Instead of keeping along the river-valley, it passes directly over a high, rocky spur of the lateral mountains, through a pass called El Portillo, (The Portal,) elevated fifteen hundred feet above the sea.

A shadow came over every face, in view of the possible obstacles in our path; and although we tried to reassure ourselves by the reflection, that, where so large a stream could pass, there must certainly be room enough for a road, yet, it must be confessed, we wound down the hill of El Portillo to Caridad with spirits much depressed.

We had seen its white church from El Portillo, looking like a point of silver on the dark green slope of the mountain.

Our guide traced it out to us with his finger, and assured us that it traversed a bad portillo, over which the wind sometimes sweeps with such force as to take a loaded mule off his feet, and dash him down the steep sides of the mountain.

" Rejoining my companions, I dismissed our guide with a reward which surprised him, and we pursued our way to the Portillo.

A little beyond the Portillo, the road diverges from the valley proper of the river, and is carried over an undulating country to the village of San Antonio del Norte, finely situated on a grassy plain, of considerable extent, a dependency of the valley of the Goascoran.

The whole valley of the river, and line of our reconnaissance, the Portillo of Caridad, the Rock of Goascoran, the Volcano of Conchagua, and the high islands of the Bay of Fonseca, were all included in the view.