i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



NICARAGUA AND THE MOSQUITO COAST. 



By EGBERT N. KEELY, Jr., M. D. 



EVERY once in a while something happens to rouse Ameri- 

 cans out of that complaisant frame of mind which has 

 become habitual, and in which they have come to regard their 

 imperial domain, bounded by the Great Lakes and the Rio Grande 

 to the North and South, and the broad ocean to the East and 

 West, as a sort of little world all to themselves, whence they could 

 look out upon the doings beyond with a patronizing half-humor- 

 ous indifference, as upon things in which they had no possible 

 concern. A few months ago the shock was supplied by the un- 

 heralded supplication from a small island nation out in the Pa- 

 cific to be taken under the broad wing of the " bird of freedom," 

 and we awoke to the fact that perhaps in spite of ourselves and 

 our national prejudices the logic of events had extended our zone 

 of political influence far beyond our supposed definitive bounda- 

 ries. Now comes Nicaragua, her warring factions having con- 

 cluded an armistice, and asks Uncle Sam to arbitrate, with sug- 

 gestions even of the advisability of an American protectorate; 

 and it is quite possible that upon a little reflection we may dis- 

 cover that this fussy little republic is as essentially an integral 

 portion of the United States of the future as if it lay between 

 Chicago and Denver. Possessing the most j^racticable water way 

 over the isthmus which divides New York from San Francisco, it 

 may well be that the increasing necessity of a purely American 

 ocean highway between these two ports must soon render inevi- 

 table a political predominance on our part which shall amount to 

 virtual sovereignty over these regions. 



But for a trifling incident it would never have occurred to me 

 to go to Nicaragua. Excepting as an eligible site for a canal and 



don, 1891, dedicated to Prof, Huxley; H. E. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cam- 

 bridge, The Early Narratives of Genesis, London, 1892, preface, pp. vii-ix, pp. 7, 9, 11 ; 

 Rev. G. M. Searle, of the Catholic University, Washington, article in the Catholic World, 

 November, 1892, pp. 223, 227, 229, 231. For the statement from Keble College, see Rev. 

 Mr. Illingworth, in Lux Mundi. For Bishop Temple, see citation in Laing. For the most 

 complete and admirable acceptance of the evolution theory as lifting Christian doctrine and 

 practice to a higher plane, with suggestions for a new theology, see two sermons by Arch- 

 deacon Wilson, of Manchester, S. P. C. K., London, and Young & Co., New York, 1893; 

 and for a characteristically lucid statement of the most recent development of evolution 

 doctrines, and the relations of Spencer, Weissmann, Galton, and others to them, see Lester 

 F. Ward's Address as President of the Biological Society, Washington, 1891; also, recent 

 articles in the leading English reviews. For a brilliant glorification of evolution by natural 

 selection as a doctrine necessary to the highest and truest view of Christianity, see Prof. 

 Drummond's Chautauqua Lectures, published in The British Weekly, London, from April 

 20 to May 11, 1893. 



