Across Nicaragua with Transit and Machete. 31 Y 



Between this mountainous region and the Caribbean shore 

 stretches a low level country, covered with a dense forest, rich in 

 rubber, cedar, mahogany and dye woods. It is drained by sev- 

 eral large rivers whose fertile intervales will yield almost incred- 

 ible harvests of plantains, bananas, oranges, limes, and other 

 tropical fruits. 



West of the mountain zone is a broad valley, about one hun- 

 dred and twenty-iive feet above the level of the sea, extending 

 from the Gulf of Fonseca, southeasterly to the frontier of Costa 

 Rica. The greater portion of this valley is occupied by- two 

 lakes, Managua and Nicaragua. The latter one hundred and ten 

 miles long by fifty or sixty miles wide is really an inland sea, 

 being one-half as large as Lake Ontario and twice as large as 

 Long Island Sound. These lakes, with the rainfall of the adja- 

 cent valleys, drain through the noble San Juan river, which dis- 

 charges into the Caribbean at Greytown, at the southeast angle 

 of the country. 



Between the Pacific and these lakes is a narrow strip of land, 

 from twelve to thirty miles in width, stretching from the magnifi- 

 cent plain of Leon with its cathedral city, in the north, to the rol- 

 ling indigo fields and the cacao plantations which surround the 

 garden city of Rivas, in the south. 



The lowest pass across the backbone of the New World, from 

 Behring's Strait to the Straits of Magellan, extends along the 

 San Juan valley and across the Lajas — Rio Grande " divide," be- 

 tween Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific ; the summit of this 

 divide is only one hundred and fifty-two feet above the sea and 

 forty-two feet above the lake. 



Nicaragua presents yet another unique physical feature. 

 Lying between the elevated mountain masses of Costa Rica 

 on the south and Honduras on the north, the average eleva- 

 tion of its own mountain backbone hardly one thousand feet, it 

 is the natural thoroughfare of the beneficent northeast Trades. 

 These winds sweep in from the Caribbean across the Atlantic 

 fllopes, break the surface of the lakes into sparkling waves, and 

 then disappear over the Pacific, aerating, cooling and purifying 

 the country, destroying the germs of disease and making Nicara- 

 gua the healthiest region in Central America. 



The scenery of the eastern portion of the country is of the 

 luxuriant sameness peculiar to all tropical countries. 



