Frank and Santiago had no end of difficulty in getting our animals on board the steamer; but it was done at last, as everything else that Frank attempted, and just before noon we started, after an excellent breakfast on board, in which Señor Gomez, the newly appointed Jefe politico, joined us. We were now back to the land of rains; and as we steamed across the lake to Santa Cruz we had a tropical downpour. As the steamer was out of fuel, we coasted the lake to a place about a league above Castillo de San Felipe, where, after getting some three cords of wood on board, we tied to the trees for the night. At daybreak we took on more wood, and then went on to the old fort, where the comandante had some wood to sell, and used his authority to press the soldiers and bystanders to load it. As it was Sunday there were plenty of loafers around; but one dandy who had on a clean shirt would not work, and another fellow had a stomach-ache and could not; but the military authority was respected, and the wood soon loaded. The pilot-house was a fine, roomy place on the upper deck, and our comfort was in marked contrast to the experience of the canoa-voyage up, some months before. Islands and lagoons succeeded each other rapidly, and we soon crossed the Golfete and were in the beautiful Rio Dulce. At three in the afternoon we arrived at the wharf in Livingston, and our pleasant journey was at an end. [Illustration: Whistle from Las Quebradas.] CHAPTER IX. IN THE OLDEN TIME. The physical features of Central America are rich and varied; but the story of the races which have peopled it is tinged with a romance and clouded with a mystery which accord intimately with the cloud-capped summits, the impenetrable forests, and the earth-fires. Stories written in stone, whose authors no man knows, whose meaning none can read, carry us back beyond history and beyond legend; and until patient study unravels the enigma, as it must in time, our vision of the aborigines is illumined only by those legends which beautify and corrupt all history. We may treat all legendary lore as mythic if we are willing to forget that a myth is the creation of an advanced thought and civilization which we do not usually concede to the long-perished races who have preceded us; or we may simply accept what has been preserved for us, smile at its simplicity, wonder at its beauty, or puzzle our brains to connect and classify it with similar matter from other sources and of other times. In an uncontroversial spirit I would accept the slight glimpses of early human races which have lived upon this continent, and leave to others the task, agreeable to their tastes, of weighing, measuring, and analyzing these stories of a simple people who can no longer speak for themselves.