We have, unfortunately, just come in for the rainy season; the roads are turned into torrents, and so completely broken that we have to give up going to Comala by land and shall have to go by water. This will necessitate a very long detour; on the other hand it will give us the opportunity of visiting the interesting remains to be found at Bellote. Thus our misfortune will not be very great after all.
This point settled, we are soon ready to start for Tierra Colorada, a rancho some nine miles from S. Juan, on the banks of Rio Gonzalès, where we are to find flat-bottomed canoas and bogas, “oarsmen.” These canoas are hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, have no keels, and are rowed down stream, when the maximum speed is twelve leagues a day, and three up stream. Close to the landing-place is a wooden booth, where before going on board we get about the nastiest cup of coffee I ever tasted, served with pretty grace by a handsome Meztiza. We notice the cups, made of some fruit-shell shaped on the tree whilst growing, and I am so pleased with their shape and design that I buy two for my private collection.
CANOA (BOAT) OF S. JUAN.
Our canoas, which are of average size, do not allow two to sit abreast; the awning, toldo, which is to shelter us both against sun and rain, is so low that we have to crawl in on all-fours and sit Turkish fashion. This in a few hours becomes very painful, and our position is greatly aggravated by mosquitoes. There is not a breath of wind, so that our progress is but slow, whilst the heat under cover is intolerable; but whenever I venture out I am forced back either by the scorching sun or pouring rain, and we must needs comfort ourselves as best we can with some excellent Tabasco cigars. We lose nothing, for this region is but an assemblage of savannas and stunted woods, which lie for months under water.
We soon arrive at Ceiba, a rancho, where we land to breakfast under a wide-spreading tree by the river, depositing under its cool shade our provisions and our cramped, aching limbs. Here we are detained longer than we anticipated by our men, who, after refreshing themselves at the rancho, coolly walked some three miles further on to see their sweethearts. They hurry in at last looking rather sheepish, and we find on consulting our map that our next station is twelve miles distant, and that we shall not reach it till late in the evening. The heat abates as the dusk gathers in, when we are glad to leave our hateful toldo to breathe the freshening breeze.
We are now advancing amidst the islands which occupy the mouth of the river, clad with gigantic mangroves; all around is silent, and the moon, placid but not cold in these latitudes, sheds her magic light over the landscape, shaping out fantastic groves, fairy castles, and long lines of porticoes in the openings of the forest. We are so delighted with all we see that we are quite surprised, after a run of sixteen hours, to find ourselves at the rancho of Las Islas, where we spend what remains of the night, and early the next morning start for Paraïso.
Up to this time we have been going steadily north, but now our route bears to the west. We enter the lagoons to be found on this coast, intersected by narrow canals, and overshadowed by deep, gloomy paths. The murky water of these canals, the silence of the forest, recall the Styx, or some forgotten circle of Purgatory in which the dead wander in endless solitudes. Beautiful large butterflies, speckled with black and blue, come fluttering by, whilst a multitude of red hairy crabs glare at us out of some mangrove. Two hours’ steady rowing brings us to Bellote Islands, when, stowing our boats on the sand, we hail the first man we see, and under his escort make for the cuyos, pyramids, walking by the shore of the island, the water of which is so transparent as to enable us to spy at the bottom of the lagoon a quantity of oyster-shells; presently we come upon a gigantic bank of them measuring several miles, by more than twelve feet high, kjœkkenmœdings; the whole ground around is composed of these broken shells, over which a magnificent vegetation luxuriates.
