MANAGUA. THE CAPITAL OF NICARAGUA.

A STRANGER landing at the port of Corinto, Nicaragua, asked the men who were taking him ashore in a bongoe the name of the capital of the republic. There were three of them. The quickest of wit answered promptly, “Grenada;” both the others disputed it, one of them contending for the city of Managua, and the other for Leon. So animated did the controversy become that all three dropped their oars, and nearly upset the boat by their gesticulations. This question is, and always has been, a dangerous one, and thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands of money have been wasted in repeated attempts to determine it. If it were the only excuse for the blood that has been shed in the little republic during the last sixty-five years, its history would be a nobler and a prouder one; for bitter wars have been waged for less, and brother has fought brother to settle questions not only involving a preference for cities but for men. There is no spot of equal area upon the globe in which so much human blood has been wasted in civil war, or so much wanton destruction committed. Nature has blessed it with wonderful resources, and a few years of peace and industry would make the country prosperous beyond comparison; but so much attention has been paid to politics that little is left for anything else. Scarcely a year has passed without a revolution, and during its sixty-five years of independence the republic has known more than five times as many rulers as it had during the three centuries it was under the dominion of Spain. It was seldom a question of principle or policy that brought the inhabitants to war, but usually the intrigue of some ambitious man. It is a land of volcanic disturbance, physical, moral, and political, and the mountains and men have between them contrived to almost compass its destruction.

VIEW OF LAKE FROM BEACH AT MANAGUA.

For sixty years the country has been going backward. Its population is less than when independence was declared, and its wealth has decreased even more rapidly. Its cities are heaps of ruins, and its commerce is not so great as it was at the beginning of the century. There is, however, a commercial elasticity, owing to the extreme productiveness of the fields and the ease with which wealth is acquired, that has kept the little republic from bankruptcy, and promises great prosperity if political order can be preserved.

Most of the people live in towns, and waste much time in going and coming between their homes and the plantations upon which they labor. This is owing to the frequency of revolutions and the milder forms of destruction and murder that are practised by highwaymen and other robbers. None but the very poor live along the roadside, and they have nothing to tempt assault.

CORINTO.

Everybody rides on horseback, and the animals are plenty and fine. The horses of Nicaragua resemble those of Arabia, being small but fleet, spirited, and capable of much endurance. Great care is taken in training them, and they are taught an easy gait, half trotting and half pacing, called the paso-trote. A well-broken animal will take this as soon as the reins are loosened, and continue it all day without fatigue to himself or his rider, making five or six miles an hour. The motion is so gentle that an experienced rider can carry a cup of water for miles in his hand without spilling a drop.

There is only one road in the country suitable for carriages, and that is seldom used except by carts. It runs from Grenada, the easternmost city of importance on the shore of Lake Nicaragua, to Realjo, or Corinto, the principal seaport; and over this road, which was built three hundred years ago by the Spaniards, all the commerce of the country passes. There is now a railroad along this highway; the Government has several times made loans to construct it, but the money was wasted in revolutions, and the track was not completed till recently. The road belongs to the Government, and is managed by a citizen of the United States. The cart road passes through Managua, and thus unites the three principal cities of the land. Over it have passed hundreds of armies and no end of insurgent forces, and the whole distance has been washed with blood, shed in public and private quarrels. Wherever a man has been slain a rude cross is usually erected, and it is common to see wreaths of flowers hanging upon it, placed there by some interested or, mayhap, loving hand. At these places pious passengers breathe a prayer for the soul that has been released, and they are so numerous that it keeps them praying from one end of a journey to the other.

HIDE-COVERED CART.

