about half past ten
After riding a couple of miles , and leaving the open savannah , you struck off sharp to the left through a narrow bridle-path into the wood , with an impervious forest on either hand , and proceeding a mile farther , you came suddenly upon a small rushing , roaring , miniature cascade , where the pent-up waters leaped through a narrow gap in the limestone rock , that you could have stepped across , down a tiny fall about a fathom high , into a round foaming buzzing basin , twenty feet in diameter , where the clear cool water bubbled and eddied round and round like a boiling cauldron , until it rushed away once more over the lower ledge , and again disappeared , murmuring beneath the thick foliage of the rustling branches . The pool was about ten feet deep , and never was any thing more luxurious in a hot climate . After having performed my morning ablutions , and looking with a heavy heart at the sweet stream , and at every stock and stone , and shrub and tree , as objects I was never to see again ; I trotted on , followed by Peter Mangrove , my man-at-arms , who bestrode his mule gallantly , to Don Hombrecillo 's pen , as the little man delighted to call his country house , situated about five miles from Panama , and which I was previously informed had been given up to the use of his two maiden sisters . I got there about half past ten in the forenoon , and found that el Senor Justo had arrived before me . The situation was most beautiful ; the house was embosomed in high wood ; the lowest spurs put forth by the gigantic trees being far above the ridge-pole of the wooden fabric . It was a low one story building of unpainted timber , which , from the action of the weather , had been bleached on the outside into a whitish grey appearance , streaked by numerous green weather-stains , and raised about five feet on wooden posts , so that there was room for a flock of goats to shelter themselves below it . Access was had to the interior by a rickety rattle-trap of a wooden ladder , or stair of half-a-dozen steps , at the top of which you landed in an unceiled hall , with the rafters of the roof exposed , and the bare green vitrified tiles for a canopy , while a small sleeping apartment opened off each end .