It is all a savage wilderness, almost unknown to men--a blank on the map--" "The map ?--speak no word that I do not understand." In a very few words I explained my meaning; even fewer would have sufficed, so quick was her apprehension.
"If it is a blank," she returned quickly, "then you know of nothing to stop us--no river we cannot swim, and no great mountains like those where Quito is." "But I happen to know, Rima, for it has been related to me by old Indians, that of all places that is the most difficult of access.

There is a river there, and although it is not on the map, it would prove more impassable to us than the mighty Orinoco and Amazon.

It has vast malarious swamps on its borders, overgrown with dense forest, teeming with savage and venomous animals, so that even the Indians dare not venture near it.

And even before the river is reached, there is a range of precipitous mountains called by the same name--just there where your pebble fell--the mountains of Riolama--" Hardly had the name fallen from my lips before a change swift as lightning came over her countenance; all doubt, anxiety, petulance, hope, and despondence, and these in ever-varying degrees, chasing each other like shadows, had vanished, and she was instinct and burning with some new powerful emotion which had flashed into her soul.
"Riolama! Riolama!" she repeated so rapidly and in a tone so sharp that it tingled in the brain.

"That is the place I am seeking! There was my mother found--there are her people and mine! Therefore was I called Riolama--that is my name!" "Rima!" I returned, astonished at her words.
"No, no, no--Riolama.