40 
tinued their operations, not only in the lower part of the coun¬ 
try, but also in that which extends from the- village of San 
Miguel to the hills of Petapa. Captain Robles had likewise 
examined the ground from San Miguel to the river del Corte, 
in the neighbourhood of Santa Maria Chimalapa. 
Sr. Moro now resolved to reconnoitre the points which had 
been fixed during his absence. On arriving at one of these, 
on the summit of a hill about one mile to the north of the vil¬ 
lage of San Miguel, which afterwards received in commemo¬ 
ration the name of Cerro de Albricias (Reward hill), Sr. Moro 
saw the problem at once solved. 
The Sierra Madre (or principal chain of the Andes) appears 
to be interrupted, as the engineer Cramer judiciously obser¬ 
ved, between Santa Maria Petapa and San Miguel Chimalapa. 
On the western side it descends rapidly as far as the first of 
these villages, and proceeds again suddenly towards the east 
of the second, leaving in the middle a surface comparatively 
level. To the south the small chain of Masahua and Espinosa, 
of moderate elevation, forms a barrier between this hilly tract 
of ground and the true plain, terminating at their extremities 
in two openings or gaps, through the westernmost of which 
descends the road from Chivela leading to the plain, and ano¬ 
ther through the eastern from Tarifa to the Venta de Chicapa. 
On the north, the table-land extends itself, gently descending 
as far as the Coatzacoalcos, and from thence to the Atlantic. 
The river Chicapa reaches San Miguel, occupying in its course 
from east to west the bottom of a straight dale, between two 
uninterrupted chains of mountains, and then suddenly turns 
in a southerly direction towards the plain wherein is the upper 
lagoon which receives its waters. 
Running in a line diametrically opposite to the first course of 
the Chicapa, namely, from west to east, the stream of Monetza 
joins the above river near San Miguel, by another dale, which 
in reality is only the continuation of the first, and would lead 
directly to Tarifa were it not divided from the plain on which 
this estate lies by a small chain, of which the Cerro del Con- 
vento forms a part. 
The village of San Miguel is situated in a small valley, lower 
