Chap. IV. PLAIN OF JINOTEPET. 49 
character of the Mexican table-land. This kind of cactus 
is planted in some villages for enclosures of gardens and 
courtyards, to which such a fence affords the most effective 
protection. It may be called a living vegetable wall, which 
has no fault, but that it grows too high if allowed to do so ; 
the columns frequently reaching fifteen or twenty feet. 
Nothing is more easy than to plant such a fence. Old 
trunks are divided into stumps of a certain length, and 
these, taking care not to invert them by mistake, are placed 
side by side vertically in the ground, where they soon 
begin to strike root and thrive. In the more eastern, 
the lower and moister regions of the country, the pinuela 
— a kind of Bromelia or wild pine-apple — is used for 
fences. 
The western half of the road passes over a plain occu- 
pied by a savana without trees or shrubs, called the Llano 
de Jinotepet. This is the central part of a flat swell of 
country separating the slope to the Atlantic from that to 
the Pacific. To the north of this plain the volcano of 
Masaya is seen, with which a short ridge, called the Sierra 
de Masatepet, is connected. On a hill of the latter, marked 
by a group of high palm-trees, stands the village of Masa- 
tepet. To the north-east is the Mombacho, and round its 
southern foot, passing the village of Diriomo, the plain 
slopes gradually down to the lake, changing at the same 
time the character of the vegetation by its transition into a 
park-like country with groups of trees and bushes. This 
change seems to be the effect of the greater moisture of the 
local climate of the south-western side of the mountain. 
As is the case with other high peaks of this region, the lee 
or south-western side of the Mombacho is moistened, even 
during the dry season, when the country around is parched, 
by an almost daily atmospheric exudation of a very re- 
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