THE VOLCANO IRAZIJ 119 



laden with fruit, and then resumed the journey. Our first 

 plan had been to visit the crater twice on this trip, going up 

 directly from Cartago so that we would have the afternoon 

 at the summit, coming down to the Lecheria for the night, 

 revisiting the crater at sunrise and then returning to Cartago 

 in the afternoon of the second day. The Lecheria was the 

 only place where one could stay so long with horses, as the 

 last water and pasture were 1500 feet and several miles 

 below the crater. The plan would have been quite feasible 

 if we had had fair weather, but by breakfast time the clouds 

 were gathering rapidly and before we reached the fork of 

 the road, the left leading to the forest and the other to the 

 Lecheria, the rain had begun. We tried the forest a short 

 distance but the road soon became extremely slippery and the 

 clouds were now so thick on the summit that it was useless 

 to go farther, so we turned back to the Lecheria, 



This Lecheria was a large dairy farm belonging to Don 

 Ricardo Jimenez, the successful candidate for the presidency. 

 It was situated at the lower limit of the oak forest, at an alti- 

 tude of 8850 feet, in a beautiful nook between two hills. 

 Many magnificent oaks were still standing near the house. 

 The oaks of this level bore a wonderfully gorgeous parasite, 

 perhaps Loranthus {Psittacanthus) schiedeanus, which Oersted 

 collected on Irazii at 9500 feet elevation in January, 1847. 

 It had large opposite leaves of a dull dark green, and immense 

 tufts of red, red and yellow, or orange flowers. The sep- 

 arate tubular flowers are about three inches long and very 

 slender, one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch in diameter, 

 but the mass of bloom on one tree was often as large as a 

 small house and even in the gray light of cloud and rain was 

 most brilliant. 



At the Lecheria we rode into an open, covered milking- 

 shed, having a haymow above and a galvanized roof, and 

 were glad to be under shelter. The "boss" was not present, 