The carts which furnish transportation are rude contrivances of native manufacture, and the design has not been improved upon since the conquest. The body consists of a very heavy framework of wood, and the wheels are solid sections cut from some large tree, usually of mahogany. They are not sawed, but chopped into shape, and are generally about eight or ten inches thick and five feet in diameter, and weigh several hundred pounds. The oxen do not wear yokes, but the pole of the cart is fastened to a bar of tough wood, usually lignum vitæ, which is lashed by cowhide thongs to the horns. There are always two pair of oxen—one to haul the cart and the other to haul the load, for the vehicle is twice the weight of its cargo. Two men are required to navigate the craft; one goes ahead armed with a gun or a machete, which is a long knife, and answers for many purposes—a weapon as well as an agricultural implement—and the oxen are supposed to follow him, while the other sits on the load and yells as he prods the animals with an iron-pointed goad long enough to reach the leaders. The man ahead assists his colleague by uttering constant admonitions to the oxen without turning his face, and between the two, and the squeaking of the cart-wheels, which are never greased, there is noise enough to deafen the whole neighborhood. The approach of one of these vehicles can be anticipated half an hour.

Each cart contains five or six days’ forage for the animals, as well as rations for the carreteros. They camp whenever night overtakes them, even if it is only a mile from the end of their journey. The oxen are fastened to the cart and given their fodder, while the men light a fire, make their coffee, and either lie under the cart or upon it to sleep. Most of the carts have covers or awnings of cured hides, which are lashed over boughs to protect the loads in the rainy season. The average rate of speed is about a mile an hour over a good road, but ten miles a day is fast travelling, owing to the amount of time wasted by the roadside.

The cartmen are invariably honest in dealing with their employers, and always render a strict account of their cargoes, whether they are composed of silver or coffee, but

AN INTERIOR TOWN.

consider it a privilege, which they have inherited from their ancestors, to plunder along the road. Nothing is too hot or too heavy for them to carry away, and accordingly precautions are taken for the protection of whatever is likely to tempt them. They have an unorganized union to protect themselves, and permit no impositions to be practised upon any of their number, or underbidding or other irregularities among themselves. They charge so much a journey, no matter what their load is, and persons having small parcels to be carried have to club together to make up a cargo, or pay a high rate for transportation. Many of the carts and oxen are owned by those who drive them, but others are leased to the carreteros by capitalists who possess a large number. The cattle come from the savannas in the south-western portion of the republic, where there are immense and nutritious pastures extending over the line into Costa Rica.

THE INDIGO PLANT.

THE KING OF THE MOSQUITOES.

Although the mineral resources of the country are undoubtedly rich, its future wealth will come, if peace can ever be made permanent, from the development of the agricultural and timber lands. Beyond the mining district down to the Mosquito coast there extends a forest of immense area, filled with the finest woods, and it has scarcely been touched. The most useful timber is the mahogany, although there are kindred varieties quite as good, but not so popular or well known. It is more easily obtained too, as it grows upon the ridges and keeps out of the swamps, which are full of miasma and mosquitoes. The tree is one of the most beautiful, as well as one of the largest, that are found in tropical lands, commonly reaching a height of sixty or seventy feet, and being from twenty-five to forty feet in circumference. Timbers forty feet long and eight feet square are frequent, although so heavy that they are difficult to handle; and the only way fine timber can be obtained is by taking saw-mills into the forest and cutting up the timber into sizes suitable for transportation. This is difficult, however, owing to the lack of roads. Logs five and six feet in diameter are common, and it is said that the largest trees have the finest color and grain.

The mahogany is one of the few trees in the tropical forests whose leaves change color with the season, and the Carrib Indians, who are employed to cut them, discover their presence by this peculiarity. They climb the highest tree they can find, sight the mahoganies, locate their position with great skill, and lead the choppers to them with unerring accuracy. When the tree is found, the underbrush around it and the lower limbs are first cleared away before the trunk is attacked. When it falls, the branches are chopped off; then the log is hewn into shape, after which it is dragged by oxen—sometimes a hundred yoke being employed—to the nearest water-course, the choppers going ahead and clearing away with their machetes the underbrush and small trees to make a road. When the timber is rolled into the river, it is branded and allowed to lie there until the rainy season, when the waters rise and carry it down to the sea.

