108 
GUATEMALA. 
our own passage was, it was safe enough compared to 
the crossing of our animals. By the help of Xndios, we 
stretched a rope across, and finally swam all our mules 
safely. Santiago and the bridge-keeper swam splendidly 
in the rapid current, and the latter was a fine muscu¬ 
lar, lean specimen of manhood. Frank and I swam in 
as far as we dared, and landed the soaked and frightened 
animals. The bath was cool, and for the first time we 
had no thought of alligators. While I photographed the 
bridge, Frank went to the hamlet of Jocote to get eggs 
and tortillas, and Santiago boiled our coffee. Beautiful 
butterflies were hovering over the rounded pumice-stones 
strewed along the banks; and on a rock were fine 
Achimenes, the Dorstenia (which resembles botanically 
a fig turned inside out), and a wild Martynia. 
Starting again in the early afternoon, we found the 
way led up and down through the valley, until we were 
seven hundred feet above the river, which in one place 
quite disappeared beneath the limestone ledges, to reap¬ 
pear some distance beyond. On either side the steep slopes 
were covered with coarse grass • and there were many 
small, compact aloes, with broad leaves and dried flower- 
stems here and there. Among the rocks were maguey- 
plants and a few palms, — these last seemed quite out of 
place in this high, dry country. Under the pine-trees 
the sod was green, and in the small lateral valleys clear 
brooks improved the pasturage ; and here at the head of 
each larger gulch we found the deserted camps of the 
mozos de cargo. 
After many turns we came at six o’clock to the village 
of Chicaman, just as the rain began to fall. This hamlet 
is on the north side of broken hills, and overlooks the 
