GRANADA. 93 



work it well with your ringers and extend it in length as mac 

 aroni paste, then divide it in 32 small pieces, which you detach 

 separately and roll between your ringers, making them into pills. 

 Each pill will contain about one grain of quinine, and will be 

 easily swallowed, the flour having taken away a great part 

 of the bitterness. 



Taken with wine it is a preventive, one glass being 

 taken every day before breakfast. The pills are better fit for 

 curative purposes. 



Kind Mr. Rouhaud found a house for me, where I made 

 myself at home. I took a female cook at a cost of ten 

 shillings monthly, with board and lodging. I remained in 

 Grenada from the i6th of December, 1852, to the end of 

 May, 1853. 



Grenada, as I said before, is the most important city of 

 Nicaragua. It lies on the north west of the lake. In 1852 its 

 pupulation w r as about 15,000. Like all the Spanish cities it 

 was built in squares, the streets crossing each other at 

 right angles. The houses are usually one story high, 

 very few have a first floor. This is chiefly due to the 

 frequent earthquakes. All the rooms are on the ground floor. 

 They are large and the ceilings high. All of them look 

 on a patio (yard), in the middle of which it is not unusual 

 to see a fountain. In the best ones, covered galleries 

 surround the patio, and are used as reception rooms during 

 the summer. In fact it is more agreeable to sit and work 

 there than inside the rooms which are badly lighted. On the 

 wall supporting the galleries it is the custom to have all 

 sorts of flowering plants placed upon it, which give a charming 

 aspect to that part of the house. 



The rooms fronting the street have large, low windows, 

 enclosed with iron railings, which are sometimes beautifully 

 carved, and which gives them the appearance of gaols. In 

 the afternoon and at night, it is the custom to stand or sit 

 inside these windows, and to converse with the friends 

 passing by in the street. When they have a first floor, there 

 is also a gallery above surrounding the patio, and balconies 

 facing the streets. 



During my stay, I remarked that many of the best 

 houses were in a very bad condition, some completely ruined. 

 Few were the monuments, several churches more or less 

 damaged, the municipal Palace, the gaol built much 

 the same as the private houses, so that it is quite easy to 

 speak with the prisoners from the outside, several hotels, and 



