Our mules were quickly
unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments carefully suspended
beneath a rough shed of poles covered with branches of trees, which
stood before the hut, and answered the purpose of a corridor in keeping
off the sun. Here also we chose to swing our hammocks; for the hut
itself was none of the largest, and, having but a single room, would
require packing more closely than suited our tastes, in order to afford
us the narrowest accommodation. It is true, the two Benedicts
volunteered to sleep outside with Dolores, and resign the interior to
the old man, the women, the children, and the strangers. But the
_Teniente_ thought there would be scant room, even if we had the whole
to ourselves; while H. was overcome by "the indelicacy of the
suggestion."
The sunset that evening was one of transcendent beauty, heightened by
the thousand-hued reflections from the masses of clouds which had been
piling up, all the afternoon, around the distant mountains of Honduras,
and which Dolores told us betokened the approach of the rainy season.
Bathed in crimson and gold, they shed a glowing haze over the
intervening country, and were reproduced in the broad mirror of the bay
below us, so that we seemed to be suspended and floating in an
Iris-like sea of light and beauty.
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