388 THE NATURALIST IX NICARAGUA. [CL. XXI. 



America into a number of hostile camps like Europe, 

 which God forbid, not many centuries will roll over 

 before the English language will be spoken from the 

 frozen soil of the far north to Ticrra del Fuego in the 

 south. 



The fine steamer that the enterprise of Mr. Hollcnbeck 

 had placed on the lake, and which he had named the 

 " Elizabeth " after his amiable wife, had been wrecked a 

 short time before I left the country, and Mr. Hollen- 

 beck's own health had greatly suffered by the labours he 

 undertook in endeavouring to get the vessel off the 

 sunken rock on which it had struck. Notwithstanding 

 this and several other misfortunes, which never come 

 singly, but always try a man's mettle to its foundation, 

 his native pluck had carried him through all his diffi- 

 culties, and he was away to the States to get new vessels 

 and blow another blast at fortune's iron gates. Whilst 

 I write these last few pages I learn that a new steamer 

 ploughs the lake, and that his transit service is again in 

 complete working order. Success attend him. 



The result of the wreck of the " Elizabeth," so far as 

 I was concerned, was that I had to take a passage down 

 the lake to San Carlos in a bun go packet, so full that I 

 had to make closer acquaintanceship with many amiable 

 Nicaraguansthan was agreeable to my insular prejudices; 

 and when in the middle of the night an old woman tried 

 to roll me off the soft plank I had found for myself 

 into a litter of crying babies, I indulged in some bitter 

 reflections on the race, that, I am happy to say, were as 

 transitory as the inconvenience to which I was put. At 

 San Carlos we changed to the river steamer under my 



