smoke, and giving other evidences of renewed activity. The volcanoes on the plain of Leon, known as Los Marabios, were also active at the period of the Conquest; and as late as Dampier's time, El Viejo was a "vulcan, or burning mountain." Momotombo to this day sends out a constant spire of smoke and an occasional cloud of ashes. The eruption of the volcano of Coseguina, in 1835, was one of the most fearful on record. It commenced on the 30th of January of that year, and

continued with uninterrupted violence for four days, and then suddenly ceased. For three days the clouds of smoke and sand which it sent forth totally obscured the sun for the distance of a hundred miles. Sand fell in Jamaica, in Santa Fé de Bogotá, and in Mexico, over an area of more than fifteen hundred miles in diameter. The explosions were heard eight hundred miles, and a ship off the coast sailed for fifty leagues through floating masses of pumice, which almost en

Since 1835

tirely concealed the surface of the water. this volcano has remained perfectly quiet, with no signs of activity except a few rills of smoke and vapor indistinguishable at a distance. The volcano of Orosi is in a state of constant activity. Besides the volcanoes themselves, and the hundred yawning craters among the hills, there are numerous lakes of volcanic origin, shut in by burnt, blistered, and precipitous walls of rock, without outlets, and often of great depth. Such is the remarkable lake of Masaya, near the volcano of the same name, and which furnishes water not only to the considerable town of Masaya, but also to the inhabitants of a number of small villages in its vicinity. In some of these volcanic lakes the water is fresh and good, in others salt and bitter. Perhaps no equal extent of the earth's surface exhibits so many or so marked traces of volcanic action as that part of Nicaragua intervening between its lakes and the Pacific Ocean.

The climate of Nicaragua, except among the mountains of Chontales and Segovia, is essentially tropical, but nevertheless considerably modified by a variety of circumstances. The absence of high mountains toward the Atlantic, and the broad expanse of its lakes, permit the trade winds to sweep entirely across the continent, and to give to the country a degree of ventilation agreeable to the senses and favorable to health. The region toward the Atlantic is unquestionably warmer than that of the interior and bordering on the Pacific, more humid, and less salubrious. The Nicaraguan

basin proper, and within which the bulk of its popula tion is concentrated, has two distinctly marked seasons, the wet and the dry, the first of which is called summer, the latter winter. The wet season commences

in May and lasts until November, during which time, but usually near the commencement and the close, rains of some days' duration are of occasional occurrence, and showers are common. The latter do not often

happen except late in the afternoon or during the night. They are seldom of long continuance, and often days and weeks elapse, during what is called the rainy season, without a cloud obscuring the sky. Throughout this season the verdure and the crops, which during the dry season become sere and withered, appear in full luxuriance. The temperature is very equable, differing a little according to locality, but preserving a very nearly uniform range from 78° to 88° of Fahrenheit; occasionally sinking to 70° in the night, and rising to 90° in the afternoon. During the dry season, from November to May, the temperature is less, the nights positively cool, and the winds occasionally chilling. The sky is cloudless, and trifling showers fall at rare intervals. The fields become parched and dry, and the cattle are driven to the borders of the streams for pasturage, while the dust in the towns becomes almost insupportable. It penetrates every where, permeating through the crevices in the tiled roofs in showers, and sweeping in clouds through the unglazed windows. This season is esteemed the healthiest part of the year. Its effect is practically that of a northern winter, checking growth, and destroying that rank and ephemeral vegetation, which, constantly renewed where the rains are constant, as at Panama, form dense, dank jungles, the birth-place and home of malaria and death. For the year commencing September, 1850, and ending September, 1851, the thermometer, at the town of Rivas, gave the following results: Mean highest, 86.45° of Fahr.; mean lowest,

71.15°; mean average for the year, 77.42°; mean range, 15.30°. The amount of rain which fell from May to November inclusive, 90.30 inches; from December to April inclusive, 7.41 inches. None fell in February, but 22.64 inches in July, and 17.86 in October. (See Chapter II.)

The natural resources of Nicaragua are very great. The staples of the tropics, cotton, sugar, indigo, tobac co, rice, cacao, coffee, etc., may be produced in the greatest abundance. The cotton, although as yet, from lack of sufficient labor, produced in but small quantities, is of a superior quality. The cacao of Nicaragua has long been celebrated as next only to that of Soconusco in quality and value. Its sugar is produced from an indigenous plant, slenderer, but containing more and stronger juice than the variety cultivated in the West India islands. Two crops, and, when the fields are irrigated, three crops are taken from the same ground annually, and the cane seldom requires to be replanted oftener than once in twelve or fourteen years. The crystals of the sugar are remarkably large and fine, and the sugar itself, when carefully manufac tured, nearly equal in beauty to the refined sugar of The indigo is produced from an indigenous plant called juiquilite (Indigofera disperma, Lin.), and has a high reputation in commerce. Coffee flourishes well on the higher grounds, but is not extensively cultivated. The same may be said of tobacco, which is a government monopoly, and its production not allowed except in certain quantities. Maize grows in great perfection, and, manufactured into tortillas, constitutes a principal article of food. Cattle are numerous, and hides constitute a large item among the exports of the country. Dye-woods, chiefly the braziletto,

commerce.

are also extensively exported. In short, nearly all the edibles and fruits of the tropics are produced naturally, or may be cultivated in great perfection: plantains, bananas, beans, tomatoes, yams, arrow-root, citrons, melons of all kinds, limes, lemons, oranges, pine-apples, ananas, guavas, cocoanuts, and a hundred other varieties of fruits and vegetables. Among the vegetable productions which enter into commerce may be mentioned sarsaparilla, anotta, vanilla, ginger, gum copal, gum arabic, copaiva, caoutchouc, dragon's blood, etc. The mineral resources of Nicaragua are also very great. Gold, silver, copper, lead, and iron are found in considerable quantities in various parts, but chiefly in the districts of Segovia and Chontales. The production of these metals has greatly fallen off since the independence from Spain; still, the produce is considerable; but such is the unsettled state of the country that it is impossible to obtain any satisfactory statistics concerning it. Sulphur may be had in inexhaustible quantities, crude and nearly pure, from the volcanoes; nitre is also abundant, as also sulphate of iron. Notwithstanding

the variety of its products, and the ease with which they may be prepared for market, the commerce of Nicaragua is very small. The wants of its people are few and easily supplied. The people generally live in towns, many of them going two, four, and even six miles daily to labor in their fields, starting before dawn, and returning in the evening. The plantations, haciendas, hattos, huertas, etc., are scattered over the country, and are often reached by paths so obscure as almost wholly to escape the notice of travelers, who, passing through what appears to be a continuous forest from one town to another, are liable to fall into the error of supposing the country almost entirely uninhabited. The dwell