202 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [Ch. XI. 



cliffs gave no foothold for the trees. We passed several 

 grass-thatched huts inhabited by half-clad Indians or 

 Mestizos, who generally possess a few cows and, away on 

 the edge of the forest, small clearings of maize. These 

 people, with unlimited fertile land at their disposal, were 

 all sunk in what looked like squalid poverty ; but they 

 had a roof over their heads, and sufficient, though coarse, 

 food ; and they cared for nothing more. Our road lay 

 a couple of miles to the north of the village of Huaco, 

 where much of the maize of the province is grown ; the 

 road then led over many swampy valleys, and our beasts 

 had hard work plunging through the mud. We passed 

 through La Puerta, a scattered collection of Indian huts ; 

 then over a river called the Aguasco, running to the 

 east, and probably emptying into the Rio Grande. 

 There were a few orange trees about some of the huts, 

 but most of the people were Mestizos, or half-breeds, and 

 nothing but weeds grew around their habitations. Their 

 plantations of maize were always some miles distant, and 

 they never seem to think of moving their houses nearer 

 to their clearings on the edge of the forest. Nearly 

 always when I asked the question, I found that the 

 grown-up people had been born on the spot where they 

 lived, and they are evidently greatly attached to the 

 localities where they have been brought up. Probably 

 when the settlements were first made, forest land lay 

 near, in which they made their clearings and raised their 

 crops of corn. Since then the edge of the forest has 

 been beaten back some miles to the north-east ; but the 

 people cling to the old spots, where, generation after 

 generation, their ancestors have lived and died. A new 

 house could be built in a few days, closer to the forest ; 



