Ch. V.] MY RESIDENCE. 65 



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 concubi- 

 nage more or less open and unconcealed. The women 

 have children at an early age, and make kind and in- 

 dulgent 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 commis- 

 sioner and cashier, in the latter of which the medical 

 officer also lives. The former, a large, whitewashed, 

 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, com- 

 manding 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 



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