360 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. XX. 



1522 to subdue and settle the country of Nicaragua. 

 Pascual de Andagoya tells the story of the rich land, 

 "populous and fertile, yielding supplies of maize, and 

 many fowls of the country, and certain small dogs which 

 they also eat, and many deer and fish. "This is a land of 

 abundance of good fruits and of honey and wax, wherewith 

 all the neighbouring countries are supplied. The bees 

 are numerous, some of them yellow, and these do not 

 sting." The poor Indians, too, could not sting, they were 

 powerless with their coats of feathers and swords of stone 

 against the arms of the Spaniards, who treated them like 

 a hive of stingless bees, turning them out and eating up 

 their riches. " They had a great quantity of cotton cloths, 

 and they held their markets in the open squares, where 

 they traded. They had a manufactory where they made 

 cordage of a sort of nequen, which is like carded flax; 

 the cord was beautiful and stronger than that of Spain, 

 and their cotton canvas was excellent. The Indians 

 were very civilized in their way of life, like those of 

 Mexico, for they were a people who had come from that 

 country, and they had nearly the same language." 



They had even in one direction reached a pitch of 

 civilization that some of our philanthropists are only now 

 hoping for. Women's rights were acknowledged, and, if 

 anything, they appear to have had too much of them. 

 Pascual says : " They had many beautiful women. The 

 husbands were so much under subjection that if they 

 made their wives angry they were turned out of doors, 

 and the wives even raised their hands against them."* 

 Much have the Indians changed since then under the 



* This and the other quotation are from the " Narrative of Pascual 

 de Andagoya," translated by C. R. Markham, Esq. Hakluyt Soc. 



