guina is several miles in circumference, and therefore not very much smaller than that of Masaya. He adds: "The quantity of matter ejected was incredible in amount. I am informed by the captain of a vessel which passed along the coast a few days thereafter, that the sea for fifty leagues was covered with floating masses of pumice, and that he sailed for a whole day through it without being able to distinguish but here and there an open space of water." A further confirmation is found in the fact that there are many other basins of the same character, though much smaller, within a radius of twenty miles of Masaya and some others in different different parts of the Mirabios. There is one close to the city of Managua, which also contains fresh water, but in some of these basins the water is salt.

CHAPTER VI.

THE PACIFIC SLOPE.

THE Pacific slope is at once the grain-field and the garden of Nicaragua. It was densely populated, and in a high state of cultivation at the advent of the Spaniards. The old chroniclers were amazed at the fertility of the soil, and called it "a land of abundance, of good fruits and of honey and wax." Concerning the inhabitants it was said: "They had a great quantity of cotton cloths, and they held their markets in the open squares, where they traded. They had a manufactory where they made cordage of a sort of nequin, which is like carded flax; the cord was beautiful and stronger than that of Spain, and their cotton canvas was excellent. The Indians were very civilized in their way of life, like those of Mexico, for they were a people who had come from that country, and they had nearly the same language. They

had many beautiful women. The husbands were so much under subjection that if they made their wives angry they were turned out of doors, and the wives even raised their hands against them.”

The difference in climate and vegetation between the two coasts was referred to in the opening chapter. The average temperature, the year round, at America on the Atlantic coast, is only 77 1-6°, while during our stay on the Pacific coast, in the month of April, the thermometer every where ranged from 95° to 98° F. between 11 A.M. and 5 P.M. The Atlantic coast is perennially clothed in green, while the Pacific coast, on account of its long dry season, is parched and dead in March and April. When we arrived there the prevailing color of the landscape was a brownish yellow, from the dust which had settled upon everything above the surface of the earth. Not a drop of rain had fallen in six months. The fields were as bare as they are in the southern part of the United States during midwinter, while the forests seemed as if they had never grown underbrush. Even the smaller trees were leafless on

their lower branches, though many of them had sickly tufts of green on their tops. Only the lofty trees, whose taproots found moisture far below the surface, wore verdant or flowery crowns, as if indifferent to the withering drought about them. All of the streams were dried up, but there was a little moisture left in the deep ravines which formed their beds, so here and there a ribbon of living green formed a pleasing contrast to the dead landscape everywhere else. Numerous fires had been set to burn the stubble from the fields and the dead brush from the forests, so that the atmosphere was hazy with smoke. After the rainy season sets in, however, a wonderful transformation comes over the face of the country. The fields are covered with verdure, the trees put forth blossoms and new leaves, and the earth smiles as if still in the first blush of youth.

There is a difference in kind, as well as in season, between the vegetation of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Generally speaking, the underbrush is neither so varied nor so luxuriant on the latter as on the former. The various palms and foliaceous tree ferns, which form so

conspicuous a feature of the forest between Greytown and the lakes, disappear on the Pacific slope, and almost the only species of palm to be seen are the cocoanut and the coyol or wine-palm (Cocos Butyracea). This last tree, besides producing in great clusters a nut like a diminutive cocoanut, which renders a very fine oil, yields a palatable drink, that was one of the few intoxicants known to the Indians before the advent of the Spaniards. The wine is secured by felling the tree and making a large oblong opening in the trunk just below the leafy crown. In a day or two the opening will be filled with the sap of the tree, a clear yellowish liquid, which ferments as it collects.

The wine will continue to run for about twenty days, so that each tree yields several gallons. Mr. Belt was told that a very large grove of these trees near Granada was cut down by the government, because the Indians used to assemble there and get drunk during their festivals.

The Indians may be given to getting drunk on festal occasions, but so far as I was able to observe, their everyday life seemed to be char