There are other trees of great value in the forests, and not for timber alone. The caoutchouc, or rubber-tree—a name which when properly pronounced sounds like the plunge of a frog into the water—kachunk—is very plentiful in the Nicaragua forests, although this resource, like most of the others, is comparatively idle. The Mosquito Indians gather some, however, which is shipped from Blewfields and Greytown in small quantities. The quality is not so good as that which comes from Brazil, as the sap is not reduced with any skill or care.

The average North American supposes that the rubber is obtained like pitch, and comes from the exuded gums of the tree, but the process is altogether different, resembling our method of making maple sugar. When the sap begins to rise from the roots to the branches of the tree, expeditions of thirty or forty men are organized, who are furnished by the exporting merchants with an outfit of buckets, axes, machetes, pans, and provisions, and start into the woods. The uleros, as the rubbermen are called, from the term ule, which is the native name for the tree, are always paid a small sum in advance, ostensibly for the support of their families during their absence, but which is always exhausted in debauchery before they start. When they reach the forest of the ule-trees they build a shanty of palms and brush, if there is not one already standing, on the bank of some stream, as a great deal of water is required for the manufacture of the gum. There they distribute their large cans and buckets through the forest at convenient intervals and proceed to business. When the ulero selects his tree, he clears the trunk of vines and creepers and climbs it to the branches. Then he descends, cutting diagonal channels through the bark with a single blow of his machete, or knife, left and right, left and right, all meeting at the angle. At the bottom of the lowest cut an iron trough about six inches long and four inches wide is driven into the tree, which catches the milk as it flows from the wound, and conducts it into a bucket on the ground below. This is done with great speed and skill by an expert; and necessarily so, to prevent waste, as the sap springs out instantly, and by the time the spout is driven into the tree is flowing at the rate of four gallons an hour. A large tree will produce twenty gallons of sap, and will run dry in a single day. The ulero having tapped a dozen or eighteen trees has all the work he can attend to emptying the buckets into the ten-gallon cans that are provided for the purpose. In the evening the cans are carried to the camp, and the sap strained through sieves into barrels. In Brazil it is boiled, but in Nicaragua the natives have a peculiar system of reducing it. There is a plant or vine called the Achuna, whose sap when mixed with that of the rubber-tree has the singular property of coagulating it in a few minutes. By whom, or how, or where this process was discovered no one can tell. Undoubtedly it was an accident, for the vine hangs from all the trees in the ule forest, and probably a cutting dropped into a bucket of sap some time or another produced the result for which it is now used. Having their barrels full, the uleros cut short

A MAHOGANY SWAMP.

A MAHOGANY SWAMP.

pieces of this vine, soak it in water, and small bunches are thrown into pans upon which the sap is poured. In the morning the rubber has turned to gum—about two pounds to every gallon of sap. At the top of the pan is a quantity of dark brown liquid, like a weak solution of licorice. This is poured off, and then the gum is rolled under heavy weights of wood into long flat strips called tortillas, which are hung over poles under the shed to drip and dry. At first they are white, like the vulcanized rubber, but with exposure they turn black and become hard after a few days. Then the tortillas are stacked up under cover until the end of the season, and shipped to market.

INTERNAL COMMERCE.

The cocoa or chocolate tree grows wild in the forests of Nicaragua, and when cultivated yields the most profitable crop that can be produced; but the republic furnishes but little, comparatively, for export, although its possibilities in this direction are almost unlimited. The most of the world’s supply of cocoa comes from Ecuador and Venezuela.

There always has been a prejudice in Nicaragua against foreign immigration, inspired and stimulated by the priests, who inveterately oppose all progress and every innovation. A number of German families are settled throughout the country, engaged in mercantile pursuits. Most of the large commission houses and exporters are English, while the hotel or posada keepers are Frenchmen. England furnishes most of the money to move the crops, as the natives are impoverished by wars or their own extravagance. The country will never be prosperous until its peace is assured and its population increased by the introduction of foreign labor and capital.

HOW THE PEONS LIVE.

