The Naturalist in Nicaragua — Context and Discussion

Arrival at Greytown.--The river San Juan.--Silting up of the harbour.--Crossing the bar.--Lives lost on it.--Sharks. --Christopher Columbus.--Appearance of the town.--Trade. --Healthiness of the town and its probable cause.--Comparison between Greytown, Pernambuco, and Maceio.--Wild fruits.--Plants. --Parrots, toucans, and tanagers.--Butterflies and beetles. --Mimetic forms.--Alligators: boy drowned at Blewfields by one. --Their method of catching wild pigs.

Commence journey up San Juan river.--Palms and wild canes. --Plantations.--The Colorado river.--Proposed improvement of the river.--Progress of the Delta.--Mosquitoes.--Disagreeable night. --Fine morning.--Vegetation of the banks.--Seripiqui river. --Mot-mots.--Foraging ants: their method of hunting.--Ant-thrushes. --They attack the nests of other ants.--Birds' nests, how preserved from them.--Reasoning powers in ants.--Parallel between the mammalia and the hymenoptera.--Utopia.

Journey up river continued.--Wild pigs and jaguar.--Bungos.--Reach Machuca.--Castillo.--Capture of Castillo by Nelson.--India-rubber trade.--Rubber-men.--Method of making india-rubber.--Congo monkeys. --Macaws.--The Savallo river.--Endurance of the boatmen.--San Carlos.--Interoceanic canal.--Advantages of the Nicaraguan route. --The Rio Frio.--Stories about the wild Indians.--Indian captive children.--Expeditions up the Rio Frio.--American river steamboats.

The lake of Nicaragua.--Ometepec.--Becalmed on the lake.--White egrets.--Reach San Ubaldo.--Ride across the plains.--Vegetation of the plains.--Armadillo.--Savannahs.--Jicara trees.--Jicara bowls. --Origin of gourd-shaped pottery.--Coyotes.--Mule-breeding.--Reach Acoyapo.--Festa.--Cross high range.--Esquipula.--The Rio Mico. --Supposed statues on its banks.--Pital.--Cultivation of maize. --Its use from the earliest times in America.--Separation of the maize-eating from the mandioca-eating indigenes of America. --Tortillas.--Sugar-making.--Enter the forest of the Atlantic slope.--Vegetation of the forest.--Muddy roads.--Arrive at Santo Domingo.

Geographical position of Santo Domingo.--Physical 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.--Granadillas 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 them ascending young trees.--Leaf-cutting ants are fungus-growers and eaters.--Sagacity of the ants.

Configuration of the ground at Santo Domingo.--Excavation of valleys.--Geology of the district.--Decomposition of the rocks. --Gold-mining.--Auriferous quartz veins.--Mode of occurrence of the gold.--Lodes richer next the surface than at lower depths. --Excavation and reduction of the ore.--Extraction of the gold.-- "Mantos".--Origin of mineral veins: their connection with intrusions of Plutonic rocks.

Climate of the north-eastern side of Nicaragua.--Excursions around Santo Domingo.--The Artigua.--Corruption of ancient names. --Butterflies, spiders, and wasps.--Humming-birds, beetles, and ants.--Plants and trees.--Timber.--Monkey attacked by eagle. --White-faced monkey.--Anecdotes of a tame one.--Curassows and other game birds.--Trogons, woodpeckers, mot-mots, and toucans.

Description of San Antonio valley.--Great variety of animal life. --Pitcher-flowered Marcgravias.--Flowers fertilised by humming-birds.--By insects.--Provision in some flowers to prevent insects, not adapted for carrying the pollen, from obtaining access to the nectaries.--Stories about wasps.--Humming-birds bathing. --Singular myriapods.--Ascent of Pena Blanca.--Tapirs and jaguars. --Summit of Pena Blanca.

