There is no _posada_ in Pansos; and after getting our breakfast at noon in a little shop which was papered with pictures from “Harper’s Weekly” and “Puck,” we decided to spend the night at Teleman. After some difficulty in getting permission for our guide to leave town,—the comandante being still drunk,[10]—at two o’clock, mounted tolerably, Frank and I, with our boy Roberto, left Pansos. The pleasure of being again on horseback after the dull inaction of our canoa voyage was so great that I was willing to overlook any deficiencies in my mount. As Roberto stopped a short distance from the town to make a slight addition to his wardrobe, we went on alone for a while; the road could hardly be missed, it is so worn by the bullock-carts used to bring coffee from the plantations of Alta Verapaz. The beautiful vegetation, healthy and luxuriant, drew our attention from the muddy road, which became worse as we got farther into the forest. Many fine clear brooks crossed our path, and as we came out of the woods the valley of the Boca-nueva lay before us. Two piers of masonry stand on opposite banks of this river; but the iron bridge lies on the shore at Livingston, and there seems to be no very strong attraction between the iron and the masonry. The absence of a bridge was no great hardship, for not only was the river shallow and easily fordable, but there was a most curious vine-bridge, built of vejucos, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet long, hung from two convenient trees and approached by ladders. It was old, and one side was broken down; so it required care and courage to cross it. It was very similar in construction to modern wire suspension-bridges, but wholly vegetable, there being not a particle of metal about it.