At Zacapa we left the volcanic region; and afterwards we saw no more lava or tufa, but a formation resembling old red sandstone, mica schist, slates, milk-quartz, and some serpentine. We were then in the metamorphic mountain-belt. The shapes of the hills of course changed with their geological nature, and we missed the beautiful cones that had formed a characteristic of our daily landscape since we had our first glimpse of Tajumulco from the Chixoy valley many weeks before. On this road we saw the Palo Cortez,—one of the most splendid flowering-trees I ever saw. It was large, leafless, and covered with dark-pink flowers. Never in large numbers, it brightened the dark forests with its mass of rich color, and as many as five or six would be in sight at once. Surely we could have made a calendar marked by some remarkable plant each day; and this Sunday was a red-letter day, marked by this tree named in honor of the great Conquistador. A fine arborescent composite, with dark-orange blossoms of the size and shape of thistles, closely recalled the Hesperomannia that my dear friend Horace Mann (the younger) discovered during our explorations in the Hawaiian Islands, twenty years before. In the afternoon we passed the rancho of Don Cayetano, where we saw good cattle, but did not stop until some distance beyond, when we boiled our coffee by the roadside and I photographed our travelling arrangements. Although we arrived at Gualan at half-past five, we had more than the usual trouble in finding a lodging; but at last a deaf old man, who was also burdened with a large goitre, took us into his comfortable house of two rooms, while Santiago, who professed to be familiar with the place, took our animals in charge. The town was insignificant and decayed, although on the main road from Guatemala City to the coast. After a supper of the toughest meat we had found in this republic, our host gave us his daughter’s room; and while Frank attempted to make the little bed comfortable, I slung my hammock from the dusty rafters. The daughter, about sixteen, was rather pretty, and we were sorry to incommode her; but she turned in with the old man, and we could hear that they were both asleep long before we got used to the squeaking noise of a lizard in the thatch and to the showers of dust every motion of my hammock shook down from above.