Journey to Juigalpa.--Description of Libertad.--The priest and the bell.--Migratory butterflies and moths.--Indian graves.--Ancient names.--Dry river-beds.--Monkeys and wasps.--Reach Juigalpa.--Ride in neighbourhood.--Abundance of small birds.--A poor cripple.--The "Toledo."--Trogons.--Waterfall.--Sepulchral mounds.--Broken statues.--The sign of the cross.--Contrast between the ancient and the present inhabitants.--Night life.

Juigalpa.--A Nicaraguan family.--Description of the road from Juigalpa to Santo Domingo.--Comparative scarcity of insects in Nicaragua in 1872.--Water-bearing plants.--Insect-traps.--The south-western edge of the forest region.--Influence of cultivation upon it.--Sagacity of the mule.

Start on journey to Segovia.--Rocky mountain road.--A poor lodging. --The rock of Cuapo.--The use of large beaks in some birds. --Comoapa.--A native doctor.--Vultures.--Flight of birds that soar. --Natives live from generation to generation on the same spot.--Do not give distinctive names to the rivers.--Caribs barter guns and iron pots for dogs.--The hairless dogs of tropical America. --Difference between artificial and natural selection.--The cause of sterility between allied species considered.--The disadvantages of a covering of hair to a domesticated animal in a tropical country.

Olama.--The "Sanate."--Muy-muy.--Idleness of the people.--Mountain road.--The "Bull Rock."--The bull's-horn thorn.--Ants kept as standing armies by some plants.--Use of honey-secreting glands. --Plant-lice, scale-insects, and leaf-hoppers furnish ants with honey, and in return are protected by the latter.--Contest between wasps and ants.--Waxy secretions of the homopterous hemiptera.

Matagalpa.--Aguardiente.--Fermented liquors of the Indians.--The wine-palm.--Idleness of the Nicaraguans.--Pine and oak forests. --Mountain gorge.--Jinotega.--Native plough.--Descendants of the buccaneers.--San Rafael.--A mountain hut.

Great range composed of boulder clay.--Daraily.--Lost on the savannahs.--Jamaily.--A deer-hunter's family.--Totagalpa.--Walls covered with cement and whitewashed.--Ocotal.--The valley of Depilto.--Silver mine.--Geology of the valley.--Glacial drift.--The glacial period in Central America.--Evidence that the ice extended to the tropics.--Scarcity of gold in the valley gravels. --Difference of the Mollusca on the east and west coast of the Isthmus of Darien.--The refuge of the tropical American animals and plants during the glacial period.--The lowering of the sea-level. --The land shells of the West Indian Islands.--The Malay Archipelago.--Easter Island.--Atlantis.--Traditions of the deluge.

A Nicaraguan criminal.--Geology between Ocotal and Totagalpa. --Preparations at Totagalpa for their annual festival. --Chicha-drinking.--Piety of the Indians.--Ancient civilisation of tropical America.--Palacaguina.--Hospitality of the Mestizos. --Curious custom at the festival at Condego.--Cross range between Segovia and Matagalpa.--Sontuli.--Birds' nests.

Concordia.--Jinotega.--Indian habits retained by the people. --Indian names of towns.--Security of travellers in Nicaragua. --Native flour-mill.--Uncomfortable lodgings.--Tierrabona.--Dust whirlwind.--Initial form of a cyclone.--The origin of cyclones.

Cattle-raising.--Don Filiberto Trano's new house.--Horse-flies and wasps.--Teustepe.--Spider imitating ants.--Mimetic species. --Animals with special means of defence are conspicuously marked, or in other ways attract attention.--Accident to horse.--The "Mygale."--Illness.--Conclusion of journey.

Division of Nicaragua into three zones.--Journey from Juigalpa to lake of Nicaragua.--Voyage on lake.--Fresh-water shells and insects.--Similarity of fresh-water productions all over the world. --Distribution of European land and fresh-water shells.--Discussion of the reasons why fresh-water productions have varied less than those of the land and of the sea.

Iguanas and lizards.--Granada.--Politics.--Revolutions.--Cacao cultivation.--Masaya.--The lake of Masaya.--The volcano of Masaya. --Origin of the lake basin.

