Absence of Patriotism 261 
level to another, as horses and mules are very liable to slip on 
the smooth pavement. The houses are built of “ adobe ”’ 
or sun-dried brick. The walls are plastered and white- 
washed, and the roofs and floors tiled. They are mostly of 
one storey, and the rooms surrounding the courtyards have 
doors opening both to the inside and to the street. 
There are no factories in Granada, but many wholesale 
stores, kept by merchants, who import goods from England 
and the United States, and export the produce of the country 
—indigo, hides, coffee, cacao, sugar, india-rubber, etc. 
Many of these merchants are very wealthy; but all deal 
retail as well as wholesale; and the reputed wealthiest man 
of the town asked me if I did not want to buy a few boxes of 
candles. The highest ambition of every one seems to be to 
keep a shop, excepting when the revolutionary fever breaks 
out about every seven or eight years, when, for a few months, 
business is at a stand-still, and the population is divided into 
two parties, alternately pursuing and being pursued, but 
seldom engaging in a real battle. 
There was one of these outbreaks whilst I was in Nica- 
ragua, and the whole country was in a state of civil war for 
more than four months, nearly all the able-bodied men being 
drafted into the armies that were raised, but I believe there 
were not a score of men killed on the field of battle during: 
the whole time; the town of Juigalpa was taken and retaken 
without any one receiving a scratch. The usual course 
pursued was for the two armies to manceuvre about until 
one thought it was weaker than the other, when it immedi- 
ately took to flight. Battles were decided without a shot 
being fired, excepting after one side had run away. 
Of patriotism I never saw a symptom in Central America,. 
nothing but selfish partisanship, willing at any moment to 
set the country in a state of war if there was only a prospect 
of a little spoil. The states of Central America are republics. 
in name only; in reality, they are tyrannical oligarchies. 
They have excellent constitutions and laws on paper, but 
both their statesmen and their judges are corrupt; with 
some honourable exceptions, I must admit, but not enough 
to stem the current of abuse. Of real liberty there is none. 
The party in power is able to control the elections, and to 
put their partisans into all the municipal and other offices. 