Like other Spanish-American countries, the national vices are indolence and extravagance. The common people never get ahead, and have no need of purses, much less of savings-banks. They might make good wages, as they are naturally good producers, but they always spend their earnings before they receive them, and are encouraged to keep in debt to those who employ them, as, under the law, no laborer can leave a job upon which he is employed as long as he owes his employer a penny. This system of credit, although it amounts to only a few dollars in each case, is equivalent to slavery, a peonage which is permanent; for if the laborer really aspires to be a free man, he is persuaded or threatened or swindled into renewing the obligation under which his life is spent.

The aristocracy are equally extravagant. It is a part of their religion, apparently, to spend their incomes, even if they do not anticipate them; and the latter is generally the case. Nearly every crop is mortgaged to the commission man before it is harvested, and the planter is compelled to take the price that is offered. The peon is in debt to the planter, the planter to the merchant, the merchant to the commission-house, and the latter conducts his business on borrowed money; and so it goes on, year after year, without cessation, each person involved spending as much or more than he makes, and conducting his business on paper, like speculators in the stock market, the country growing poorer each year, with no possible hope of redemption except by an influx of fresh blood and capital. The climate is delightful, the land is wonderfully productive, and the products always in active demand in the markets of the world.

The chief cities are pictures of desolation, and along the roads in the country are the ruins of estancias that were the abode of wealthy planters years ago. Much of the destruction was caused by earthquakes, but more by civil war. The population in 1846 was 257,000; in 1870 it had been reduced to less than 200,000, and since then there have been disturbances in which thousands of men were slaughtered or driven into exile by fear or force. The whites, or those of pure Spanish blood, number about 30,000; the negroes about half as many; the mixed races, Mestizos and Ladinos—the former of Spanish and Indian and the latter Negro and Indian blood—are probably 8,000; and there are supposed to be about as many pure-blooded Indians upon the Atlantic coast and scattered throughout the republic. The education of the common people is neglected and left to the priests, who teach them nothing but superstition and their obligations to the Church. In 1868 a decree was passed making education compulsory and free, and providing for the diversion of a liberal amount of the public revenue each year for the support of the schools; but the law is a dead letter, and in no year has the amount assigned to the Department of Education been appropriated. At present there are but sixty schools, with a normal attendance of twenty-five hundred, or an average of forty pupils to thirty thousand inhabitants. There is a university at Leon, with an average of fifty students, and another at Grenada, with a few more, at which law, medicine, and theology are taught, under the direction of the bishop; but most of the sons of wealthy families are sent to Europe to be educated.

A FAMILIAR SCENE.

The city of Leon is the commercial metropolis, and was the ancient capital. In 1854 the seat of government was removed to Grenada, during the great revolution, which lasted for five years, and in which our famous filibuster, Walker, figured; and the people of the latter city would not permit its return to the capital of the viceroys. After fighting over the question for several years, shedding much blood and destroying much property, a compromise was effected by locating the headquarters temporarily at Managua, a smaller place half way between the two, where, since 1863, the President has resided, and the Congress has assembled every year. The public buildings in Leon remain as they were at the time of the removal of the capital, and most of the archives are there, the expectations of the citizens being that they will be needed for the Government again in the near future; but Grenada keeps a threatening look in that direction, and any attempt to disturb the present situation would result in another war, so bitter is the rivalry.

A COUNTRY CHAPEL.

Leon is one of the oldest cities in America, having been founded in 1523 by Fernandez Cordova. Two years before, Pedrarias Divilla, who was Governor at Panama, sent to Leon, on a tour of exploration, a lusty old buccaneer, named Gil Gonzalez, with a few hundred men. He landed at about the centre of the Pacific coast, and marched across to the present city of Rivas. Here he found on the borders of the lake a vast population of Indians under a cacique named Nicaro, and called the country in his reports Nicaro’s Agua, or waters; hence the name. The Indians regarded the Spaniards with awe and amazement. They had heard of their appearance at Panama and on the Atlantic coast, but believed that the stories of their presence, which came from their ancient enemies, the Carribs, were false and intended to frighten them. Seeing the chief surrounded by such a multitude of savages, Gonzalez approached with great caution, and having captured a native, sent him to Nicaro with this bombastic message:

THE UNITED STATES CONSULATE.

