mal pais or barren lava fields, but the great plain of Conejo in that district and the even more extensive plain of Leon, west of the range, are fertile and thickly populated. Further southward the districts of Managua, Granada and Rivas are traversed by a low range of hills, called the Coast Range. Here the mean level of the land is less than 100 feet above the surface of the lakes, and except the mountains Mombacho and Masaya, already spoken of, there are no peaks more than 2,000 feet high. A few miles south of Rivas the land falls to the lowest elevation found on the Pacific Coast of the American continent. At the highest point it is only forty-one feet above the level of the lake (Nicaragua) and 142 above highwater mark on the Pacific.

The physical aspects of the country have been indicated in a general way in what has gone before, but they may be spoken of more particularly before proceeding further. Journeying westward from the Atlantic Coast, the traveler crosses first the flat forest-covered lands, characterized chiefly by black alluvial soil, then encounters rising ground still densely wooded,

where rocks and clay crop out of the loam. This rising ground soon becomes mountainous, declining in altitude toward the valley of the San Juan, in the south, and increasing in altitude toward the north, where in Chontales, Matagalpa and Segovia, occur broad tablelands and savannas at great elevations above the sea. From the summit of this mountain range the descent is sharp to the basin of the lakes. On the Pacific coast, the great volcanic range, beginning in the north at the Gulf of Fonseca, breaks away, west of the lakes, into a series of plains of no considerable elevation above the level of the lakes, but with a sensible decline southward to the locality of Rivas. From some distance above Leon to Rivas, a distance of 100 miles, the land is mostly cleared or sparsely wooded as compared with the Atlantic slope. South of Rivas, about eight miles, are extensive "jicarals" (pronounced hic'-o-rals), or barren plains sparsely wooded with the jicara tree and a peculiar shrub called the bull's thorn. It may be mentioned in this connection that plains of the same character occur in the districts east of the lakes. Further south than

the jicarals near Rivas, the land rises again to form the Santa Clara hills and becomes heavily wooded.

North of Granada, which is on the west shore of Lake Nicaragua, near its head, occur volcanic lakelets, such as that of Masaya, beside the Indian town of the same name. These are crater-like openings in the earth, and are filled with water, the level of which is in some instances more than 300 feet below the surface of the earth. Higher up north, throughout the region of the Maribios, occur numerous infernillos or low mounds, which send forth sulphurous smoke, and at night blue flames that give a weird illumination to the surrounding country. Indeed, the evidences of volcanic energy are so numerous and plain, throughout this part of the country, as to justify the remark of Squier that: "No other region of equal extent probably betrays so marked traces of igneous action as that portion of Nicaragua intervening between its lakes and the Pacific." It should be borne in mind, however, that those traces are much less remarkable south of Masaya than north of it. Throughout the

western part of Nicaragua the soil is a reddish loam, which, under the influence of the periodic rains, or of irrigation, is extremely fertile. During the latter part of the dry season, however, the country generally has a dusty and desolate appearance.

There are no rivers worthy of the name emptying into the Pacific, although there are numerous deep ravines, which in the rainy season become the beds of rushing torrents. The same remark is applicable to the streams that flow into the lakes, with the exception of the Rio Frio and the Rio Negro, which flow into the southern part of Lake Nicaragua, and the Rio Synagapa, which empties into the northern part of Lake Managua. The first named is a bold river and the other two are considerable streams. Several important rivers flow, however, from the eastern slope of the Cordilleras to the Atlantic. The nearest of these to the Honduras border is the Coca, called also the Wanks and the Segovia, and by the Indians of the highlands the Telpaueca. This river is several hundred miles long and it empties into the Atlantic not far below Cape Gracias, after