But when we stood on the top of Conchagua, on the 10th day of April,
1853, the existence of a pass through the mountains, as well as of that
great transverse valley of which I have spoken, was only inferentially
known. In fact, the whole interior of Honduras was unexplored; its
geography was not understood; its scenery had never been described; its
towns and cities were scarcely known even by name; and its people lived
in almost as profound a seclusion from the world at large as the
dwellers on the banks of the Niger and the Zambezi. It is not, however,
to bore you, O reader, with all the details of our surveys, nor to
bother you with statistics, that I write; for, verily, are not these all
set down in a book? But it is rather to amuse you with the incidents of
our explorations, our quaint encounters with a quaint people of still
quainter manners and habits and with ideas quainter than all, and to
present you with a picture of a country and a society interesting equally
in themselves and from their strong contrasts with our own,--I say, it is
rather with these objects that I invite you, O reader, to join our little
party, and participate in the manifold adventures of "HUNTING A PASS.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193