“Tell your chief,” said Gonzalez, “that a valiant captain cometh, commissioned to these parts by the greatest king on earth, to inform all the lords of these lands that there is in the heavens, higher than the sun, one Lord, Maker of all

CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER, LEON.

things, and that those believing on Him shall at death ascend to that loftiness, while disbelievers shall descend into the everlasting fire that burns in the bottomless pit. Tell your chief that I am coming, and that he must be ready upon my arrival at his camp to accept these truths and be baptized, or prepare for battle.”

The cacique surrendered, and, with all his warriors and their women, to the number of nine thousand, was baptized. In his report to the King of Spain, the pious old Bombastes Furioso claimed the credit of having converted more heathens than any other man that had ever lived.

In the days of the Spaniards Leon was a splendid city, and there are still existing numerous monuments of its opulence and grandeur. The public buildings are constructed upon a magnificent scale and without regard to cost, and the private dwellings are built in imitation of them, being of imposing exteriors and luxurious in their equipment and adornment. There were seventeen fine churches to a population of fifty thousand, chief of which was the Cathedral of St. Peter, which cost five millions of dollars, and was over thirty-seven years in course of erection. It was finished in 1743, and is still in a good state of preservation, being built of most substantial masonry, with walls of stone eighteen or twenty feet thick. It is of the Moorish style of architecture, resembling the great cathedral at Seville, Spain, and is by far the largest and finest church in Central America. During the frequent revolutions it has always been used as a fortress, and its walls, although still firm and enduring, are much battered by the assaults that have been made upon it.

In 1823, during the first revolution after independence between the aristocrats and the Indians, there was a fire at Leon which destroyed more than a thousand of the finest buildings; and the flames were aided in the work of devastation by thousands of Indian soldiers, who plundered and murdered the inhabitants. This part of the city has never been restored, and long streets, whose pavements are overgrown with weeds and underbrush, are still lined with ruined walls that disclose rich marble columns and artistic carvings. In mockery of the former magnificence which their ancestors destroyed, the Indian peons are living in bamboo huts, enclosed by cactus hedges, on the sites where once lived the proudest hidalgos in Central America. There is a tradition that the town was once cursed by the Pope, because of the murder of an archbishop there, and this accounts for the succession of calamities from which it has suffered.

THE PACIFIC COAST OF NICARAGUA.

The ladies of the aristocracy are in youth usually pretty, and at whatever age are always proud. For some reason or other they consider their country far above and beyond criticism, and themselves superior to the rest of Adam’s race. Ancestral pride is so conspicuous as to be ofttimes offensive, and the fact that a person born out of Nicaragua seems to them to have been a misfortune for which no other circumstances can compensate. This is true among both sexes of the upper caste, but more especially among the ladies, whose exalted opinion of their own importance in the universe has never been tarnished by travel. This feeling has gone far to excite the existing prejudice against foreigners, and while the tourists are always most hospitably received, the fact that their stay is only temporary adds to the pleasure of entertaining them. The most rigid restrictions prevent the social intercourse of the sexes, and nowhere in the world is a woman’s honor protected with such great precaution; and for excellent reasons. No lady of caste would think of receiving a call from a gentleman alone, except a priest; and the clergy make the most of their privileges, according to common report.

ANTICS ON THE BRIDGE.

The ladies are always idle. To do any sort of work other than embroidery is beneath them, and the number of servants they employ is regulated not by their necessities but by their means. They are all uneducated, the privilege of a few years in a convent only being allowed them; and those are spent in learning the lives of the saints, a little embroidery, to drum on the piano, and to dance. There is no distinctive national costume. The aristocracy imitate the Parisian fashions, while the common masses wear whatever they can get. The Nicaraguans are much more social in disposition than the citizens of the other Central American countries. They have tertulias, which is a near relation of a “high tea,” and balls more frequently, and are much more given to dinner-parties, at which one of the greatest of imported luxuries is codfish.

