252 THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA. [Ch. XIV. 



branches and leaves. We went up to it to try to buy 

 something to eat, but found only three children in it ; 

 the oldest, a very dirty little girl of about five years of 

 age, with a piece of cloth worn like a shawl, her only 

 clothing, and the two younger quite naked. A little 

 boy, about three years old, was very talkative, and 

 prattled away all the time we were there. He said that 

 some people living near had four cows, but that they had 

 none ; that his father shot deer and sold their skins, 

 and that two days before he fired at a rock, thinking it 

 was a deer. 



We heated some water and made some tea, and with 

 some sweet bread and native cheese managed to allay 

 our hunger, the little boy amusing us all the time with 

 his prattle. Pointing to a mangy dog lying on the floor 

 covered with some old rags, he said it had fever, and 

 that at night it threw off the rags, and the fleas got at it, 

 but that during the day he kept it well covered up. 

 was amused with the little fellow, who was as happy, if 

 not happier, in that squalid hut, without a scrap of 

 clothing, and fed with the coarsest food, as any child I 

 had ever seen. By-and-by an elder girl came along 

 from some other hut, and told us that the man was 

 away hunting for deer, and that his wife had gone to her 

 mother's, about a mile distant. She also informed us 

 that the hunter had not a gun of his own, but gave half 

 the meat of the deer he killed for the loan of one. He 

 had a trained ox which, as soon as it saw a deer, com- 

 menced eating, and walking gradually towards it ; whilst 

 the man followed, concealed behind it, and thus got 

 within distance to shoot it. He generally got two when 

 he went out, and sold the hides for twenty cents per 



