i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



as the scene of Filibuster Walker's bold exploit, the country had 

 never been associated with my thoughts, and canals and fili- 

 busters were not in my line. I had perhaps an adumbration of 

 centipeds and scorpions and of a people in a chronic state of 

 revolution, which surely is not an alluring mental picture. It 

 happened, however, that I had made preparations to go with an 

 expedition for an extended tour of the West Indies, and was all 

 ready to depart, when at the last moment the project was indefi- 

 nitely postponed. Trunks and gripsacks were neatly packed and 

 good-byes had been duly bidden, and here I was without any des- 

 tination. In this perplexity a letter was handed me bearing an 

 unfamiliar post-mark. Hastily tearing open the envelope, I read : 



"Bluefields, NiCAKACiUA, April 5, 1803. 



" My Dear Old Boy : You have been wondering, no doubt, not 

 to have heard from me all these years, and your surprise will be 

 greater to hear from me out of this strange quarter of the globe. 

 . . . Well, my boy, I've been at work, hard at work, and, as the 

 world would say, I've prospered. ... I am working a very valu- 

 able grant, covering one hundred square miles. The bottoms are 

 rich in timber and the uplands abound with gold. Native help is 

 plentiful and can be hired for a song and sixpence, and the ma- 

 hogany can be floated all the way to the coast. I want a con- 

 genial associate, and don't know any one with whom I would 

 rather share my good fortune. At any rate, since I heard, by the 

 rarest chance, that you were on the way to the Caribbean, you 

 would find a run over to view the country well worth your while, 

 etc. H." 



Here was an impulse, all that was needed so ho! and away 

 for Nicaragua ! 



The Mosquitos. The 10th of May, 1893, found us aboard a 

 little schooner from Greytown bound for Bluefields, the capital of 

 that singular and little-known people the Mosquito Indians. 



The portion of the Caribbean littoral commonly known as the 

 Mosquito Coast, but more accurately called the '' Mosquito Res- 

 ervation," is a strip of land about two hundred miles in length 

 extending northward from the Rama River to the Rio Huesco, 

 and backward from the sea about forty miles ; the western 

 boundary being an astronomical line along the meridian of longi- 

 tude 84'^ 15'. 



The so-called Mosquito Indians are by no means a homogene- 

 ous people. The interior river districts are inhabited by true 

 Indians of various tribes and languages, agricultural in their 

 habits if such a thing as agriculture can be spoken of in this 

 land of spontaneous vegetation and perennial summer. The coast 



