192 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Cli. XL 



to see for myself what supply of labour could be obtained, 

 but the journey was a long and toilsome one, and it was 

 not until the labour question became urgent that I 

 resolved to undertake it. 



Having determined on the journey, I soon completed 

 my preparations. I took my Mestizo boy, Bito, with 

 me ; Velasquez was to join me on the road ; a pack mule 

 carried our equipment, consisting of some bread, rugs, a 

 large waterproof sheet, a change of clothes, and a ham- 

 mock. We started at seven o'clock on the morning of 

 the llth July, and, as usual, made very slow progress 

 through the forest as far as Pital, in consequence of the 

 badness of the road, which was now worse than when I 

 had passed over it a month before. After reaching the 

 savannahs, we proceeded more rapidly. We followed 

 the Juigalpa road until we got two leagues beyond 

 Libertad, when we turned more to the north, taking a 

 path that led over mountain ranges. This road was 

 very rocky and steep ; we were continually ascending or 

 descending, and as it rained all the afternoon, the footing 

 for our beasts was very bad. I was riding on a horse, 

 and he not being so sure-footed or so cautious as a mule, 

 often stumbled on the steep and slippery slopes. In some 

 places the path led along the top of the narrow ridge of a 

 long hog-backed hill, in others by a series of zigzags, we 

 surmounted or came down the precipitous slopes. I 

 nearly came to grief at one place. We had climbed up 

 one of these steep hills, and at the top a rocky shelf or 

 cap had to be leaped, at right angles to the narrow path 

 that slanted up the face of the hill. I put my horse to 

 it, but he slipped on the smooth rock and fell. If he had 

 gone back over the narrow path, he must have rolled 



