THE VOLCANO IRAZU 123 



high. Other turns in the road showed us Cartago far be- 

 low, the white fronts of its houses making conspicuous white 

 lines as the sun shone on them. 



A mile or so after leaving the farm we entered the forest 

 and here began the really hard part of the climb for the 

 horses, as the trail is steep and there are many projecting 

 roots to climb over — or stumble over if the horse is careless. 

 It is a singularly impressive forest. The oaks composing it 

 are of great size, very spreading and are covered with gray- 

 green lichen so that they look almost unreal. In places the 

 shade was dense, in others the sunlight filtered through and 

 Its warmth was quite welcome. There were many beautiful 

 flowers. Along the roadsides from the Lecheria up to the 

 upper timber line we saw numbers of a pretty blue flag-like 

 plant and great quantities of tall forget-me-nots with the 

 usual blue and pink flowers. In the forest shade we par- 

 ticularly noticed the handsome Siphocampylus regelii and 

 Cavendishia veraguensis, both having conspicuous red blos- 

 soms. The air was sweet with the fragrance of flowers and 

 the glorious freshness of the mountain air. Many birds 

 were singing, their notes nearly all dlfi"erent from any we 

 heard at Cartago. 



After about a mile and a half of this forest path we came 

 out abruptly on the cinders of the cone. There is no grad- 

 ual diminution in size in the oaks; on the contrary they end 

 suddenly so that it is possible to draw a line on one side of 

 which are large trees, on the other none. This line is of 

 course very sinuous but there Is no difficulty in tracing it. 

 In the forest the soil is black volcanic ash, while on the cin- 

 der cone the particles are much coarser. The trails over 

 the cinder cone look like artificial cinder paths, winding 

 through the bushes and flowers. The vegetation growing 

 on the cinders, while quite abundant, Is not uniformly dis- 

 tributed but grows in patches or "islands," so that Irazu 



