that they frequently jump into the Norma, and a short time before our visit five were thus captured on one trip. They were all between five and six feet in length. Here also we saw an immense alligator, whose head alone was more than five feet long. When first noticed he had his head in a shallow place between two rocks, and his upper jaw raised at right angles to the lower jaw, so that it looked like a gnarled snag. The river men said that was his manner of fishing. Alligators are said to be very abundant in the river, but that was the first and only large one we saw. The snout is more pointed and otherwise differently shaped from that of the alligator found in the southern part of the United States.

The Savallo is a small river whose sources are in the Chontales Mountains, at a considerable distance from the San Juan. A short distance above its mouth there is a hot spring, the water of which is believed to possess excellent medicinal properties. About the sources of this river, which are difficult of access, gold in considerable quantities was said to have been discovered a short time before our arrival.

The

largest of the river steamers, the Managua, plies between the Savallo and San Carlos on the lake at the head of the San Juan, and makes the trip in less than six hours. The distance is about thirty miles. Above the Savallo the San Juan is broad and deep and its current comparatively slow. The banks are low and frequently broken by lagoons. A palm, with great coarse leaves twenty feet in length, abundant in the delta, makes its reappearance here.

We reached San Carlos about six o'clock in the evening, in time to see the sun set on the lake, but of that hereafter. The village, named from the old Spanish fort that looks down on it, is on the north bank of the river, upon rolling ground, which terminates at the angle between the river and the lake in a high hill, upon whose crest stands the old fort. There is another high hill behind the town, so that altogether the situation is a striking one. The village is a heterogeneous collection of adobe structures, wooden buildings, lop-sided shanties and thatched huts. It contains several hundred inhabitants, and numerous goats. Half of the population was assembled about the

wharf-house to witness our arrival, which had been heralded by a salute of several guns from the fort. General Gutierres, the commandant of the post, came down to meet us, and invite us to inspect the fort. We accepted the invitation in a body, and he put his little garrison of twenty men through a dress parade for our benefit. Afterward he gave us some very good brandy. A fort which stood upon this site was captured by the English in 1665, and subsequently retaken by the Spaniards. Whether it was the existing fort, which undoubtedly is very old, is uncertain.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT LAKE.

FROM the ramparts of the old fort we saw the sun set on the great lake. In the glowing light of the evening it seemed like a sea of gold, studded with emerald isles. To the southwest, the forest-covered shore line receded to a mere thread. that vanished under the cloud-capped mountains of Costa Rica. Beneath the setting sun, with the golden water beyond as well as in front of them, were the verdant archipelagoes of Chichicaste and Solentiname. The twin mountains of the lake-the lofty, conical Ometepec and his shorter, dome-shaped brother, Medeira, in the northwest, alone interrupted the endless expanse of water, while the rugged, undulating eastern shore, its densely wooded headlands and hollows abounding in contrasts of light and shade, was lost in the distance below a range of peaks just showing

above the northern horizon. It has been well said: "The lake is too large to be called beautiful, and its vast extent and the mere glimpses of its limits and cloud-capped peaks appeal to the imagination rather than to the eye." Had we not known better, we might easily have believed that we were gazing on the Pacific Ocean.

The most prominent landmarks in sight were the twin peaks in the northwest and three more distant but equally lofty peaks in the southwest. These last are the volcanoes Miravaya, Rincon de la Vieja, and Orosi, in Costa Rica. The clouds, which bridge-like spanned their summits as well as those of Ometepec and Medeira, all purple and gold, became somber and black as the light went out of them. The natives, who are full of poetic fancies, call these clouds "the night cap." The clouds are still there in the morning, but all fleecy, and may then be called the white cap. Orosi, which is the northernmost of the Costa Rican peaks, was in active eruption in 1844, when it gave rise to earthquake shocks, felt with considerable force as far north as Rivas; but it is quiet now. Ometepec and Medeira stand in the lake about