A4 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
Spaniards were attacked in the night-time by the Rio Mico 
Indians, and all of them killed, excepting the young women, 
who were carried off into captivity, and the place has ever 
since lain desolate. 
Many extravagant stories have been told of the great 
statues that are said to have been seen on the banks of the 
Mico, much lower down the river than where we crossed it; 
but M. Etienne, of Libertad, who descended it to Blewfields, 
and some Ulleros of San Thomas, who had frequently been 
down it after india-rubber, assured me that the reported 
statues were merely rude carvings of faces and animals on 
the rocks. They appear to be similar to what are found on 
many rivers running into the Caribbean Sea, and to those 
which were examined by Schomburgk on the rocks of the 
Orinoco and Essequibo. As others like them, of undoubted 
Carib workmanship, have been found in the Virgin Islands, 
it is possible that they are all the work of that once-powerful 
race, and not of the settled agricultural and statue-making 
Indians of the western part of the continent. 
We started from Esquipula early next morning, and 
crossed low thinly-timbered hills and savannahs to Pital, 
a scattered settlement of many small thatched houses, close 
to the borders of the great forest; on the edge of which were 
clearings, made for growing maize, which is cultivated 
entirely on burnt forest land. At some parts they had 
already commenced cutting down trees for fresh clearings; 
these would be burnt in April, and the maize sown the follow- 
ing month, in the usual primitive way, just as it was in 
Mexico before and at the Spanish conquest. In commencing 
a clearing, the brushwood is first cut close to the ground, as 
it would be difficult to do so after the large trees are felled. 
The big timber is then cut down, and in April it is set fire to. 
All the small wood and leaves burn well; but most of the 
large trunks are left, and many of the branches. Most of 
the latter are cut up to form a fence round the clearing, this 
at Pital and Esquipula being made very close and high to 
keep out deer. In May, the maize is sown; the sower makes 
little holes with a pointed stick, a few feet apart, into each 
of which he drops two or three grains, and covers them with 
his foot. In a few days the green leaves shoot up, and grow 
very quickly. Numerous wild plants also spring up, and in 
