LA ESPERANZA 43 



from the sea, and the sight of these mountains 

 eight or ten miles inland is superb. From Gua- 

 jaibon, vague and indistinct in the east, to 

 Azucar in the west — a stretch of seventy miles — 

 the sierras fill the southern prospect. We could 

 distinguish the San Andres Range, unknown to 

 naturalists, the Mogotes de la Sagua, that final 

 scene of Arango's exploration when as a feeble 

 old man and partially paralyzed he had sought to 

 make a last stand in his labors against the grim 

 old monster that conquered him a few months 

 later. After many hardships he reached these 

 great mogotes only to be driven away by the natives 

 as a suspicious character. Next in line comes the 

 precipitous Mogote de la Mina towering like a 

 volcanic cone amid a fringe of lower hills; then, 

 just opposite us, arises the almost vertical twelve 

 hundred feet wall of the Costanera de San Vicente 

 — ending abruptly in a deep narrow pass. This is 

 followed by the equally abrupt walls of the Cos- 

 tanera del Abra. Off to the western limit of vision 

 could be seen the curiously shaped Mogote de 

 Pan de Azucar, and lastly, the indistinct mass of 

 the Sierra de Pan de Azucar. 



Various members of our party had at one time 



