A REGION OF FIRE. 



67 



urnino repeated his 'sta bueno, with which he had 

 cheered us through all the perplexities of the day, and 

 we determined to set out again. Neither of us had any 

 luggage he was willing to leave, for in all probability 

 he would never see it again. We loaded our saddle- 

 beasts and walked. Immediately on leaving the village 

 we commenced ascending the mountain of Aguachapa, 

 the longest and worst in the whole road, in the wet sea- 

 son requiring two days to cross it. A steep pitch at 

 the beginning made me tremble for the result. The as- 

 cent was about three miles, and on the very crest, im- 

 bowered among the trees, was a blacksmith's shop, 

 commanding a view of the whole country back to the 

 village, and on the other side, of the slope of the mount- 

 ain to the plain of Aguachapa. The clink of the ham- 

 mer and the sight of a smith's grimed face seemed a 

 profanation of the beauties of the scene. Here our dif- 

 ficulties were over ; the rest of our road was down hill. 

 The road lay along the ridge of the mountain. On our 

 right we looked down the perpendicular side to a plain 

 two thousand feet below us ; and in front, on another 

 part of the same plain, were the lake and town of 

 Aguachapa. Instead of going direct to the town, we 

 turned round the foot of the mountain, and came into 

 a field smoking with hot springs. The ground was 

 incrusted with sulphur, and dried and baked by sub- 

 terranean fires. In some places were large orifices, 

 from which steam rushed out violently and with noise, 

 and in others large pools or lakes, one of them a 

 hundred and fifty feet in circumference, of dark brown 

 water, boiling with monstrous bubbles three or four feet 

 high, which Homer might have made the head-waters 

 of Acheron. All around, for a great extent, the earth 

 was in a state of combustion, burning our boots and 



