparatively circumscribed. He therefore questioned Thalcave, who was not at a loss for a reply.