There was nothing whatever to attract the most curious traveller in San Felipe, and we sailed and paddled on with frequent calms and showers. We were completely in the hands of our boatmen, whose knowledge of the lago proved to be very limited; but as ours was even less, we suffered them to coast the northern shore, when, as we afterwards learned, the law directed our course southward to Izabal, the port of entry, where we should have obtained a permit to proceed on our voyage inland. Our map indicated the course we selected as the shorter to the mouth of the Rio Polochic; but the map was, as usual, wrong. There was not much to see, as the mist and rain hid the mountains and hung low on the shores, driving us frequently under our rubber roof. Whenever the mist lifted we caught glimpses of the far southern shore, with the grand wall of the Sierra de las Minas catching the fleecy clouds on every black pinnacle; and the clearing sky attracted us still closer to the northern shore, where we could see a low wooded country backed by a high range of mountains, with here and there an opening through which some stream reached the lake. At two o’clock we landed at Sauce, on a beach of black sand, evidently volcanic, scattered with fragments of chalcedony and agatized wood,—a formation which puzzled me exceedingly, as all this region is supposed to be non-volcanic. We had no time to follow the beach to ascertain the extent of black sand, but it reached far beyond the few comfortable huts on the shore,—as far, indeed, as we could go into the jungle inland. In it grew luxuriantly limes, bananas, mangoes, and other cultivated plants not recognized. Goyavas grew to a large size, but all the fruit was ruined by worms. [Illustration: Making Tortillas.]