the severed end with clay, and cutting little reservoirs in the pulp, into which the juice rapidly distills. It is agreeable to the taste, and, when allowed to ferment, produces an intoxicating drink, called chicha, or vino de coyol.

CIEBA-TREE-NESTS OF THE CHORCHA," OR ORIOLE

The Braziletto, or Brazil-wood, is one of the most valuable trees of Nicaragua, and has hitherto constituted a principal article of export. Nicaragua-wood, yellow sanders, logwood, and fustic, belonging to the class of dye-woods, are also found in abundance. Among the ornamental woods, mahogany, cedar, and rosewood occur in what may be called inexhaustible quantities. There are other trees, like the cieba and "genisero," which attain to immense size, and constitute marked features in every Nicaraguan landscape. One of the latter variety, in the town of Nagarote, has a trunk seven feet in diameter, and a spread of over one hundred and eighty feet!

The volcano of Mombacho, written in the old maps Bombacho, overshadows Granada on the south. It is not as high as the more regular cones of Ometepec,

Momotombo, and El Viejo, being a little less than 4500 feet in vertical altitude. The following description, written after a successful ascent in 1853, may not be out of place in this connection, as illustrating the general features of the Central American volcanoes:

"Very few natives have ever ascended Mombacho, although nearly every one has some story to tell of the marvelous lake which exists at its summit, and of the wonderful things which the traveler encounters in reaching it. I had great difficulty in persuading an ancient marinero, who had gone up, several years before, with the Chevalier Friedrichthal, and spent several days with him at the top, to act as my guide. The face of the volcano toward Granada is inaccessible, and we found it was necessary to go to the Indian town of Diriomo, situated at the southwestern base of the mountain, and take our departure thence.

"We accordingly made our arrangements over night, and early on the following morning, while it was yet dark, mounted our mules and started for Diriomo. We passed under the walls of the Campo Santo, white and spectral in the uncertain light, and struck at once into a narrow path in the forest. We could barely distinguish the white mule of our guide, who led the way, and had to trust to the sagacity of our animals to follow the road. After an hour or more of precarious traveling, day began to break, and shortly afterward we emerged from the

woods into a comparatively rough and broken country. The slopes of the volcano are cut into deep ravines, which furrow its sides, and radiate from its base. These ravines are filled with trees, bushes, and vines, while the ridges between them are bare, supporting only long, coarse grass, now crisped and yellow from the protracted heats. And as we rode on, we were one moment immersed in dark thickets, only to emerge the next on the narrow savannas of the ridges, whence we could catch glimpses of the lake, just reflecting the ruddy light which streamed above the hills of Chontales. The morning breeze breathed cool and grateful on our foreheads, and filled our lungs with an exhilarating freshness.

"An hour more, and we had reached the base of the high, conical hills of scoria, bare of trees, but covered with grass, which form so striking features in the scenery back of Granada. They are of exceeding regularity of shape, and seem to have been formed of ashes and scoria, ejected from the volcano when in a state of eruption, and carried here by the wind. They are, in fact, the ash-heaps of the volcanoes, and as they are found in greater or less numbers near every volcano in the country, they form infallible indications of the direction of the prevailing winds.

"Around these cones we found patches of cleared lands, now overgrown with rank weeds, which had been anciently estates of maize and indigo. Beyond these, the road enters a thick forest, and winds over a high ridge of volcanic rocks and lava, which extends off in the direction of the volcano of Masaya. Midway to the summit, sparkling like a diamond beneath the rocks, is a copious spring of cool water, bearing a musical Indian name which I have forgotten, where we stopped to fill our canteens and rest our mules. It is a lovely spot, arched over with trees, which the nourishing waters keep clothed in perennial green. It has been from time immemorial a favorite resort of the Indians, and the rocks around it have been worn smooth by the tread of their myriad feet.

"At the summit of the hill we came upon a figure, carved in stone, planted firmly in the ground by the side of the path. It is of the same character with the idols which I had discovered,

during my first visit to Nicaragua, in the islands of the lake, but is now used-so said our guide-to mark the boundary between the lands of the Indians of Diriomo and Jalteva. Throughout all Central America the traveler encounters piles of stones raised by the sides of the paths for a similar purpose. With the Indians, as between Laban and Jacob, they certify to the covenant 'that I will not pass over this heap to thee, and thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm.'

"After ascending the ridge the ground became undulating, and we came frequently upon patches of plantains, canes, and maize, which looked fresh and luxuriant as compared with vegetation elsewhere. This is due to the volcano, which intervenes in the direction of the trade-winds, and which intercepts the clouds that they bear on their wings, and precipitates them in showers under its lee; and thus, while the country at large is suffering from drought, this favored spot is cherished by the grateful rain, and retains its verdure and its beauty.

"It was scarcely nine o'clock when we reached the large but straggling village of Diriomo. But we did not stop there. Turning abruptly to the left, we rode rapidly through a broad and well-beaten path to the cacao hacienda of the family of Bermudez. It is a retired and lovely spot, commanding a fine view of the southern declivity of Mombacho. A little lake in the foreground, and clumps of trees, interspersed with patches of

dark lava, and occasional fields of reddish scoria, filled up the middle space of a picture of novel and surpassing beauty, in which the volcano rose grandly in the distance.

"Leaving the mules in charge of the mozos of the hacienda, we lost no time in prosecuting our expedition. Our path for two hours wound through a very broken country. At times we struggled over beds of crinkling lava, already hot under the blaze of the sun, and then plunged into thickets of dwarfed trees, to emerge, perhaps, upon an arid slope of cinders and scoria, supporting only the dry spikes of the maguey or agave, and clusters of the spiny cactus.

"Finally, we began the ascent of the mountain proper. Upon this side the walls of the crater are broken down, exposing a fearfully-rugged orifice, in the form of an inverted cone, walled up with black and forbidding rocks, which seemed to frown angrily upon our approach. The summit now looked twice as high as it had done before, and we strained our eyes in vain to discover the semblance of a path among the jagged masses of lava and volcanic stones piled in wild disorder on every hand. Two of our party, appalled by the difficulties which presented themselves, decided to forego the pleasure of witnessing a sunrise from the summit, and the prospect of broken necks or shattered limbs in reaching it, for a quiet night in a comfortable hammock at the hacienda. So we drained their canteens for them under the shadow of a large rock, and separated.

"From this point our ascent was simply a fatiguing scramble. Now clinging to rough angular rocks, anon grasping at the roots and branches of gnarled and scraggy trees, or painfully struggling over steep slopes of ashes and volcanic sand, which yielded beneath the feet, we toiled slowly up the mountain, the summit of which seemed to lift itself higher and higher in the air, while the clouds rushed past it with dizzy velocity. The sun, too, shone down upon the arid declivities with fervent heat, and the radiations from the blistered rocks fairly seared our eyes and blinded our sight. At the end of two hours we had gone up so far as scarcely to be able to distinguish our friends below us, and yet, as we gazed upward, it was impossible to discover that we had made any perceptible progress in

our ascent.