Across Nicaragua with Transit and Machete. 327 



Of course the men had the best of food that money could ob- 

 tain and previous experience suggest, and the chiefs of all parties 

 were required to strictly enforce certain sanitary regulations in 

 regard to coffee in the morning, a thorough bath and dose of 

 spirits on retiirning from work, and mosquito bars and dry sleep - 

 ing suits at night ; yet the climate must be held principally re- 

 sponsible for a sanitary result which I believe could not be ex- 

 celled in any temperate zone city, with the same number of men, 

 doing the same arduous work under conditions of equal exposure. 



The forests everywhere abound in game and every party which 

 included in its personnel a good rifle-shot was sure of a constant 

 supply of wild pig, turkey, quail and grouse, varied by an occa- 

 sional deer, all obtained in the ordinary work of reconnoissance 

 and surveying. For the men's table there was abundance of 

 monkey, iguana and macaw. 



Parties in the lower valleys of the various streams had no 

 trouble in adding two or three varieties of very toothsome fish 

 to their bill of fare, though these fish were rarely caught with 

 the hook, but usually shot, or knifed by an alert native, as they 

 basked in the shallows. These parties also obtained occasionally 

 a danta (tapir) or a manatee. 



On the river it was possible to obtain a fine string of fish with 

 hook and line, then there was the huge tarpon to be had for the 

 spearing, and fish pots sunk in suitable places were sure to yield 

 a mess of fresh water lobsters. Ducks were also occasionally 

 shot. 



The forms of life are even more numerous in the vegetable than 

 in the animal kingdom. The effect of these wonderful forests 

 is indescribable, and though many writers have essayed a descrip- 

 tion, I have yet to see one that does the subject justice. Only a 

 simple enumeration of component parts will be attempted here. 

 First comes the grand body of the forest, huge almendro, havilan, 

 guachipilin, cortez, cedar, cottonwood, palo de leche trees, and 

 others rising one hundred and fifty or two hundred feet into the 

 scintillant sunshine. The entire foliage of these trees is at the top 

 and their great trunks reaching up for a hundred feet or more 

 without a branch offer a wonderful variety of studies in types of 

 column. Some rise straight and smooth, and true, others send 

 out thin deep buttresses, and others look like the muscle-knotted 

 fore-arm of a Titan, with gnarled fingers griping the ground in 

 their wide grasp. 



