And such a place! We were forced to dismount, climb up almost on our hands and knees, and let the horses scramble after us as they best could.
"That is the last of our difficulties," said Carmen, as we got into our saddles.

"In ten minutes we strike the road, and then we shall have a free course for several hours." "How about the patrols?
Do you think we have given them the slip ?" "I do.

They don't often come as far as this." We reached the road at a point where it was level with the fields; and a few miles farther on entered a defile, bounded on the left by a deep ravine, on the right by a rocky height.
And then there occurred a startling phenomenon.

As the moon rose above the Silla of Caracas, the entire savanna below us seemed to take fire, streams as of lava began to run up (not down) the sides of the hills, throwing a lurid glare over the sleeping city, and bringing into strong relief the rugged mountains which walled in the plain.
"Good heavens, what is that!" I exclaimed.
"It is the time of drought, and the peons are firing the grass to improve the land," said Carmen.

"I wish they had not done it just now, though.
However, it is, perhaps, quite as well.