Sometimes
the pots are broken off, to lighten the load, and great piles of
their fragments--miniature _Monti testacci_--are seen around the
_Salinas_, as these works are called, where they will remain long
after this rude system of salt-manufacture shall be supplanted by a
better, as a puzzle for fledgling antiquaries.
Six miles beyond the Rio Sirama we came to another stream, called the
Siramita or Little Sirama, for the reason, probably, as H. suggested,
that it is four times as large as the Sirama. It flows through a bed
twenty feet deep and upwards of two hundred feet wide, paved with
water-worn stones, ragged with frayed fragments of trees, and
affording abundant evidence that during the season of rains it is a
rough and powerful torrent. Between this stream and the Goascoran
there is a maze of barren hills, relieved by occasional level
reaches, covered with acacias and deciduous trees. Through these the
road winds in easy gradients, and there are numerous passes perfectly
feasible for a railway, in case it should ever be deemed advisable to
carry one around the head of the bay to La Union.
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.
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