Unlike the plains and savannahs we crossed yesterday, where the ground is parched up in the dry season, the Atlantic forest, bathed in the rains distilled from the

north-east trades, is eyer verdant. Perennial moisture reigns in the soil, perennial summer in the air, and vegetation luxuriates in ceaseless activity and verdure, all the year round. Unknown are the autumn tints, the bright browns and yellows of English woods, much less the crimsons, purples, and yellows of Canada, where the dying foliage rivals, nay, excels the expiring dolphin in splendour. Unknown the cold sleep of winter; unknown the lovely awakening of vegetation at the first gentle touch of spring. A ceaseless round of ever-active life weaves the forest scenery of the tropics into one monotonous whole, of which the component parts exhibit in detail untold variety and beauty.

To the genial influence of ever-present moisture and heat we must ascribe the infinite variety of the trees of these forests. They do not grow in clusters or masses of single species, like our oaks, beeches, and firs, but every tree is different from its neighbour, and they crowd upon each other in unsocial rivalry, each tr3ang to overtop the other. For this reason we see the great straight trunks rising a hundred feet without a branch, and carrying their domes of foliage directly up to where the balmy breezes blow and the sun's rays quicken. Lianas hurry up to the light and sunshine, and innumerable epiphytes perch themselves high up on the branches.

The road through the forest was very bad, the mud deep and tenacious, the hills steep and slippery, and the mules had to straggle and plunge along through from two to three feet of sticky clay. One part, named the Nispral, was especially steep and difficult to descend, the road being worn into great ruts. We crossed the ranges and brooks nearly at right angles, and were always

6o THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. IV.

ascending or descending. About two we reached a clearing and hacienda, belonging to an enterprising German, named Melzer, near a brook called Las Lajas, who was cultivating plantains and vegetables, and had also commenced brick and tile making, besides planting some thousands of coffee trees. His large clearings were a pleasant change from the forest through which we had been toiling, and we stayed a few minutes at his house. After riding over another league of forest-covered ranges, we reached Pavon, one of the mines of the Chontales Company, and passing the Javali mine soon arrived at Santo Domingo, the headquarters of the gold-mining company whose operations I had come out to superintend.

( 6i )

CHAPTER V.

Geographical position of Santo Uomingo—Piiysical geography—The inhabitants—Mixed races—Negroes and Indians compared—Women —Establishment of the Chontales Gold-Mining Company—My house and garden—Fruits—Plantains and bananas—Probably not indigenous to America—Propagated from shoots—Do not generally mature their seeds—Fig-trees—Granadillos and Papaws

Vegetables—Dependence of flowers on insects for their fertilisation —Insect plagues— Leaf-cutting ants—Their method of defoliating trees—Their nests—Some trees are not touched by the ants

Foreign trees are very subject to their attack—Method of destroying the ants—Migration of the ants from a nest attacked—Corrosive sublimate causes a sort of madness amongst them—Indian plan of preventing their ascending young trees—Leaf-cutting ants are fungus growers and eaters—The sagacity of the ants.

The gold-mining village of Santo Domingo is situated in the province of Chontales, Nicaragua, in lat. 12° 1 6' N. and long. 84° 59' W., nearly midway between the Atlantic and the Pacific, where Central America begins to widen out northward of the narrow isthmus of Panama and Costa Rica. It is in the midst of the great forest that covers most of the Atlantic slope of Central America, and which continues unbroken from where we had entered it, at Pital, eastward to the Atlantic; westward it terminates in a sinuous margin about seven miles from the village, and there commence the lightly timbered and grassy plains and savannahs stretching to the Lake of Nicaragua. The surface of the land in the

forest region forms a succession of ranges and steep valleys, covered with magnificent timber and much undergrowth. Santo Domingo lies about 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and the hills around it rise from 500 to 1000 feet higher. It is built in the bend of a small stream, the head waters of a branch of the Blewfields river, on a level, low piece of ground, with the brook winding almost round it, and, beyond that, encircled by an amphitheatre of low hills in the hollow of which it lies. The road to the mines runs through it, and forms the main street, having on each side thatched stores and irregularly built houses. The inhabitants, about three hundred in number, are entirely dependent on the mines around, there being no cultivation or any other employment in the immediate neighbourhood. The people are of a mixed descent, in which Indian blood predominates, then Spanish with a slight admixture of the Negro element, whilst amongst the rising generation many fair-haired childien can claim paternity amongst the numerous German and English workmen that have been employed at the mines. The storekeepers form the aristocracy of the village. They are indolent; lounging about, or lying smoking in their hammocks the greater part of the day, but generally civil and polite. They are particular in their dress, and may often be seen in faultless European costume, silk uihbrella in hand, in twos or threes, taking a short quiet walk up the valley. The lower class of miners are scantily and badly clothed, especially when they come first to the mines. They are bare-footed, with poor ragged cotton trousers and a thin jacket of the same material. Generally, after being a year or two at the mines, they begin to wear better clothing, and may often

