but five feet five!"

_"No hay cuidado!"_ (Have no care!) was the reassuring reply of the
alcalde, as he slapped his broad chest with his open palm; _"soy
responsable!"_ (I am responsible!)

The mules were now unsaddled, and the trunks taken over, one by one,
on the _alcalde's_ head. Next, the animals were forced into the
water, and, after vehement flounderings, now swimming, now stumbling
over rolling stones, they were finally, bruised and bleeding and the
forlornest of animals, got across in safety. Next came our turn, and
I led the way, with a thong fastened around my body below the
armpits, and attached, in like manner, to our stalwart _alcalde_.
Long before we reached the middle of the stream, notwithstanding I
carried a large stone under each arm by way of ballast, I was swept
from my feet out to the length of my tether, and thus towed over by
our guide. When all were snugly across, the laughter was loud and
long over the ridiculous figure which everybody had cut in
everybody's eyes, except his own. H. immortalized the transit in what
the French call _un croquis_, but it would hardly bear reproduction
in the pages of a narrative so staid as this.

Intent on determining, with the least possible delay, the important
question, whether the mountains really opposed an insurmountable
obstacle to our project, I left my companions and Dolores to resaddle
and get under way at their leisure, and pushed ahead with the
_alcalde_. Striking off from the mule-path, we climbed up, among
loose rocks and dwarf-trees and bushes, to the top of the mountain.
My excitement gave me unwonted vigor, and my sturdy guide, streaming
with perspiration long before we reached the summit, prayed me, "in
the name of all the saints," to moderate my rate of speed, and give
him a _trago_ of Cognac. My suspense was not of long duration; for,
on reaching the crest of the eminence, I found that we were indeed on
a narrow spur, easily tunnelled, or readily turned by galleries in
the rock, and that, beyond, the country opened out again in a broad
table-land sloping gently from the north, and traversed nearly in its
centre by the gorge of the river. The break in the Cordilleras was
now distinct, and I could look quite through it, and see the blue
peaks of the mountains on the Atlantic slope of the continent. A
single glance sufficed to disclose all this to my eager vision, and
the next instant six rapid shots from my revolver conveyed the
intelligenc