avengers of those
regions; while frequently on the mud banks we caught sight of alligators
basking in the hot sun, often fast asleep, with their mouths wide open.

We reached Bodegas early in the day. It is a large village, built on a
flat. In the rainy season it is so completely flooded that the people
have to take refuge in the upper stories of their houses. Thanks to our
friend Don Jose, and the exertions of his chief attendant, Isoro, mules
were quickly procured; and as the attractions of Bodegas were not great,
we immediately set off towards the mountains. John called Isoro Don
Jose's henchman. He was, like his master, of pure Indian blood, but of
not so high a type. Still, he was good-looking, active, and
intelligent. His dress differed only from that of Don Jose in being of
coarser materials. We were at once struck with the respect and devotion
with which Isoro treated his master, and with the confidence Don Jose
evidently reposed in him. We had a journey before us of two hundred
miles, which would occupy eight or ten days. The first village we
passed through was built high up off the ground on stilts, for in the
rainy season the whole country is completely flooded. After passing the
green plain, we entered a dense forest. Road, I should say, there was
none. Nothing, it seemed to me, could surpass the rich luxuriance of
the vegetation. On either side were numerous species of palms, their
light and feathery foliage rising among the other trees; bananas, with
their long, glossy, green leaves; and here and there groves of the
slender and graceful bamboo, shooting upwards for many feet straight as
arrows, their light leaves curling over towards their summits; while
orchids of various sorts, many bearing rich-coloured flowers, entwined
themselves like snakes round the trunks and branches. Don Jose told us
that in the rainy season this road is flooded, and that then the canoe
takes the place of mules.

We put up the first night at a _tambo_, or road-side inn, a bamboo hut
of two stories, thatched with plantain leaves. As the lower part was
occupied by four-footed animals, we had to climb into the upper story by
means of a couple of stout bamboos with notches cut in them. We here
hung up our hammocks, and screened off a part for Ellen and Maria. Next
day we began to ascend the mountains by the most rugged of paths.
Sometimes we had to wind up the precipice on a narrow ledge, scarcely
affording footing