Indian population of the country lying between the great lakes of Nicaragua and the Pacific.--Discovery and conquest of Nicaragua by the Spaniards.--Cruelties of the Spaniards.--The Indians of Western Central America all belonged to one stock.--Decadence of Mexican civilisation before the arrival of the Spaniards.--The designation "Nahuatls" proposed to include all the Mexican, Western Central American, and Peruvian races that had descended from the same ancient stock.--The Nahuatls distinct from the Caribs on one side and the Red Indians on the other.--Discussion of the question of the peopling of America.

Return to Santo Domingo.--The birds of Chontales.--The insects of Chontales.--Mimetic forms.--Departure from the mines.--Nicaragua as a field for emigration.--Journey to Greytown.--Return to England.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATE 1. SKETCH MAP OF NICARAGUA.

PLATE 3. HEADS OF MOT-MOTS.

PLATE 4. COMMISSIONER'S HOUSE AT SANTO DOMINGO.

PLATE 5. NEST OF LEAF-CUTTING ANT.

PLATE 6. MACHINERY OF CHONTALES GOLD-MINING COMPANY.

PLATE 7. SECTION OF MINE SHOWING METHOD OF EXTRACTING THE ORE.

PLATE 8. SECTION OF SAN ANTONIO LODE.

PLATE 9. HUMMING-BIRDS (Florisuga mellivora, LINN.).

PLATE 10. TONGUES OF HUMMING-BIRD AND WOODPECKER.

PLATE 11. PITCHER-FLOWER (Marcgravia nepenthoides).

PLATE 12. FLOWER OF THE "PALOSABRE."

PLATE 13. ADVENTURE WITH A JAGUAR.

PLATE 14. PENA BLANCA.

PLATE 15. INDIAN STATUES.

PLATE 16. PATH UP STEEP HILL.

PLATE 18. BULL'S-HORN THORN.

PLATE 19. LEAF OF MELASTOMA.

PLATE 20. NATIVE STILL.

PLATE 21. NATIVE PLOUGH.

PLATE 22. GEOLOGICAL SECTION NEAR OCOTAL.

PLATE 23. HORNET AND MIMETIC BUG.

PLATE 24. GEOLOGICAL SECTION AT MASAYA.

PLATE 25. LONGICORN BEETLES OF CHONTALES.

PLATE 26. LEAF INSECT.

PLATE 27. MOSS INSECT.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The following pages have been written in the intervals between arduous professional engagements. Begun on the Atlantic during my voyage home from Central America, the first half relieved the tedium of a long and slow recovery from the effects of an accident occurring on board ship. The middle of the manuscript found me traversing the high passes of the snow-clad Caucasus, where I made acquaintance with the Abkassians, in whose language Mr. Hyde Clark finds analogies with those of my old friends the Brazilian Indians. I now write this brief preface and the last chapter of my book (with Bradshaw's "Continental Guide" as my only book of reference), on my way across the continent to the Urals, and beyond, to the country of the nomad Kirghizes and the far Altai mountains on the borders of Tibet; and when readers receive my work I shall probably have turned my face homewards again, and for weeks be speeding across the frozen Siberian steppes, wrapped in furs, listening to the sleigh bells, and wondering how my book has sped. It is full of theories--I trust not unsupported by facts: some thought out on the plains of Southern Australia; some during many a solitary sleigh drive over frozen lakes in North America; some in the great forests of Central and South America; some on the wide ocean, with the firmament above and below blending together on the horizon; and some, again, in the bowels of the earth when seeking for her hidden riches. The thoughts are those of a lifetime compressed into a little book; and, like the genie of the Arabian tale, imprisoned in an urn, they may, when it is opened, grow and magnify, or, on the contrary, be kicked back into the sea of oblivion.

This much is necessary; not to disarm criticism, but to excuse myself to those authors whose labours on some of the subjects I have treated of I may not have mentioned. I have, during my sojourns in England, worked hard to read up the literature of the various questions discussed, but I know there must be many oversights and omissions in referring to what others have done; especially with regard to continental writers, for I know no language but my mother-tongue; and their works, excepting where I have had access to translations, have been sealed books to me.

