1825.] 
city was repeatedly ravaged by the 
Mosquito Indians, aided by English 
pirates, which obliged the inhabitants 
to change the situation of their abode 
three several times. The city of Leon 
was founded in 1523, by Fernandez de 
Cordova. It contains a cathedral church; 
three convents; a college, and the trea- 
sury of the intendancy. Its population 
is between 7,000 and 8,000. 
In the neighbourhood of New Sego- 
via is El Corpus, which was con- 
sidered, at one time, as the richest 
mine in the kingdom of Guatimala. 
It produced gold in so great a quantity, 
as to excite, at first, a suspicion as to 
the reality of the metal; and a trea- 
sury was established on the spot, for 
the sole purpose of receiving the king’s 
fifths, 
The district of Nicoya, which is 
bounded by the Pacific on the west, 
and the lake Nicaragua on the north, 
stretches twenty-three leagues east and 
west, by twenty north and south. The 
land is of a very fertile description, 
though it yields but little for want of 
hands to cultivate it; scarcely produc- 
ing maize enough for the consumption 
of the inhabitants, who, in addition to 
this scanty harvest, rear a few heads 
of cattle. Pearls are found on the coast, 
and a species of shell fish (the ancient 
muryx), out of which they press 4 fluid 
that will dye cotton or woollen, of a 
permanent and beautiful purple. The 
climate is hot and. humid; and the po- 
pulation so thin as hardly to number 
3,000 souls, comprising all the farms, 
and the only village of the district. 
The latter is called Nicoya, and is 
situated on a river of the same name, 
navigable from the sea for vessels of 
moderate tonnage. This short sketch 
of the topography of the district, cor- 
roborates the views we have antece- 
dently taken of the impolicy, and im- 
practicability of conducting an artificial 
communication through this district ; 
while its pearl fishery on the Pacific, 
its purple, and its fertility recommend 
the comparatively short passage along 
the elbow of the river De Partidos, 
which encloses the town of Ni- 
caragua, end unites the Pacific and the 
lake. 
The temperature of Nicaragua is 
very hot, so as not to produce wheat, 
but it yields also .various articles 
eculiar to the climate, bountifully— 
excellent grapes, and other delicious 
fruits, cocoa, indigo, and cotton, be- 
sides various medicinal drugs, and 
Elasticity of Stature. 
315 
especially the gum called carana. The 
forests afford large quantities of valu- 
able timber of several species, and also 
various kinds of quadrupeds, and rare 
birds; but the soil is, however, un- 
favourable to sheep. The rivers, the 
coasts, and the creeks furnish an inex- 
haustible supply of fish of all kinds. 
But it is not only to the peculiar 
commodities of Nicaragua that the 
projected canal would furnish access: 
it opens a career for carrying on an un- 
bounded and most profitable commerce 
in all the various and rich productions 
of Guatimala; its inexhaustible forests 
of valuable wood, brazil, caoba, maho- 
gany, logwood, and guayacan ; its abun- 
dance of niedicinal plants, fruits and 
roots; its profusion of gums and 
balsams, estimable for their fragrance, 
curative virtues, or other uses; its 
multitude of vegetable and mineral pro- 
ductions that minister to the necessi- 
ties and luxuries of life—its pepper, 
cochineal, ‘saffron, sulphur, saltpetre, 
mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, cordage, 
sail-cloth and. cotton ; tobacco, indigo, 
sugar and cocoa; its forty or fifty 
genera of native and delicious fruits, 
which grow even on the mountains, so 
fertile is the soil, without cultivation ; 
the beautiful varieties of its animal and 
floral kingdoms ; and, lastly, the abun- 
dant productions of its mines, gold, 
silver, iron, lead and calc. 
—a— 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
Exasticity of STATURE. 
ANY incidents and allusions that 
are met with in dramatic and epic 
composition, which the cold closet 
critic regards as mere poetical hyper- 
boles, have nevertheless their proto- 
types and realities in the phenomena 
and principles of nature. The increased 
stature and expanding form, for ex- 
ample, frequently ascribed by poets to 
their heroes, under the impulse of some 
sublime feeling, or in the act of some 
magnificent effort, or enterprize that 
elevates the spirit and calls forth all 
their energies, is not so mere a fiction 
of the imagination, as ordinary ob- 
servers (or non-observers) may suppose. 
The human form and stature have an 
elasticity (a capability—in some instan- 
ces, a necessity, of dilation and contrace 
tion) under certain moral, and certain 
physical circumstances, which has not 
altogether escaped the notice of philo- 
sophical inquiry. In a weekly publica- 
tion, I met the other day with the fol- 
lowing paragraph :— 
282 “ Increase 
