Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/409

CH. XXIX.]

nine o'clock the next morning, Saturturday the 23d July, we set off on that most tremendous expedition of passing the mountain: it is laborious at all seasons, but, in the rains, the difficulties of it are hardly to be described.

Previously to arriving at Mico, the last evening, we had passed through a grove of the most magnificent palms that I had ever seen: mackaws and various other parrots with different birds of splendid plumage studded the loftier trees, and startled, at intervals, the deep solitude of the scene with their appalling screech. Here and there a large monkey darted across the