At the distance of a league from the town, we turned into a beautiful shaded lane, or avenue, running through the broad estates which we had come to visit. The fields, with the exception of one or two which were planted with maize, were overgrown with weeds. I inquired the cause, and was told that these were indigo grounds, the cultivation of which had been suspended from the impossibility of securing permanent laborers; for the processes in manufacturing the indigo are so delicate, that any deficiency in attention ruins the entire crop. When affairs became fully settled, it was intended to resume the cultivation of this valuable product; but until then, the ground, dams, vats, and machinery were valueless property. In the centre of this portion of the estate, on an eminence near an artificial pond covered with water plants, and constructed for supplying the indigo works, was the house of the superintendent,—a large two-story edifice, with a double corridor on every side, and surrounded by a little forest of magnificent trees, relieved by towering palms and the green columns of the cactus. The mayor-domo, a venerable old man with his head bound in a variegated handkerchief, white shirt and breeches, and red shoes, himself one of the fixtures of the estate, received each of us with a hearty embrace, and then led us up a flight of broad stone steps, to the upper corridor. Here were the old man’s daughters, three pretty, blushing girls, who were introduced individually as Paula, Manuelita, and Concepcion. “Their mother is a saint,” said he, as he gazed on them with an expression of pride; “but happier times are coming for our poor country, and they will live to see them, I am sure!” and he tottered off, to procure “algo fresco.” From the corridor we enjoyed a magnificent view of field and forest, stretching away in billows of verdure to the base of the volcano of El Viejo, lifting its purple summit to mid-heaven, beyond and over all. I ventured to imagine the intervening plain in the hands of an enterprising and vigorous people, dotted over with villages, and loaded down with the richest products of all-bountiful Nature, and queried if this generation might not witness the change. Let the babbler about impossibilities, in this first decade of the last half of the nineteenth century, turn his eyes to the shores of the Bay of San Francisco, be silent, and mark the reality!