be seen with a new shirt, which to show off is worn hanging down outside, like a surtout coat. Amongst these are many pure Indians, short sturdy men, who make the steadiest workmen, patient and industrious, but with little appreciation of the value of money, and spending the whole of their wages at the end of the month, before they resume work. At these times the commandant comes in from the town of Libertad, about nine miles distant, with half-a-dozen bare-footed soldiers carrying-old muskets on their shoulders, and levies black mail upon the poor patient " Mosas," as they are called, in the shape of a fine for drunkenness. But the " aguardiente," a native-made rum, is nevertheless always kept on hand, being a government monopoly, and ever ready, so that the Mosas may have no excuse to be sober and escape being fined. Even in their drink the poor Indians are not very violent, and get intoxicated with surprising stolidity and quietness. Amongst the half-breeds, especially where the Negro element exists, there are often quarrel-lings and rows, when they slash away at each other with their long knives or "machetes," and get ugly cuts, which, however, heal again quickly.

Both the Negroes and Indians are decidedly inferior to the whites in intellect; but they do not differ so much from the Europeans as they do from each other. The Negro will work hard for a short while, on rare occasions, or when compelled by another, but is innately laz}-. The Indian is industrious by nature, and works steadily and well for himself; but if compelled to work for another, loses all heart, and pines away and dies. The Negro is talkative, vivacious, vain, and sensual; the Indian

taciturn, stolid, dignified, and moderate. As freemen, regularly though poorly paid and kindly treated, the Indians work well and laboriously in the mines; but the Negro seldom engages either in that or any other settled employment, unless compelled as a slave, in which condition he is happy and thoughtless, I do not defend slavery, but I believe it to be a greater curse to the masters than to the slaves, more deteriorating to the former than to the latter. The Spaniards at first enslaved the Indians, but they died away so rapidly that in a very short time the indigenes of the whole of the once-populous islands of the West Indies were exterminated, and large numbers of Indians were carried off from the mainland to supply their places, but died with equal rapidity; so that the Spaniards found it more profitable to bring negroes from Africa, who thrived and multiplied in captivity as readily as the enslaved Indians pined away and died. In Central America there never were many black slaves; since the States threw off the yoke of Spain there have been none; and this comparative scarcity of the Negro element makes these countries much more pleasant and safer to dwell in than the West Indies, where it is much larger. The Indian seldom or never molests the whites, excepting in retaliation for some great injury; whilst amongst the free Negroes, robbery, violence, and murder need no other incentives than their own evil passions and lust.

The women at Santo Domingo are much the same as those found at all the small provincial towns of Central America. Morality is at a low ebb, and most of them live as mistresses, not as wives, for which they do not seem to suffer in the estimation of their neighbours. This

is greatly due in Nicaragua, as it is throughout Central and South America, to the profligate lives led by the priests, who, with few rare exceptions, live in concubinage more or less open. The women have children at an early age, and make kind and indulgent mothers.

The village is bounded to the eastward by the mines and hacienda of the Chontales Mining Company, whose houses, workshops, and machinery are on rising ground on each side of the valley, with the brook running down between. About fifty acres of the forest have been cut down, and a great deal of this is fenced in and covered with grass. Going up the valley from the village, on the right-hand side, about fifty yards from the road, on a grass-covered slope, stand the houses of the commissioner and cashier, in the latter of which the medical officer also lives. The former, a large, white-washed, square, two-storied, wooden house, with verandahs round three sides of it, and communicating by a covered passage with a detached kitchen behind, had been built by one of my predecessors, Captain Hill, R.N., who did not live to inhabit it. It was a roomy, comfortable house, commanding a view of the machinery, workshops, and part of the mines on the other side of the valley, and formed my residence for upwards of four years. The slope in front of the house, down to the river, was covered with weedy bushes when I arrived; but I had these cleared away, and a fine greensward of grass took their place. On this I planted young orange, lime, and citron trees; and I had the pleasure, before I left, to see them beginning to bear their fine fruit. To the west of the house was a dell, covered with fallen logs and rubbish thrown from the hill, in which was a perennial spring E

of limpid water. I had the logs and rubbish gathered together and burnt, put a light fence round it, and formed a small vegetable, fruit, and tlower garden. The mango and avocado trees had not come into bearing before I left; but pineapples, figs, grenadillas, bananas, pumpkins, plantains, papaws, and chioties fruited abun-

"^ "S^t- J^h:^''"

roMMISSIONIUt S HOUSE AT SANTO IiOMlN-GO.

dantly. The last named is a native of Mexico; it is a climbing plant with succulent stems and vine-like leaves, and grows with great rapidity. The fruit, of which it bears a great abundance, is about the size and shape of a pear, covered with soft prickles. It is boiled and eaten as a vegetable, and resembles vegetable marrow.

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