In the neighbourhood of San José there is a volcanic mountain, the name of which is Irazu. I was informed that it still smoked, though it had discontinued for the present the ejection of flames and lava. Indeed, the whole country is full of such mountains. There is one, the Monte Blanco, the summit of which has never yet been reached—so rumour says in Costa Rica—far distant, enveloped among other mountains, and to be reached only through dense aboriginal forests, which still emits, and is always emitting fire and burning floods of molten stones.

Different excursions have been made with the object of ascending the Monte Blanco, but hitherto in vain. Not long since it was attempted by a French baron, but he and his guide were for twenty days in the woods, and then returned, their provisions failing them.

"You should ascend the Monte Blanco," said Sir William Ouseley to me. "You are a man at large, with nothing to do. It is just the work for you." This was Sir William\'s satire on the lightness of my ordinary occupations. Light as they might be, however, I had neither time nor courage for an undertaking such as that; so I determined to satisfy myself with the Irazu.

It happened, rather unfortunately for me, that at the moment of my arrival at San José, a large party, consisting of Sir William\'s family and others, were in the very act of visiting the mountain. Those, therefore, who were anxious to see the sight, and willing to undergo the labour, thus had their opportunity; and it became impossible for me to make up a second party. One hope I had. The Secretary of Legation had not gone. Official occupation, joined to a dislike of mud and rough stones, had kept him at home. Perhaps I might prevail. The intensity of that work might give way before a week\'s unremitting labour, and that Sybarite propensity might be overcome.

But all my eloquence was of no avail. An absence of a day and a half only was required; and three were spent in proving that this could not be effected. The stones and mud too were becoming worse and worse, for the rainy season had commenced. In fact, the Secretary of Legation would not budge. "Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle," said the Secretary of Legation; whereupon he lighted another cigar, and took a turn in the grass hammock. Now in my mind it must be a very bad game indeed that is not worth the candle; and almost any game is better than no game at all.

I was thus in deep trouble, making up my mind to go alone, or rather alone with my guide;—for the due appreciation of which state of loneliness it must be borne in mind that, as I do not speak a word of Spanish, I should have no possible means of communication with the guide,—when a low and mild voice fell upon my ear, offering me its proprietor as my companion.

"I went up with Sir William last week," said the mild voice; "and if you will permit me, I shall be happy to go with you. I should like to see it twice; and I live at Cartago on the way."

It was quite clear that the owner of the voice was sacrificing himself, and offering to repeat this troublesome journey merely out of good nature; but the service which he proposed to render me was too essential, and I could not afford to reject the offer. He lived in the country and spoke Spanish, and was, moreover, a mild, kind-hearted little gentleman, very suitable as a companion, and not given too pertinaciously to a will of his own. Now the Secretary of Legation would have driven me mad half a score of times during the journey. He would have deafened me with politics, and with such politics too! So that on the whole I knew myself to be well off with the mild voice.

"You must go through Cartago," said the mild voice, "and I live there. We will dine there at the inn to-morrow, and then do a portion of our work the same evening." It was so arranged. I was to be with him the next day at three, with a guide and two mules.

On the next morning it rained provokingly. I ought to have started at twelve; but at that time it was pouring, and neither the guide nor the mules showed themselves. "You will never get there," said the Secretary of Legation, looking up to the murky clouds with a gleam of delight. "The game is never worth such a candle as that." "I shall get there most assuredly," said I, rather sulkily, "let the candle cost what it may." But still the mules did not come.

Men have no idea of time in any country that is or has been connected with Spain. "Yes, se?or; you said twelve, and it is now only two! Well, three. The day is long, se?or; there is plenty of time. Vaminos? Since you are in such a hurry, shall we make a start of it?"

At half-past two o\'clock so spoke—not my guide, for, as will be seen by-and-by, he never spoke at all—but my guide\'s owner, who came accompanying the mules. In huge hurry, with sundry mute exclamations, uttered by my countenance since my tongue was unintelligible, and with appeals to my watch which should have broken the man\'s heart as I thrust it into his face, I clomb into my saddle. And then a poor-looking, shoeless creature, with a small straw hat tied on to his head by a handkerchief, with difficulty poised himself on the other beast "Vamos," I exclaimed, and trotted down the street; for I knew that in that direction lay the road to Cartago. "God be with you," said the Secretary of Legation. "The rainy season has set in permanently, I know; but perhaps you may have half an hour of sunshine now and again. I hope you will enjoy yourself."