I am indebted to Mr. H.W. Bates for much assistance, and especially for undertaking the superintendence of these sheets in their passage through the press; to Mr. W.C. Hewitson, of Oatlands Park, I am under many obligations, for taking charge of my entomological collections, for naming many of my butterflies, and for access to his magnificent collection of Diurnal Lepidoptera. Mr. Osbert Salvin and Dr. P.L. Sclater have named for me my collection of birds; and for much entomological information I am indebted to Professor Westwood, Mr. F. Smith, and Dr. D. Sharp; whilst, in botany, Professor D. Oliver, of Kew, has kindly named for me some of the plants. Through the assistance of these eminent authorities, I trust that the scientific names scattered throughout the book may be depended upon as correct.

THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA.

Arrival at Greytown. The river San Juan. Silting up of the harbour. Crossing the bar. Lives lost on it. Sharks. Christopher Columbus. Appearance of the town. Trade. Healthiness of the town and its probable cause. Comparison between Greytown, Pernambuco, and Maceio. Wild fruits. Plants. Parrots, toucans, and tanagers. Butterflies and beetles. Mimetic forms. Alligators. Boy drowned at Blewfields by an alligator. Their method of catching wild pigs.

At noon on the 15th February 1868, the R.M.S.S. "Solent," in which I was a passenger, anchored off Greytown, or San Juan del Norte, the Atlantic port of Nicaragua in Central America. We lay about a mile from the shore, and saw a low flat coast stretching before us. It was the delta of the river San Juan, into which flows the drainage of a great part of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and which is the outlet for the waters of the great lake of Nicaragua. Its watershed extends to within a few miles of the Pacific, for here the isthmus of Central America, as in the great continents to the north and south of it, sends off by far the largest portion of its drainage to the Atlantic. In the rainy season the San Juan is a noble river, and even in the dry months, from March to June, there is sufficient water coming down from the lake to keep open a fine harbour, if it were not that about twenty miles above its mouth it begins to dissipate its force by sending off a large branch called the Colorado river, and lower down parts with more of its waters by side channels. Twenty years ago the main body of water ran past Greytown; there was then a magnificent port, and large ships sailed up to the town, but for several years past the Colorado branch has been taking away more and more of its waters, and the port of Greytown has in consequence silted up. All ships now have to lie off outside, and a shallow and, in heavy weather, dangerous bar has to be crossed.* [* Greytown is still the headquarters of Nicaraguan trade with Europe and Eastern America though the attempts to improve the harbour by dredging and building jetties have had only partial success. Its great opportunity passed with the final abandonment, in favour of the Panama route, of the scheme for an inter-oceanic canal by way of the lakes, with its eastern terminus a mile to the north of the town at a spot which was named "America."]

All we could see from the steamer was the sandy beach on which the white surf was breaking, a fringe of bushes with a few coco-nut palms holding up their feathery crowns, and in the distance a low background of dark foliage. Before we anchored a gun was fired, and in quick answer to the signal some canoes, paddled by negroes of the Mosquito coast, here called "Caribs," were seen crossing the bar, and in a few minutes were alongside. Getting into one of the canoes with my boxes, I was rapidly paddled towards the shore. When we reached the bar we were dexterously taken over it--the Caribs waited just outside until a higher wave than usual came rolling in, then paddling with all their might we were carried over on its crest, and found ourselves in the smooth water of the river.

Many lives have been lost on this bar. In 1872 the commander of the United States surveying expedition and six of his men were drowned in trying to cross it in heavy weather. Only a few mangled remnants of their bodies were ever found; for what adds to the horror of an upset at this place, and perhaps has unnerved many a man at a critical moment, is that large sharks swarm about the entrance to the river. We saw the fin of one rising above the surface of the water as it swam lazily about, and the sailors of the mail steamers when lying off the port often amuse themselves by catching them with large hooks baited with pieces of meat. It is probable that it was at one of the mouths of the San Juan that Columbus, in his fourth voyage, lost a boat's crew who had been sent for wood and fresh water, and when returning were swamped on the bar. Columbus had rounded Cape Gracias a Dios four days before, and had sailed down the coast with a fair wind and tide, so that he might easily have reached the San Juan.

