188 The Naturalist in Nicaragua 
after some stumbling and slipping, our beasts managed to 
scramble to the top, and we soon after regained the road. 
We now travelled over steep ranges, composed of great 
moraine-like heaps of clay, with large angular boulders. 
Pine and oak trees covered the heights, shrouded with long 
fringes and festoons of the moss-like Tillandsia. Many 
epiphytes grew on the oaks, amongst which the mottled 
yellow flower of an orchid hung down in spikes six feet long. 
Five miles after regaining the road we reached the top 
of a high range of hills, and found a single hut on the summit. 
Night was coming on, it was raining, and we were told that 
there was a very bad road before us over mountains, and no 
other house for three leagues. We determined to stay at 
the hut, although the prospect of our night’s entertainment 
was a most cheerless one. The hut was about twenty feet 
square, with a small attached shed for a kitchen. The floor 
was the natural earth, littered with corn husks and other 
refuse. There was not a bit of furniture, excepting some 
rough sleeping-places made of hides stretched over poles. 
There was not a stool nor even a log of wood to sit down upon. 
In this miserable hut dwelt three families, consisting of nine 
individuals; men, women, and children. 
The land around appeared to be poor. A patch of the 
forest in front of the house, sloping down the side of a steep 
valley, had been cleared, and planted with maize and wheat. 
We were told that there were a few other houses down this 
valley. The people in the hut seemed miserably poor. 
I said to Velasquez that they must have been born on the 
settlement, as I could not imagine any one coming from 
outside the mountains to live at such a spot, and on inquiry 
we found that every one was a native, born within a mile 
of the hut. It was perhaps bleaker than usual that evening, 
a continuous rain was falling, and a high wind whistling 
through the pine-tops. Pigs, dogs, and fowls were constantly 
in one’s way, and the only cheering sign was the bright blaze 
and fragrant smell of the burning pine splinters. I asked 
one of the men if he preferred this place to Jinotega, where 
the fertile slopes and grassy plains had so pleased our eyes. 
He answered he did, the air was fresher and there was-less 
fever. 
They made for us some tortillas, and we had tea with us, 
