We found nothing on the summit but a few heavy foundation stones, possibly remains of a sacrificial altar. Our horses had to be walked actively about, to prevent their taking serious cold from the rapid evaporation. It is chiefly memories that are found on such places. I plucked there, however, to send in a letter, a dark-red common flower, and pleased myself with the fancy that it might have drawn its sanguinary hue from the ground so steeped in slaughter.
Though at the entrance of the lake, no shining expanse of water was visible. The greater part of the surface, in fact, is covered with a singular growth of entwined roots and débris, supporting a verdant meadow. Passage through it is effected by canals and shifting natural channels, which change with the wind.
Two of our men after a time got out and towed the boat. The ostensible terra firma sank under their weight like the undulations of "benders" in thin ice. Now and then one floundered and went in waist-deep, whereat the others laughed. The margins are kept in place along the permanent channels by pinning them down with long stakes.
We fell in with wandering strips of growing verdure, called cintas (ribbons), and larger ones, bandoleros (bandits), drifting about at their own sweet will. Our host told us, though this he would not guarantee as of his own experience, that in the earlier times a garden of flowers and vegetables was now and then wrecked along-shore after a gale of wind, as if it had been a bark. Contra-bandists, robbers who occasionally beset the market-boats, and political refugees have sometimes found this a favorable place of refuge, and escaped pursuit by diving under the illusive area and coming up elsewhere.
We dined al fresco at Mas Arriba, a place named quite
