280 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



channels at times carried off all the rest, leaving the harbour half choked with 

 sands and almost cut off from communication with the river. Hence it has 

 been proposed to remove the port to the mouth of the Colorado ; but the bar, 

 with from 10 to 16 feet of water, varies frequently in depth, while the road- 

 stead is exposed to the dangerous north winds.* 



Climate, Flora, Fauna. 



Nicaragua is divided by the nature of its soil and climate into three distinct 

 zones, an eastern, central, and western, each presenting special features in its 

 vegetation, inhabitants, social condition, and history. 



The old schistose quartz and dolerite rocks of the plateaux and mountains on 

 the Atlantic slope are watered by copious rains and vapours brought by the north- 

 east trade winds. Hence these regions are covered with forests interrupted only 

 by river beds, swamps, and marshy savannas. Here are found all the varieties of 

 timber, cabinet and dye woods of the Honduras and South Mexican floras — cedars, 

 mahogany, gayac, besides the characteristic certes {teconia sideroxylon), which is 

 hard as ebony and remarkable for the dazzling golden blossom with which it is 

 entirely clothed towards the end of March, after the fall of the green foliage. 

 Owing to the superabundance of moisture this region is necessarily unhealthy and 

 sparsely inhabited, the few Indian or half-paste natives 'being chiefly confined to 

 narrow glades in the dense woodlands. 



The range of the Atlantic rains and rank forest-growths is sharply limited by 

 the crest of the main Nicaraguan chain, so that it may rain for weeks or months 

 together at Libertad on the east slope, while Juigalpa, on the Pacific side, enjoys 

 cloudless skies. The eastern rains last from May to January, with occasional 

 intervals of fine weather, especially in October and November. 



Immediately beyond the forest region begins the central zone of savannas, 

 varied here and there by a giant ceiba, which affords a grateful shade to numerous 

 flocks and herds. Here the work of man in clearing the woodlands has been 

 aided by the occodoina, a species of ant, which spares the herbage and confines its 

 attacks to the sprouts and saplings growing on the verge of the forest. According 

 to Belt, these ants are veritable agriculturists. They cut the tender leaves in 

 squares, not for food, as was formerly supposed, but ifor manure to enrich the 

 underground plantations of fungi on which they chiefly live. The eciton hamata, 

 another species of ant in the same region, is placed by the same naturalist in the 

 first rank for its intelligence. When a brook is bridged by a single branch too 

 narrow to allow a horde to cross except in Indian file, a number of the insects 

 cluster on both sides of the natural causeway in such a way as to double or treble 

 its width. 



Amongst the remarkable phenomena presented by the fauna of this upland 



* Hydrology of the San Juan : — From the source of the Rio San Rafael to Lake Managua, 94 miles ; 

 Lake Managua, 28 miles ; Rio Tipitapa, 18 miles ; Lake Nicaragua, 88 miles ; Desaguadero (San Juan), 

 125 miles ; total. 353 miles. Extent of the basin, including the Colorado, 16,0U0 square miles ; discharge 

 at the Lake Nicaragua outlet, 12,000 cubic feet ; at the fork of the delta, 25,000 cubic feet ; during the 

 floods, 52,000 cubic feet per second. 