The great annual holiday of the people is known as El Paseo al Mar, (the Excursion to the Sea), but is often alluded to as the festival of St. Venus, because of the excesses that are committed there by the people, who are most discreet when at home. But as nobody cares what occurs at the carnivals at Rome, so can a party of fashionable Nicaraguans be allowed liberties at their watering-places. In the latter part of March, when the dry season is far advanced and everything is buried in dust, after the harvests are gathered and the crops are sold and carried to Corinto, the seaport, everybody feels like taking a little relaxation. Preparations are made long in advance, but as soon as the March moon comes carts are packed with a little furniture and a good many trunks, and the exodus begins. It is only about fifteen miles to the beach, but the journey occasions as much planning and preparation, and is anticipated with as much pleasure, as a tour through Europe. Everybody goes, the peon as well as the hidalgo, and for two weeks during the full moon the city is deserted. There are no hotels, but each family takes a tent or builds a hut of bamboo, and lives à négligé under the shade of the forest trees, which extend almost to the ocean. The Government sends down a battalion of troops, ostensibly to keep order and do police duty, but really as an excuse for giving the officers and soldiers a holiday. Social laws are very much relaxed during the Paseo, and it is really the only time when lovers can do their billing and cooing without the interfering presence of a duenna. Flirtations are the order of the day, and Cupid is king.

IN THE UPPER ZONE.

There are no bathing-houses, and no bathing-dresses are worn. The people go into the surf as Nature equipped them—the women and the girls on one side of a long spit of land that reaches into the sea, and the men and boys on the other. This annual Paseo is the perpetuation of a semi-religious Indian custom.

Another peculiar Nicaraguan religious custom is the baptism of the volcanoes, a ceremony which is believed by the superstitious to be very effective in keeping them in subjection and making them observe the proprieties of life. This observance is said to be as old as the Conquest, having originated after the first eruption succeeding the invasion of Nicaragua by the Spaniards, and is repeated on the anniversary of the last disturbance caused by each particular volcano. The priests of the nearest city take the affair in charge, and, followed by a large company of the faithful, ascend to the crater, and with great ceremony sprinkle holy water into it. Each of the volcanic peaks in Nicaragua has been repeatedly sanctified in this way except Momotombo, the grandest but most unregenerate of them all, who has never permitted a human foot to reach his summit or a human eye to look into his crater. Two hundred years ago, after old Tombo, as the master is familiarly called, had been acting very badly, three brave monks determined to try the effect of holy water upon him, and started for the summit with a large cross which they proposed to erect there; but they were never heard of again, and the people look upon the mountain with greater reverence.

VOLCANOES OF AXUSCO AND MOMOTOMBO, FROM THE CATHEDRAL.

VOLCANO OF COSEQUINA, FROM THE SEA.

From the tower of St. Peter’s Cathedral in the city of Leon thirteen volcanoes can be seen, several of which are active. There are eighteen standing in a solemn procession around the lakes of Nicaragua and Managua. They are not so high as certain peaks in Guatemala or Costa Rica, but look higher from the fact that they rise immediately from the level of tide-water, and can be seen from the sea in their full grandeur, old Tombo looking to be about the height of Pike’s Peak as seen from Colorado Springs. This gigantic mountain rises boldly out of the waters of Lake Nicaragua, its bare and blackened summit, which has forbidden all attempts to scale its sides, being always crowned with a light wreath of smoke, attesting the perpetual existence of the internal fires which now and then break forth and cover its sides with burning floods. At its base are several hot sulphur springs, and at frequent intervals heavy rumbling sounds can be heard from within its walls. In the middle of the lake, only a few miles away, is an exact duplicate of the mountain; in miniature, however, being but one-fourth its size. This is called Momotombita, the three last letters expressing the diminutive. It forms an island, from which its peak rises a perfect cone. Its crater has been extinct for hundreds of years; but the island was a sacred place to the aborigines. In the forests which now cover it are the ruins of vast temples and gigantic idols hewn out of the solid rock. The last serious earthquake, in 1867, occurred without much damage to the city, whose walls have been several times shaken down in the three centuries and a half since it was founded.

