ow and over which the mail is carried on the backs
of runners is cut in the rock and we go down steps as even as those of
the City Hall and for hours we travel over rough rocks and stones and a
path so narrow that your knees catch in the vines at the side. The
mules are wonderfully sure footed and never slip although they are very
little, and I am pretty heavy. The heat is something awful. It bakes
you and will dry your pith helmet in ten minutes after you have soaked
it in water. But the scenery is magnificent, sometimes we ride above
the clouds and look down into valleys stretching fifty miles away and
see the buzzards half a mile below us. Then we go through forests of
manaca palms that spread out on a single stem sideways and form arches
over our heads with the leaves hanging in front of us like portiers or
we cross great plains of grass and cactus and rock. The best fun is
the baths we take in the mountain streams. They are almost as cool as
one could wish and we shoot the rapids and lie under the waterfalls and
come out with all the soreness rubbed out of us as though we had been
massaged. We went shooting for two days but as they had no dogs we did
not do much. I got the best shot of the trip and missed it. It was a
large wild cat and he turned his side full on but I fired over him.
Somers and I spent most of the time firing chance shots at alligators,
but they never gave us a good chance as the birds warn them when they
are in danger. One old fellow fifteen feet long beat us for some time
and then Somers and I started across the river to catch him asleep. It
was like the taking of Lungtepen. We had our money belts around our
necks and our shoes in one hand and rifles in the other. The rapids
ran very fast and the last I saw of Somerset he was sitting on the bank
he had started from counting out wet bank notes and blowing the water
out of his gun barrel. I got across all right by sticking my feet
between rocks and put on my shoes and crawled up on the old Johnnie.
He smelt of musk so strong that you could have found him in the dark.
I had, a beautiful shot at him at fifty yards but I was too greedy and
ran around some rocks to get nearer and he heard me and dived. I shot
a macaw, one of those overgrown parrots with tail feathers three feet
from tip to tip. I got him with a rifle and as Griscom had got his
with a shotgun I came out all right as a marksman although I was very
sore at missing the wild