Just as we started, little Castolo appeared with two bunches of _zacate_ sent by his mother, as a present to Don Federico.
Certainly, there must be a new and better road from Guevea to Santa Maria than the one we traversed in our other journey, and which again, following from memory, we used.

It was a fearful trail, neglected and ruined, over slippery rock and rough, sharp-splintered stone.

Still we pressed on rapidly, making even better time than we had been assured at the town that we might expect to make.

Never were we more happy than in reaching Santa Maria, lovely in the moonlight, with its great church, fine municipal-house, cocoa-nut trees and thatched huts.

Here was no sign either of the norther or the rain.