Starting again in the early afternoon, we found the way led up and down through the valley, until we were seven hundred feet above the river, which in one place quite disappeared beneath the limestone ledges, to reappear some distance beyond. On either side the steep slopes were covered with coarse grass; and there were many small, compact aloes, with broad leaves and dried flower-stems here and there. Among the rocks were maguey-plants and a few palms,—these last seemed quite out of place in this high, dry country. Under the pine-trees the sod was green, and in the small lateral valleys clear brooks improved the pasturage; and here at the head of each larger gulch we found the deserted camps of the mozos de cargo. [Illustration: TWO VIEWS AT CHICAMAN.] After many turns we came at six o’clock to the village of Chicaman, just as the rain began to fall. This hamlet is on the north side of broken hills, and overlooks the Chixoy valley,—here of great depth, but narrow and winding. We found a picturesque little house, where we slung our hammocks in the best room, eating our _huevos_ and tortillas on a shrine sacred to the black “Lord of Esquipulas.” This shrine is usual in houses far from any church; and here it was embowered in leaves, flowers, and fruit,—among the latter citrons of a large size and the showy yellow fruit of a solanum. We were nearly four thousand feet above the sea, and the night was cool,—a comfortable ending to a day altogether too short to hold properly all the fine weather, beautiful and changing scenery, and delightful journeying crowded into its twelve bright hours. Before the sun had melted the clouds in the valley below us, we were on our horses and slowly climbing a steep ascent of eight hundred feet. I had photographed the house, and, turning the camera on its pivot, obtained a view of the cloudy valley below: these views are before the reader now. A league brought us to another Santa Cruz,—a village pleasantly situated, and about the size of Chicaman, consisting of perhaps ten houses. There we saw by the roadside some fine oranges; but when Frank rode up to the house with his “¡Buenos dias, señora! ¿Tiene usted naranjas?” he was met by “No háy” (there are none). That phrase we heard altogether too frequently on our journey. In this case it simply meant that the señora had no oranges in the house; but she added that we might for a medio pick as many as we wanted! We tried the several trees, and filled a pillow-case with the fine fruit,—half a bushel for five cents!