It was not raining when I started, and in fact did not rain again the whole afternoon. I trotted valiantly down the street, knowing my way so far; but at the bottom of the town the roads divided, and I waited for my guide. "Go on first," said I, pointing along the road. But he did not understand me, and stood still. "Go on," said I, getting behind his mule as though to drive him. But he merely stared, and shuffled himself to the other side of the road. "Cartago," I shouted, meaning that he was to show me the way there. "Si, se?or," he replied; and backed himself into the ditch out of my way. He was certainly the stupidest man I ever met in my life, and I believe the Secretary of Legation had selected him on purpose.

I was obliged to choose my own road out of two, and luckily chose the right one. Had I gone wrong, I doubt whether the man would have had wit enough to put me right. I again trotted on; but in a quarter of an hour was obliged to wait, for my attendant was behind me, out of sight, and I felt myself bound to look after my traps, which were fastened to his mule. "Come on," I shouted in good broad English as soon as I saw him. "Why the mischief don\'t you come on?" And my voice was so pitched, that on this occasion I think he did understand something of what I meant.

"Co-o-ome along," I repeated, as he gently drew up to me. And I hit his mule sharply on the crupper with my stick. "Spur him," I said; and I explained what I meant by sticking my own rowels into my own beast. Whereupon the guide showed me that he had no spurs.

Now if there be one rule of life more strictly kept in Costa Rica than another, it is this, that no man ever mounts horse or mule without spurs. A man in England would as soon think of hunting without breeches. No muleteer was ever seen without them. And when a mule is hired, if the hirer have no saddle, he may chance to have to ride without one; but if he have no spurs, he will always be supplied.

I took off one of my own, which, by-the-by, I had borrowed out of the Secretary of Legation\'s establishment, and offered it to the man, remembering the well-known doctrine of Hudibras. He then showed me that one of his hands was tied up, and that he could not put the spur on. Consequently I was driven to dismount myself, and to act equerry to this knight. Thrice on the road I had to do so, for twice the spur slipped from off his naked foot. Even with this I could not bring him on. It is four leagues, or about sixteen miles, from San José to Cartago, and with all my hastening we were three hours on the road.

The way lay through a rich and finely-cultivated country. The whole of this is now called the valley of San José, and consists, in truth, of a broad plateau, diversified by moderate hills and valleys, but all being at a considerable height; that is, from three to four thousand feet above the sea. The road also is fairly good; so good that a species of omnibus runs on it daily, there being some considerable traffic between the places; for Cartago is the second town in the republic.

Cartago is now the second town, but not long since it was the capital. It was, however, destroyed by an earthquake; and though it has been rebuilt, it has never again taken its former position. Its present population is said to be ten thousand; but this includes not only the suburbs, but the adjacent villages. The town covers a large tract of ground, which is divided into long, broad, parallel streets, with a large pláza in the middle; as though it had been expected that a fine Utopian city would have sprung up. Alas! there is nothing fine about it, and very little that is Utopian.

Lingering near the hotel door, almost now in a state of despair, I met him of the mild voice. "Yes; he had been waiting for three hours, certainly," he mildly said, as I spurred my beast up to the door. "Now that I was come it was all right; and on the whole he rather liked waiting—that is, when it did not result in waiting for nothing." And then we sat down to dinner at the Cartago hotel.

This also was kept by a German, who after a little hesitation confessed that he had come to the country as a filibuster. "You have fallen on your legs pretty well," said I; for he had a comfortable house, and gave us a decent dinner. "Yes," said he, rather dubiously; "but when I came to Costa Rica I intended to do better than this." He might, however, remember that not one in five hundred of them had done so well.

And then another guide had to be found, for it was clear that the one I had brought with me was useless. And I had a visit to make; for my friend lived with a widow lady, who would be grieved, he said, if I passed through without seeing her. So I did call on her. I saw her again on my return through Cartago, as I shall specify.

