ither
hand the vistas were dark, and the outlines of gigantic mountains could be
discerned towering to mid-heaven.

Half a mile farther on, crossing in the interval a number of little
tributary streams, we came where the pines were more scattered; they
soon disappeared, and we emerged upon an open glade or natural
meadow. A high mountain, dark with forests, rose on our right; on the
left was a long range of grassy hills; but in front all was clear! A
government _rancho_, built under the shade of a couple of tall
fruit-trees, stood in the middle of the savanna, and on its farther edge
were the cane buildings of a cattle-_hacienda_, just visible through
the wealth of plantain-trees by which they were surrounded, while the
cattle themselves were dotted over the intervening space, cropping
the young grass, which here looked brighter and fresher than in the
valley below. Impulsively my mule pricked her ears forward, and broke
into a rapid trot. Soon she stepped across the stream, which we had
followed to its birthplace, now reduced to a trickling rivulet
stealing out from a spring, "an eye of water," (_ojo de agua_,) coyly
hidden away under a clump of trees draped with evergreen vines at the
foot of the neighboring hills. I knew that we were at the "summit";
the faint swell of the savanna, scarcely perceptible to the eye,
which supported the government _rancho_, it was clear, was the
highest point between the two great oceans, and the cool breeze which
fanned our foreheads was the expiring breath of the trade-winds
coming all the way from the Bay of Honduras! My mule halted at the
_rancho_; I threw the bridle over her neck, and went forward on foot;
but I had not proceeded a hundred paces before my attention was
arrested by the cheerful murmur of another little stream, also
descending from the foot of the mountain at our right,--but this
time, after traversing half the width of the savanna, it turned away
suddenly to the north, and with a merry dash and sparkling leap
started off on its journey to the Atlantic! In that direction,
however, a forest of tall pines still shut off the view, and it was
not until I reached the summit of one of the lateral hills that I
could look over and beyond them. Then, for the first time, I saw the
great plain of Comayagua, at a level some hundreds of feet below us,
spreading away for a distance of forty miles, in a rich succession of
savannas and cultivated grounds, dotted with villages, and