70 GUATEMALA. 
them to coast the northern shore, when, as we after¬ 
wards learned, the law directed our course southward to 
Izabal, the port of entry, where we should have obtained 
a permit to proceed on our voyage inland. Our map in¬ 
dicated the course we selected as the shorter to the mouth 
of the Rio Polochic ; but the map was, as usual, wrong. 
There was not much to see, as the mist and rain hid 
the mountains and hung low on the shores, driving us 
frequently under our rubber roof. Whenever the mist 
lifted we caught glimpses of the far southern shore, with 
the grand wall of the Sierra de las Minas catching the 
fleecy clouds on every black pinnacle ; and the clearing 
sky attracted us still closer to the northern shore, where 
we could see a low wooded country backed by a high 
range of mountains, with here and there an opening 
through which some stream reached the lake. At two 
o’clock we landed at Sauce, on a beach of black sand, 
evidently volcanic, scattered with fragments of chalcedony 
and agatized wood, — a formation which puzzled me ex¬ 
ceedingly, as all this region is supposed to be non-volcamc. 
We had no time to follow th.e beach to ascertain the ex¬ 
tent of black sand, but it reached far beyond the few com¬ 
fortable huts on the shore, — as far, indeed, as we could 
go into the jungle inland. In it grew luxuriantly limes, 
bananas, mangoes, and other cultivated plants not recog 
nized. Goyavas grew to a large size, but all the fruit was 
ruined by worms. 
Here first we saw the whole process of tortilla-making. 
The maiz was hulled in lime-water, washed in the lake, 
and ground laboriously on a stone metatle into a consistent 
paste, which is then skilfully patted into cakes from four 
to six inches in diameter, round and thick as an ordinary 