LA UNION AND VOLCANO OF CONCHAGUA.

The most fearful eruption on record in Nicaragua, and one of the most serious the world ever saw, was that of the volcano Cosequina, near Grenada, in 1835. It continued for four days, and covered the country for hundreds of miles around with ashes and lava, causing a panic from which the people did not recover for many years, and resulting in great destruction of life and property. The explosions were of such force that ashes fell in the city of Bogota, Colombia, fifteen hundred miles away in a direct line, and at an altitude eleven thousand feet above the sea. Ashes fell in the West India islands, also far in the interior of Mexico, and showers of them that obscured the sun caused great consternation in Guatemala and the neighboring republics, while the people in Nicaragua thought the end of the world had come. Vessels sailing in the Pacific had their decks covered with lava and ashes, and several sailors were injured by falling stones; while the ocean for a hundred and fifty miles was so strewn with floating ashes and pumice-stone that the surface of the water was concealed. The anniversary of this horrible catastrophe is always observed by the people as a great fast-day, business being suspended throughout the whole republic, and the people gathering in the churches to pray for deliverance from further eruptions. Since that date the volcano has continued active, but has caused no damage.

A great part of the surface of the country is covered with beds of lava and scoria, lakes of bitter water that have no bottom, yawning craters surrounded with blistered rocks, and pits from which sulphurous vapors are constantly rising that the people appropriately call infernillos.

THE FATE OF FILIBUSTERS.

The city of Grenada stands at the eastern end of the inhabited valley of Nicaragua, as Leon does at the western end, the two rival cities being about seventy miles apart. Until its almost total destruction by Walker and his filibusters in 1857, it was a beautiful town, filled with fine mansions, and proud of its appearance. The population was reduced during the civil war, in which the American adventurers played so conspicuous a part, from thirty-five thousand to fifteen thousand; and although that was nearly thirty years ago it has scarcely begun to recover. Grenada was the seat of the “aristocratic” government which Walker and his allied Nicaraguans overthrew, and was besieged for two years, during which time the inhabitants endured not only great hardships, many dying of starvation and epidemics which broke out among them, but suffered the destruction of almost their entire property. During the days of Spanish dominion it was one of the most wealthy and prosperous cities in Central America, and its commerce was enormous. The old chronicles relate that nearly every day caravans of eighteen hundred mules laden with bullion and merchandise arrived from the surrounding country, and carried away European goods in exchange.

One of the largest monasteries on the continent was situated here, erected and occupied by the Franciscan Friars, who owned extensive estates in the surrounding country, and continued to acquire great wealth until they were expelled and their property confiscated in 1829. It is still standing in a good state of preservation.

The actual capital of Nicaragua, the city of Managua, sits on the southern shore of the lake of the same name, about sixty miles from the Pacific Ocean, and is reached by an overland journey of three days from Leon, which is connected with Corinto, the chief seaport, by a railroad. The population of Managua is about eight or ten thousand, at a guess, for no census has been taken since 1870. It has increased since that date, when the inhabitants numbered six thousand seven hundred. The rich residents are mostly planters who have estancias in the neighborhood, and live in houses of one or two stories without any pretension to architectural beauty or elegance. They are more modern in construction than those of Leon and Grenada, for it is only since the seat of government was located at Managua that it has been of any commercial or political importance. A large portion of the standing army of the republic, consisting of two thousand men, is stationed at Managua, occupying an old monastery as a barracks, and the streets are always crowded with military men in resplendent uniforms. There are about three officers to every ten privates in the army, and positions in the military service are actively sought by the sons of the aristocratic families, who prefer them to professional or commercial careers. The privates are exclusively Indians or half-breed peons, who wear a uniform of dirty white cotton drilling with a blue cap. They are supposed to be voluntarily enlisted, but when troops are needed they are secured by sending squads of impressarios into the country, who seize as many peons as they want, bring them, bound with ropes, to the capital, and then compel them to sign the enlistment rolls.

