Early one morning Frank and I rode out of the city and up hill to an elevation of twelve hundred feet, passing the aqueduct and getting several fine views of the capital,—better in some respects than the view from the Cerro del Carmen; for now the two volcanoes were clear. As the road was excellent, and our animals were in thorough trim, we both got more enjoyment in the saddle than from almost any other mode of sight-seeing. We were leaving the volcanoes of Antigua; but Pacaya was before us, and we had entered a distinctly volcanic region. We passed several small villages, in one of which we breakfasted on honey and tortillas. Cerro Redondo is a small hamlet of perhaps a thousand inhabitants, whose chief occupation is coffee-culture. The “round hill” which gives the name is a small, very regular volcanic cone,—one of a number less regular extending towards the Pacific coast. Here in the road-cut were black volcanic sands and plenty of vesicular lava. As the daylight waned, we met men, women, and children coming from their day’s work in the cafétal, and a contented, happy company they were. We did not arrive at the chief town of the Department of Santa Rosa, Cuajinicuilapa,—or Cuilapa, as it is often abbreviated,—until nine o’clock. Here we found a wretched posada, where we shared our room with an enormous cockroach an inch wide and two and three quarter inches long. Although we had a letter to the Jefe from the Department of State, we did not care to wait in the morning for him to get up; so after climbing into the church-tower and over the roof, we rode on to the fine old bridge over the Rio de los Esclavos. This, consisting of ten masonry arches spanning a rocky ravine, bears the dates 1592-1852. Our path followed the valley for some time, and at a convenient place we had a bath in the rapid river, whose waters were agreeably cool. As we left the river our path led up a very steep ascent nearly eighteen hundred feet. On the way we had several fine views of the “Hunapu” volcanoes,—Pacaya, Fuego, Agua, and Acatenango,—clustered together, and in the clear atmosphere seeming to be close at hand. Pacaya seemed to have the largest crater, while Agua had none visible from this side. On the top of this “ladder” we rested our animals on a grassy plain where they could pasture. We had noticed cotton-trees (_Bombax_) on the way up, and we found some wild pines that the men repairing the road had left, and we tracked the fruit, which is pleasantly acid, to the pines used here for hedging (_Bromelia Pinguin_). The curious umbrella-ants (_Œcodoma_) were common on the path, each carrying its bit of leaf wherewith to stock the formicarium. A puff of the breath would overset these heavy sail-bearers, which go in Indian file. We had no time to follow them home on this occasion;[27] for when we came to Azacualpa, still some eight leagues from Jutiapa, we found this large village (twelve hundred inhabitants) had no posada.