INHASITANTS OF NICAEAGUA. 281 



zone Belt also mentions the timetes chiron, a species of butterfly, wliicli moves in 

 countless multitudes over hill and dale, always in the direction of the south-east 

 towards the Mosquito Coast. They come, probably, from the remote Honduras or 

 Guatemalan forests, but never return. 



The third zone comprises the lacustrine plains and Pacific seaboard, that is, 

 Nicaragua in the narrower sense — the " Paradise of Mohammed," in the language 

 of the Spanish conquerors — the privileged region on which the other two zones 

 naturally depend. It is at once the most fertile and healthiest region of the 

 republic, though exposed to tlie fierce westerly gales here known as papagayoa, 

 from the Gulf of Papagayo, at the south-western extremity of Nicaragua. Here 

 the native populations were formerly crowded together in vast cities " four leagues 

 long," and the wjiole isthmus between the lakes and the sea was transformed to a 

 vast plantation. Hence the local flora chiefly consists of cultivated plants, and 

 others associated wi|h them. 



Inhabitants. 



In Nicaragua the aborigines were exterminated, if not more ruthlessly, at all 

 events, to a greater extent than elsewhere in Central America. There being no 

 escape between the ocean and the lakes, the more numerous were the native com- 

 munities, the more wholesale were the massacres. Even in east Nicaragua, near 

 the Caribbean Sea, many districts, formerly covered with Indian villages, were 

 completely depopulated by the buccaneers. Thus between Monkey Point and the 

 Blewfields estuary, old cemeteries, heaps of potsherds, carved stones, and even 

 human effigies are found in a region which is now a wilderness. The Spanish 

 dwellings met along the course of the Mice are built with materials taken from 

 older Indian structures. 



At present all the native populations of west Nicaragua are half-caste Ladinos. 

 The Mangues, Nagrandans, Dirians, and Orotinans of the north-west are collectively 

 grouped as Chorotegas, or Choroteganos, which is merely another form of Cholu- 

 teca, the collective name of the neighbouring Honduras Indians, to whom they are 

 related. Some ethnologists afiiliate the Chorotegas to the Chiapanecs of east 

 Mexico, while others regard them as Mayas expelled from Cholula in pre-Aztec 

 times. They bore the name of Olmecs, like the predecessors of the Nahuas on 

 the Anahuac tableland, and probably belonged to the same stock. 



The final syllables of local names in various parts of Nicaragua certainly indi- 

 cate the presence of different peoples at different epochs. The ending, galpa, is 

 Aztec, while rique denotes towns and heights on both sides of the Honduras fron- 

 tier. In the valley of the Rio Segovia the names of places end in // or guina, and 

 in Chontales (qjo or opa is most common. 



Fully a century before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Nahuas had advanced 

 as conquerors through Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras into Nicaragua. Here 

 they were known by the name of Niquiran or Nicarao, which some etymologists 

 identify with the term Nicaragua itself. Like their Mexican kinsmen they had 

 their city of Tola or Tula, and like them also practised the art of writing, carved 