With all these delays it was dark when we started. Our plan was to ride up to an upland pasture farm at which visitors to the mountain generally stop, to sleep there for a few hours, and then to start between three and four so as to reach the top of the mountain by sunrise. Now I perfectly well remember what I said with reference to sunrises from mountain-tops on the occasion of that disastrous visit to the Blue Mountain Peak in Jamaica; how I then swore that I would never do another mountain sunrise, having always failed lamentably in such attempts. I remember, and did remember this; and as far as the sunrise was concerned would certainly have had nothing to do with the Irazu at five o\'clock, a.m.

But the volcano and the crater made the matter very different. They were my attractions; and as the mild voice suggested an early hour, it would not have become me to have hesitated. "Start at four?" "Certainly," I said. "The beds at the potrero"—such was the name they gave the place at which we stopped—"will not be soft enough to keep us sleeping." "No," said the mild voice, "they are not soft." And so we proceeded.

Our road was very rough, and very steep; and the night was very dark. It was rough at first, and then it became slippery, which was worse. I had no idea that earth could be so slippery. My mule, which was a very fine one, fell under me repeatedly, being altogether unable to keep her footing. On these occasions she usually scrambled up, with me still on her back. Once, however, near the beginning of my difficulties, I thought to relieve her; and to do so I got off her. I soon found my mistake. I immediately slipped down on my hands and knees, and found it impossible to stand on my feet. I did not sink into the mud, but slipped off it—down, down, down, as if I were going back to Cartago, all alone in the dark. It was with difficulty that I again mounted my beast; but when there, there I remained let her fall as she would. At eleven o\'clock we reached the potrero.

The house here was little more than a rancho or hut; one of those log farm buildings which settlers make when they first clear the timber from a part of their selected lots, intending to replace them in a year or two by such tidy little houses; but so rarely fulfilling their intentions. All through Costa Rica such ranchos are common. On the coffee plantations and in the more highly-cultivated part of the country, round the towns for instance, and along the road to Punta-arenas, the farmers have a better class of residence. They inhabit long, low-built houses, with tiled roofs and a ground floor only, not at all unlike farmers\' houses in Ireland, only that there they are thatched or slated. Away from such patches of cultivation, one seldom finds any house better than a log-built rancho.

But the rancho had a door, and that door was fastened; so we knocked and hallooed—"Dito," cried the guide; such being, I presume, the familiar sobriquet of his friend within. "Dito," sang out my mild friend with all his small energy of voice. "Dito," shouted I; and I think that my voice was the one which wakened the sleepers within.

We were soon admitted into the hut, and found that we were by no means the first comers. As soon as a candle was lighted we saw that there were four bedsteads in the room, and that two of them were occupied. There were, however, two left for my friend and myself. And it appeared also that the occupiers were friends of my friend. They were German savants, one by profession an architect and the other a doctor, who had come up into the woods looking for birds, beasts, and botanical treasures, and had already been there some three or four days. They were amply supplied with provisions, and immediately offered us supper. The architect sat up in bed to welcome us, and the doctor got up to clear the two spare beds of his trappings.

There is a luck in these things. I remember once clambering to the top of Scafell-Pike, in Cumberland—if it chance to be in Westmoreland I beg the county\'s pardon. I expected nothing more than men generally look for on the tops of mountains; but to my great surprise I found a tent. I ventured to look in, and there I saw two officers of the Engineers, friends of my own, sharpening their knives preparatory to the dissection of a roast goose. And beside the goose stood a bottle of brandy. Now I always looked on that as a direct dispensation of Providence. Walking down the mountain that same evening to Whitehaven, I stopped at a small public-house on the side of Enerdale, and called for some whisky and water. The article produced was not good, and so I said, appealing to an elderly gentleman in black, who sat by the hobside, very contemplative. "Ah," said he; "you can\'t get good drink in these parts, sir; I know that so well that I generally bring a bottle of my own." I immediately opened a warm conversation with that gentleman. He was a clergyman of a neighbouring parish; and in a few minutes a magnum of port had made its appearance out of a neighbouring cupboard. That I thought was another dispensation of Providence. It was odd that they should have come together; but the facts are as I state them.

