UNCLE SAM'S NEW WATERWAY.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE Land of the Great Water!

That was the poetic idea embodied in the ancient Indian name of which the Spanish corruption is Nicaragua. The Indians displayed comparatively wide topographical knowledge, as well as poetical sentiment, in naming their country, as it is distinguished by the largest lake to be found within the entire reigon of Aztec occupation. But even that is not the whole truth, for there is no other body of fresh water of like magnitude between Lake Michigan and Lake Titicaca in Peru. And the name itself, after centuries have rolled by, after the civilization which coined it has vanished from the face of the earth, and after its fitness has been verified by thorough exploration of the American conti

nent, is now about to acquire new point and increased significance by the march of modern improvement. For who can doubt that when the great enterprise planned by American genius and undertaken by American capital, is carried to successful completion, Nicaragua will come to be known as the Land of the Great Waterway; the interoceanic highway between the nations of the East and the nations of the West?

If the reader will hold his right hand open, with the palm upward and the thumb close to the side, he can get a concise and convenient idea of the general configuration of the country. On the side of the thumb he will have the Atlantic, on the other the Pacific Ocean, while in the hollow of his hand he will hold the great lake. The irregular line at the junction of the wrist, and to the right of the center, will mark the course of the noble San Juan River, flowing to the Atlantic along the eleventh parallel of north latitude, carrying off the water of the lake, and forming, for the greater part of its course, the Costa Rican boundary, which also extends westward of the lake along the same

line. The tip of the thumb will indicate the position of Cape Gracias, at the northeastern extremity on the Caribbean Sea, and an irregular line thence to the Bay of Fonseca, at the base of the little finger, the boundary of Honduras. The Bay of Fonseca separates the Peninsula of Coseguina, which is the northwestern extremity of Nicaragua, from the southern end of Salvador. At the tip of that peninsula stands the famous volcano Coseguina, which, although it had the appearance for centuries of being dead, suddenly burst into activity in 1835, and covered the country with a pall of dust and smoke for four days. That was one of the most extraordinary eruptions of which history has any record. The dust fell over 1,500 miles of land and water, from Jamaica in the West Indies to Bogota in South America.

Nicaragua extends over four and a half degrees of latitude and longitude. It lies between 10° 30′ and 15° north latitude, and 83° 11' and 87° 40′ west longitude. Its southern frontier extends over about one and three quarter, and its northern frontier over four and a half degrees of longitude. Its Atlantic coast line

stretches for 280 miles southward from Cape Gracias à Dios to Greytown, or San Juan del Norte, at the mouth of the San Juan River, and its Pacific coast line from Salinas Bay northward to Coseguina, a distance of about 200 miles. The area of the country is 58,500 square miles. The Atlantic, or, as it is usually called, the Mosquito Coast, from the fact that it is inhabited by the Mosquito Indians, is low, swampy, and fringed with numerous reefs and islands, the chief of the latter being Great and Little Corn, Old Providence, Longreef and Tangweera. The two lagoons of Pearl Cay and Bluefields afford good harbors for vessels of light draft, but the best harbor on the coast is that of Greytown. Although accessible forty years ago to the largest ships, the shifting southward of the mouth of the San Juan River, about 1866, closed up the entrance, and converted the harbor into a lagoon, without any outlet to the ocean. The harbor remained closed until 1890, when it was opened again by the commencement of work on the Nicaragua Canal. The Pacific Coast, on the other hand, is bold and rocky, free from islands or reefs, and indented