10 THE NAUTILUS. 



and the last vestige of native rule disappeared. The United States 

 no doubt welcomed the final act, but England has never yet given 

 1 full assent to it. The political change has not been beneficial to the 

 native population. 



A little gold in the rivers, some exports of mahogany and rubber 

 support a small foreign population, who import considerable foreign 

 food and manufactured goods. All this making the imposition of 

 duty possible, the Nicaraguan government was naturally attracted, 

 for the main function of government in many of our naughty little 

 sister republics is to grab the pennies. 



The white people comprise the foreign traders and the mission- 

 aries. The Nicaraguans in Bluefields are mostly mixed; as to the 

 rest of the population it is made up of native Indians, except for the 

 West Indian negroes who have settled in Bluefields and at Pearl 

 Lagoon. 



Of the Indian tribes the Moskos, whom the Spaniards called 

 Mosquitos, are the most numerous and inhabit the seacoast. On 

 Rama Key, in the Bluefields Lagoon, and on the mainland as far as 

 Monkey Point, live a few hundred Rama Indians. Near Pearl 

 Lagoon and near Wauks River or the Rio Coco dwell some remnants 

 of black Caribs. Near the headwaters of streams west of Bluefields 

 are to be found some Woolwas, while the Sumus inhabit the country 

 along the headwaters of streams to the north of the Kuringwas 

 River. All these interesting tribes and the Sumus especially, the 

 most interesting of them all, are fast dying out or mixing. The 

 ethnologist had better hurry or a field of research will be gone for- 

 ever. 



In Vol. 5, p. 151, of "The American Journal of Conchology," 

 Mr. Ralph Tate, who collected in the Chonatales province, says : 

 " A low mountain chain trends in a northwest and southeast direc- 

 tion through the central part of the country. . . . This region ex- 

 tends to the Atlantic seaboard." The italics are mine, and it is to 

 this latter remark I want to call attention, for I have had inquiries 

 from conchologists concerning shells they thought lived on the Mos- 

 quito Coast which could not possibly have existed in its swamps. 



"With the exception of the low, isolated Pratta Hills to the north- 

 west of Karata, a single isolated cone, known as Lappan, just west 

 of Wounta Haulover ; a solitary ridge near Pearl Lagoon, and some 

 spurs of Cord, de Yoloma south of Bluefields, the entire Mosquito 



