The coast here presents, for the greater part, a belt of low-lying, richly wooded alluvial land, varying in width from ten to twenty miles. Behind this, and displaying an abrupt face seawards, rises a noble range of coast mountains--or rather a broad plateau--having an average elevation of 2,000 feet, and relieved by numerous volcanic peaks. It is not the height of these mountains that lends so much dignity and beauty, for, as mountains go, they would be considered as anything but remarkable. It is their extraordinary formation, their almost terrible proximity, and their long and terrifying history, which challenge the attention of the individual who gazes upon them for the first time. Between the range and the great primitive chain of the Cordilleras beyond, lies a broad valley varying in width from twenty to thirty miles, and being over 100 miles in length. Very gently the coastal plateau subsides towards this magnificent valley, which is drained and abundantly watered by the River Lempa, and is unsurpassed for natural beauty and fertility by any equal extent of country in the tropics. The northern border of this terrestrial paradise--so far as the eye can judge it--rests upon the flank of the mountains of Honduras, which tower skywards about it to the height of 6,000 to 8,000 feet, broken and rugged to the very summits. To the south of the Lempa, however, the country rises from the immediate and proper valley of the river, first in the form of a terrace with a very abrupt face, and afterward by a gradual slope to the summit of the plateau. Then comes another curious physical feature--a deep, green, and wooded basin of altogether unique scenic beauty and fertility, formed by the system of numerous small rivers which rise in the western part of the country around the feet of the volcano Santa Ana, falling finally into the sea near Sonsonate. This formation is in the shape of a triangle, the base resting on the sea, and the apex defined by the volcano. A second and even a larger basin is that of the River San Miguel, lying transversely to the valley of the River Lempa, in the eastern division of the State, and separated only by a number of smaller detached mountains from the Bay of Fonseca.