My pecuniary resources were almost exhausted, and I was obliged to set out, taking with me my servant Cecilio and another traveling companion, a young spaniel bitch, answering to the name of Love, an appellation which Cecilio had transferred into a Spanish name with quite a different signification, Lova (she wolf). This dog followed me in all my wanderings; and my horse Storm, who had contracted an affection for her, never galloped with greater animation than when he felt her bounding between his legs or fawning upon his chest.
We soon left behind us the fertile hills of Jalapa, its orange groves and daturas, its plains dotted with bananas and guava-trees, and arrived at Lencero. This name was given to the place by one of Cortez's soldiers who had set up a venta there. In that quarter are still to be found some of these huts called jacales.[1] Lencero offers likewise an additional interest to the curious traveler. Near the hamlet, upon the top of a hill, from which, in a clear day, the serrated tops of the Cordillera and a distant view of the ocean can be easily obtained, rises a little house with red stained walls, ornamented with a modest veranda, and surmounted by a mirador (belvedere) of glass. This agreeable retreat is the country house of General Santa Anna.
At some distance from Lencero our road passed through the gorges of Cerro-Gordo, and a dull roar, like the sea-waves breaking on a rocky beach, warned us of our approach to the River Antigua. Seven arches, thrown with great boldness over a deep ravine, at the bottom of which the river flows; the blasted rocks
- ↑ These huts are constructed of bamboos, wattled so as to admit both air and light freely.