A FARMING SETTLEMENT.

The National Palace is a low, square edifice, with balconies of the ordinary Spanish styles, and was formerly the home of one of the religious orders. The only handsome rooms are the headquarters of the President and the chambers in which the two Houses of Congress meet annually. They are fitted up with fine imported furniture, and the walls are covered with portraits of men distinguished in the history of the republic.

The peons live in the outskirts of the city, in huts of bamboo thatched with palm-leaves and straw, surrounded with curious-looking fences or hedges of cactus. They are apparently very poor, and are surrounded with filth and squalor; but the real, which is worth twelve and a half cents, will sustain a whole family for a week, for they need little more than nature has supplied them with—the plantains and yams that grow profusely in their little gardens. They seldom eat meat, and never wash themselves. They appear to be perfectly happy, and sit at the doors of their huts, women and men, both nearly naked, smoking cigarettes, and chatting as contentedly as if all their wants in life were fully supplied. Densely ignorant and superstitious, they know nothing of the world beyond their own surroundings, and care less.

THE QUESAL.

The environs of Managua are very picturesque. On one side is the beautiful lake, sixty miles long and thirty miles wide, surrounded by volcanoes, and on the other are fertile slopes, on which are coffee plantations and cocoa groves, both yielding prodigious crops. The peons of the city work upon the estancias when there is anything to be done, travelling five or six miles each day in going to and returning from the scene of their labor. The country about Managua must have been densely populated by the aborigines, and is full of most curious and puzzling relics of a prehistoric race, which the natives regard with great veneration. The geologist, as well as the ethnologist and antiquarian, finds here one of the most abundant fields for investigation, which was explored and described by Stephens, Squier, and many earlier writers.

The Government consists of a President, who receives a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars, and is elected for four years, during which time, if he is not overpowered by some political rival, he usually manages to amass an immense fortune. A common argument in favor of re-electing presidents is that they are able to steal all they want during their first term. There are two Vice-Presidents, generally the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the Lower House, and either of them may be designated to perform the duties of the Executive when he so elects. There is a cabinet, or council, of four ministers. One has the finances in charge; another foreign affairs, agriculture, and commerce; a third military affairs and public works; and a fourth justice, public instruction, and ecclesiastical affairs.

The Senate is composed of fourteen members, two from each of the Departments, or Provinces, elected for four years; and the House of Deputies of twenty-four members, or one for each ten thousand of population, elected for two years. They are paid one dollar and fifty cents per diem during the sessions of Congress. No Senator or Deputy can be elected more than two consecutive terms, and no official of the Government or member of Congress can be a candidate for election or appointment to any other office during his constitutional term of service. Ecclesiastics are ineligible for civil positions, and all candidates for every post of honor under the Government must have proper qualifications; while all persons accepting pensions from the Government, and performing the duty of house or body servants, are denied the right of suffrage or of holding office. There are three courts, State or Department judges being elected by the people. District Federal judges and members of the Supreme Court being appointed by the House of Representatives and confirmed by the Senate, to serve during life unless impeached and convicted by the Deputies before the Senate for malfeasance in office. It requires a two-thirds vote in the House to enact legislation, but only a majority vote in the Senate. The President has the power of issuing decrees during the recess of Congress, which decrees have the force of law, but must be affirmed or reversed by Congress at its next session.

Since the charter of the Interoceanic Canal Company by the Congress of the United States, and the actual commencement of work upon the long-projected enterprise, under the direction of Chief-engineer Menocal, the republic of Nicaragua assumes a position of more prominence among nations, and of greater interest to the public at large, than it has ever had before. The failure of the Panama Canal Company, and the apparent impossibility of piercing the Isthmus at its narrowest part, has also given the Nicaragua Company increased importance, but Mr. Menocal and the company of capitalists who stand behind him feel no doubt of ultimate success.