The traveller emerges suddenly from among these hills into the valley of the Goascoran, and finds the river a broad and gentle stream flowing at his feet.  At the time of our passage, the water at the ford was nowhere more than two feet deep, with gravelly bottom and high and firm banks, without traces of overflow.  We had now passed the threshold of the unknown region on which we were venturing, and although we had a moral conviction that the valley before us afforded the requisite facilities for the enterprise which we had in hand, yet it was not without a deep feeling of satisfaction, almost of exultation, that, on riding to the summit of a bare knoll close by, we traced the course of the river, in a graceful curve, along the foot of the green hills on our left, and saw that it soon resumed its general direction north and south, on the precise line most favorable for our purposes.  In the distance, rising alone in the very centre of the valley, we discerned the castellated Rock of Goascoran, behind which, we were told, nestled the village of Goascoran, where we intended passing the night.  We had taken its bearings from the top of Conchagua, and were glad to find that the intervening country was level and open, chiefly savanna, or covered with scattered trees.  There was no need of instrumentation here, and so, ordering Dolores to bring up the baggage as rapidly as possible, we struck across the plain in a right line, in total disregard of roads or pathways, for the Rock of Goascoran.  A smart gallop of two hours brought us to its foot, and in a few minutes after we entered the village, and rode straight to the Cabildo, or House of the Municipality, tied our mules to the columns of the corridor, pushed open the door, and made ourselves at home.

And here I may mention that the Cabildo, throughout Honduras, is the stranger’s refuge.  Its door is never locked, and every traveller, high or low, rich or poor, has a right to enter it unquestioned, and “make it his hotel” for the time being.  Its accommodations, it is true, are seldom extensive and never sumptuous.  They rarely consist of more than one or two hide-covered chairs, a rickety table, and two or three long benches placed against the wall, with a tinaja or jar for water in the corner, and possibly a clay oven or rude contrivance for cooking under the back corridor.  In all the more important villages, which enjoy the luxury of a local court, the end of the Cabildo is usually fenced off with wooden bars, as a prison.  Occasionally the traveller finds it occupied by some poor devil of a prisoner, with his feet confined in stocks, to prevent his digging a hole through the mud walls or kicking down his prison-bars, who exhibits his ribs to prove that he is “muy flaco,” (very thin,) and solicits, in the name of the Virgin and all the Santos, "algo para comer" (something to eat).