40 CENTRAL AMERICA. 



themselves, and to the rest of the world, as if 

 it never existed, owing to causes that now 

 appear without remedy. About three miles 

 from my ranchos, up a very steep, rocky 

 mountain, the range of pines commenced, 

 where the weather was really very cold some 

 months in the year. We used to send up 

 now and then to procure pine-splints and 

 torches. 



Nature has done much for this people, 

 but the enervating climate, the government, 

 superstition, and insufferable idleness of most 

 of the inhabitants, together with their pride, 

 which makes them consider themselves supe- 

 rior to all nations, will for a long time prove 

 a bar against improvement. In the towns, 

 the men would rather live miserably on an 

 hour's work each day (not a feast-day) than 

 live comfortably, which they easily might, on 

 six hours' work. Riding through a town 

 one morning at about nine o'clock, I had the 

 curiosity to count the relative number of 

 those men at work and those idle : four men 

 were at work, and about one hundred and 

 fifty swinging in their grass hammocks, 

 smoking cigars. 



Before taking my leave of the plains, I 

 wish to describe a very curious spot about 



