The path was easier, but hardly, hardly, could Beltran drag himself along it.

His arm was over my shoulder.
Out of the dark pass we came upon a table almost bare of trees and covered with a fine soft grass.

The mountains of Cibao, five leagues--maybe more--away, hung in emerald purple and gold under the sinking sun.

The highest rocky peaks rose pale gold.

Below us and between those mountains on which we stood and the golden mountains of Cibao, spread that plain, so beautiful, so wide and long, so fertile and smiling and vast, that afterwards was called the Royal Plain! East and west one might not see the end; south only the golden mountains stopped it.