This is a sugar-loaf in form, with
steep sides, and at its summit scarcely affording standing-room for a
dozen horsemen. It is connected with the main part of the mountain by a
narrow ridge, barely broad enough for a mule-path, with treeless slopes
on either hand, so steep, that, on our return, the _Teniente_ preferred
risking an attack of "palpitation" to riding along its crest.
After loosening several large stones from the side of the cone, and
watching them bound down the steep declivity, dashing the _scoriae_ like
spray before them, and bearing down the dwarf trees in their path like
grass beneath the mower's scythe, until they rumbled away with many a
crash in the depths of the forest at the base of the mountain, and
after making over to the grateful old man of the _vigia_ the remnants
of Dona Maria's profusion in the shape of sandwiches and cold chicken,
we commenced our descent, taking the shorter path by which I had
descended three years before. It conducted us past the great spring of
Yololtoca, to which the Indian girls of the _pueblo_ of Conchagua,
three miles distant, still come to get their water, and down the
ancient path and over the rocks worn smooth by the naked feet of their
mothers and their mothers' mothers, until, at six o'clock in the
afternoon, we defiled, tired and hungry, into the sweltering streets of
La Union.
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