Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/415

CH. XXIX.] what I could ascertain, that Mr. O'Reilley had come in her. In the course of half an hour, my companion looking through the forest, said, "Alli estan," (there they are,) but I could see nothing. "Las mulas, Señor"' (the mules, Sir). It was two or three minutes before I could distinguish them, passing, in the distance, through the wild recesses of the forest. In the course of another hour, we entered Izabal: after leaving the woods, the last mile or two lay through wide lanes covered with green sward, and might be passable enough when not so swampy as they now were.

The lake which is of fresh water, as its name Dulce denotes, is a fine expanse of about thirty miles by twenty, so that it forms a beautiful object as you descend down to the coast: as the creek, which leads into the small gulf, or Golfeto, communicating with the Atlantic is very narrow, its mouth is not discernible, and the borders of the gulf are therefore, as far as they can be made out, composed of thickly wooded