26 Travels and Adventures 



breeze. The front of the engine is provided with two 

 bags of sand, and a boy on each side to put the sand 

 on the rails providing the wheels should revolve with- 

 out making progress in the steep ascent. After the 

 usual ceremony which accompanies all kinds of busi- 

 ness in this country, the last portly old dame, with 

 an enormous basket of fruit and some chickens, was 

 effectually stowed away in a corner and we started on 

 the journey ; at first along the shingly beach, passing a 

 horde of miserable tumble-down huts, then through a 

 fine plantation of cocoa-nut palms for several miles of 

 level road. Here began the ascent of the mountain, 

 and at the point where we lost sight of the fine sea- 

 view, together with the harbour and town of La 

 Guayra, we had already gained a quarter of a mile 

 in height. Still we continued — here winding around 

 enormous boulders, further along crossing deep ravines 

 of five hundred feet in depth on flimsy bridges over 

 which it seemed scarcely advisable to trust human life, 

 at one point creeping along the mountain side with a 

 height of half a mile above and as much of almost 

 perpendicular precipices below, amongst scenery that 

 would vie with the Alps in grandeur, but where the 

 breaking of an axle-tree would probably submit us to 

 a fate compared with which the Tay Bridge accident 

 would be merciful. The passenger cannot fail to 

 notice the extraordinary structure of the tunnels : at 



