And so, from the beach where we landed, the carromatos carried us across the low coast plain, over new bridges on which the inscriptions stated that they had been finished for the passage of the Secretary and his party, and under triumphal arches made of bamboo which welcomed him; all the natives whom we passed saluted, and many wished to shake hands or only touch the hand as we passed, till we came into the foothills, and over them into a little village of nipa huts among the bamboo and tropical trees, where we found our horses waiting. Here we mounted and started off at a good pace over the well built road that trailed around cliff and crag as we worked into the mountains, a procession, a cavalcade, winding in and out. We traveled along the valley of a river, that later became a gorge with steep cliffs and precipitous sides; all the natives were out to greet the Secretary; and finally we came to a tiny village where we had a drink of refreshing cocoanut water, all the people standing about or hanging out of the windows of the simple houses, which looked very clean and neat. We trailed on along the narrow road, cut into the rock in many places, really a remarkable road, and up the gorge with the rushing river below us. The mountains rose high and opened up in lovely velvety greens, and shaded away into the blues of distance. We stopped at a little native rest house, above a ford in the river, where we found a luncheon prepared for us, but it was a hurried luncheon, and on we went climbing a winding trail that zigzagged up the steep mountainside, through tropical tangle of bamboo and fern and great overhanging trees with trailing parasites--the ghost tree, the hard woods, and some with a beautiful mauve flower at the top that even Mr. Worcester couldn't tell me the name of (he said he had been so busy inventing names for the birds that he hadn't had time yet to find names for trees). And below the views opened up wider and more splendid, and range on range of mountains rose above each other, while the precipices grew deeper and more terrifying.