Ch. XIII.] THE UPLAND INDIANS. 245 



doorway partially closed it, but some of the smallest pigs 

 got through, and were rooting and grunting amongst our 

 baggage all night. 



As soon as daylight broke next morning we were up, 

 stiff, chilled, and cramped, and got some hot coffee made, 

 which warmed us a little. We then had a better look 

 round than we had had the night before. It was a most 

 desolate spot with scarcely any grass, and a poor half- 

 starved horse came up to get a small feed of maize. 



The people of the mountain regions of Europe cannot, 

 if they would, take up land in the fertile lowlands, as 

 they are already occupied ; but in the central provinces of 

 Nicaragua the greater part of the land is unappropriated, 

 and these people might, if they liked, make their home- 

 steads where, with one-half the labour they spend on their 

 barren mountain ridge, they might live in abundance. But 

 they have been born and bred where they live, and 

 knowing how strong is the force of custom and how 

 attached the Indians are to their homes, I do not wonder 

 that they stay from generation to generation on this 

 bleak range, so that I can imagine that if removed to the 

 lowlands they would sigh for their mountain home, to 

 smell the fragrance of the pine trees, and to hear once 

 more the wind whistling through their branches. I have 

 already noticed how the Indians cling generation after 

 generation to the same spot, even when a short removal 

 would be manifestly to their advantage. I fear there is 

 a more ignoble reason that has as much to do with this 

 as their love of home, their confirmed and innate laziness. 

 They shrink from any labour that they are not forced to 

 undertake. As an instance, no one during at least two 

 generations that the house had been occupied had brought 