Inside the bar we were in smooth water, for but a small stream is discharged by this channel. On our right was a sandy beach, on our left great beds of grass growing out of the shoal water--weedy banks filled up the once spacious harbour, and cattle waded amongst the long grass, where within the last twenty years a frigate has lain at anchor. Wading and aquatic birds were abundant in the marshes, amongst which white cranes and a chocolate-brown jacana, with lemon-yellow under wing, were the most conspicuous. A large alligator lazily crawled off a mud-spit into the water, where he floated, showing only his eyes and the pointed scales of his back above the surface. The town was now in full view--neat, white-painted houses, with plume-crowned palms rising amongst and over them, and we landed at one of several wooden wharves that jut into the river.

Greytown, though only a small place, is one of the neatest tropical towns that I have visited. The houses, especially in the business portion of the town, are well built of wood, and painted white with brown roofs. Pretty flower gardens surround or front many of them. Others are nearly hidden amongst palms and bread-fruit, orange, mango, and other tropical fruit trees. A lovely creeper (Antigonon leptopus), with festoons of pink and rose-coloured flowers, adorns some of the gardens. It is called la vegessima, "the beautiful," by the natives, and I found it afterwards growing wild in the provinces of Matagalpa and Segovia, where it was one of the great favourites of the flower-loving Indians. The land at and around Greytown is perfectly level. The square, the open spaces, and many of the streets are covered with short grass that makes a beautiful sward to walk on.

The trade in the town is almost entirely in the hands of foreign residents, amongst whom Mr. Hollenbeck, a citizen of the United States, is one of the most enterprising. A considerable import trade is done with the States and England. Coffee, indigo, hides, cacao, sugar, logwood, and india-rubber are the principal exports. I called on Dr. Green, the British Consul, and found him a most courteous and amiable gentleman, ready to afford protection or advice to his countrymen, and on very friendly terms with the native authorities. He has lived for many years in Nicaragua, and his many charitable kindnesses, and especially the medical assistance that he renders in all cases of emergency, free of charge, have made him very popular at Greytown. His beautiful house and grounds, with a fine avenue of coco-nut trees in full bearing, form one of the most attractive sights in Greytown. I found Mr. Paton, the vice-consul, equally obliging, and I am indebted to him for much information respecting the trade of the port, particularly with regard to the export of india-rubber, the development of which trade he was one of the first to encourage.

Behind the town there is a long lagoon, and for several miles back the land is quite level, and interspersed with lakes and ponds with much marshy ground. Perfectly level, surrounded by swamps, and without any system of drainage, either natural or artificial, excepting such as the sandy soil affords, Greytown might be thought a very unhealthy site for a town. Notwithstanding, however, its apparent disadvantages, and that for nine months of the year it is subject to heavy tropical rains, it is comparatively healthy, and freer from fever than many places that appear at first sight better situated. Much is due to the porous sandy soil, but more I believe to what appears at first sight an element of danger, the perfect flatness of the ground. Where there are hills there must be hollows, and in these the air stagnates; whilst here, where the land is quite level, the trade winds that blow pretty constantly find their way to every part, and carry off the emanations from the soil. As a similar instance I may mention the city of Pernambuco, on the eastern coast of Brazil, containing 80,000 inhabitants. It is perfectly level like Greytown, surrounded and intersected with channels of water, above the level of which it only stands a few feet. The crowded parts of the town are noted for their evil smells and filth, but, though entirely without drainage, it is celebrated for its healthiness; whilst a little lower down the coast, the town of Maceio, situated about sixty feet above the sea, surrounded by undulating ranges and with a good natural drainage, is much more unhealthy, fevers being very prevalent. As at Greytown so at Pernambuco, the trade winds blow with much regularity, and there are neither hills nor hollows to interfere with the movements of the air, so that miasmatic exhalations cannot accumulate.