We were now at the base of the St. Mark’s mountain, which rises just back of the town of Porto Plata. The so-called road was no road at all. There were little narrow trenches running between the rocks, fit for pack-mules, but scarcely wide enough to allow one’s feet to pass. Up the mountain we came _poco á poco_. While passing these rocks the sun poured down with an intensity not previously experienced. But I had never been an alderman, and was not fat enough to melt; indeed, it might as well have shone on a pine knot. Ere long the sun hid behind a cloud, the thunder muttered a little, but pretty soon, as if by way of repentance, there came a restorative shower of tears. (Thank Heaven! the _nigger_ question vanquished the sun.) Nothing is so calculated to make a man vain as a mountain shower. You enjoy its ineffable sensations yourself, while below you behold the poor valley fellows sweating in the sun. Or it may be they are drowning wet below, and you basking in the clear sunshine above. Either way, you are bound to rejoice and to look with contempt on the silly ones who make themselves miserable by regretting and whining over things that are in themselves unalterable, and need no change. The wise repine not. Over the mountain and beside a stream, with limes scattered plentifully around, we stop a moment for refreshment. Lemonade is cheap, one would think; the limes are as free as the water. Had nature furnished the sweetening as well, we should have had a river of lemonade. Here country settlements begin again, called _estancias_, which, if you will get a blackboard and a piece of chalk, I will explain. Mark off, say four acres of land, clear it up--let the fruit-trees stand, of course--enclose it, but plant nothing therein. In the centre of this piece erect a shanty. This much is called a _conuco_. Now go through the woods, say a mile and a half, clear up four acres more and plant tobacco. The next year or two this will be gone to weeds; you then (not knowing the use of a plow) go another half mile, clear up another piece and plant a new crop. The old place has gone to wreck, the new place is in its vigor; but neither is in sight of the house. This together is called an _estancia_, and I should have said before meant a farm, but it does not mean a farm in English by a good deal. At this point we leave the “road,” and, under full gallop half the while, take through the wood, guided by a dim path which winds over the hills and down the dales with as careless an indiscrimination as ever road was trodden by a prairie herd. L’Ouverture’s feats or Putnam’s celebrated escape would do to read about, but this was reducing the thing to practice. Five miles’ gallop over a level plain--thirty miles in all--and we have reached Pastorisa Place: it is a perfect Arcadia.