Chap. VII. LA SALINA — BRITO. 103 
the trees of which become taller and of a more vigorous 
growth as the traveller approaches the ocean. In this 
forest I came to a rivulet of the clearest water, running 
over a bed of sand and pebbles, and full of little fishes and 
delicate univalve shells ; and here I hit upon the signals 
of the surveying engineers of the canal company. Emerging 
from the forest I came to a place called La Salina, being 
a salt-marsh surrounded by a growth of shrubs of a very 
peculiar character. Some Indians were here to fetch a 
mule's load of salt, which at the dry portions thinly 
covered the ground. Where the bottom was not dry it 
formed a deep mud of a stiff clayey consistence, and ap- 
peared to be impassable. 
Where the ocean opened to the view, the coast swept 
in a long, smooth bend from north-west to south-east. As 
far as I could see, there was nothing but a beach of one or 
two hundred paces between the water and the trees of the 
forest. Nothing could be smoother and cleaner than the 
white sand of this beach, but here and there a black rugged 
cliff stood out from it, where, as the long swell of the 
Pacific, in regular intervals, rolled over the beach, each 
wave was dashed into a cloud of spray. In the south- 
eastern direction the Punta de Santa Helena, one of the 
western headlands of the mountains of Costarica, closed 
the view. 
It had been my intention to proceed along the coast in 
that direction as far as the little bay of Concordia, or San 
Juan del Sur, which at that time was an uninhabited 
district, like that called Brito, where I now found myself. 
My guide, however, assured me that I could neither pass 
along the coast, as some cliffs, he said, interrupted the line 
of beach, nor through the forest, where there was no road 
in the direction I intended to travel. Thus I was obliged 