I did venture on a glass of brandy and water and a slight morsel of bread and meat, and then I prepared to throw myself on the bed immediately opposite to the doctor\'s. As I did so I saw something move inside the doctor\'s bed. "My wife is there," said the doctor, seeing the direction of my eyes. "Oh!" said I; and I at once became very moderate in the slight change which I made in my toilet.

We were to start at four, and at four precisely I woke. As my friend had said, there was little to tempt me to sleep. The great drawback to the comfort of these ranchos is the quantity of dirt which continually falls out of the roof into one\'s eyes. Then the boards are hard of course, and of course, also, they are infested with vermin. They tell you indeed of scorpions and centipedes, of preternatural wasps, and musquitos as big as young ostriches; but I found none of these large-looming beasts of prey. Of beasts of a smaller size I did find more than plenty.

At four I was up, but my friend was very unwilling to stir. It was long before I could induce the mild voice to make itself heard in any way. At that time it was fine, but it was long before I could get the muleteer. When I had done so, and he had thrown their grass to the beasts, it began to rain—of course. "It rains like the d——" said I, very crossly. "Does it?" said the mild voice from the bed. "I am so sorry;" and in half a second he was again in the land of dreams. The doctor snored; but from the furthest remote comer I could see the eye of the doctor\'s wife looking out at me.

It was between six and seven when we started. At that time it was not raining, but the clouds looked as like rain as the Secretary of Legation could have desired. And the two Germans were anything but consolatory in their prophecies. "You\'ll not see a stick or a stone," said the architect; "you\'d better stop and breakfast with us." "It is very dangerous to be wet in the mountains, very dangerous," said the doctor. "It is a bad morning, certainly," pleaded the mild voice piteously. The doctor\'s wife said nothing, but I could see her eyes looking out at the weather. How on earth was she to get herself dressed, it occurred to me then, if we should postpone our journey and remain there?

It ended in our starting just two hours after the prescribed time. The road up from the potrero is very steep almost the whole way to the summit, but it was not so muddy as that we had passed over on the preceding evening. For some little way there were patches of cultivation, the ground bearing sweet potatoes and Indian corn. Then we came into a tract of beautiful forest scenery. The land, though steep, was broken, and only partially covered with trees. The grass in patches was as good as in an English park, and the views through the open bits of the forest were very lovely. In four or five different places we found the ground sufficiently open for all the requirements of a picturesque country house, and no prettier site for such a house could well be found. This was by far the finest scenery that I had hitherto seen in Costa Rica; but even here there was a want of water. In ascending the mountain we saw some magnificent forest trees, generally of the kind called cotton-trees in Jamaica. There were oaks also—so called there—very nearly approaching our holm-oak in colour and foliage, but much larger than that tree is with us. They were all more or less covered with parasite plants, and those parasites certainly add greatly to the beauty of the supporting trunk.

By degrees we got into thick forest—forest I mean so thick that it affords no views. You see and feel the trees that are close to you, but see nothing else. And here the path became so steep that we were obliged to dismount and let the beasts clamber up by themselves; and the mist became very thick, so much so that we could hardly trace our path; and then the guide said that he thought he had lost his way.

"People often do come out and go back again without ever reaching the crater at all, don\'t they?" said the mild voice.

"Very often," said the guide.

"But we won\'t be such people," said I.

"Oh no!" said the mild voice. "Not if we can help it."

"And we will help it. Allons; andiamos; vamos."

The first word which an Englishman learns in any language is that which signifies a determination to proceed.

And we did proceed, turning now hither and now thither, groping about in the mist, till at last the wood was all left behind us, and we were out among long grass on a mountain-side. "And now," said the guide, "unless the mist clears I can\'t say which way we ought to go."

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the mist did clear itself away altogether from one side of us. Looking down to the left, we could see far away into the valleys beneath, over large forests, and across a lower range of hills, till the eye could reach the cultivated plateau below. But on the other side, looking up to a mountain higher still than that on which we stood, all was not only misty, but perfectly dark and inscrutable.

The guide however now knew the spot. We were near the summit of Ir............