288 



MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



although the vast kitchen-middens of the surrounding forests contain none of these 

 bivalves. Potsherds and little human figures have been found in the refuse. 



San Carlos, on the left bank of the San Juan where it escapes from the lake, is 

 a mere group of cabins, commanded by a ruined fort. But according to Belly, 

 this is the site of the future Constantinople of the American Bosphorus. Cadillo, 

 a little farther down, is the most important station between the lake and San Juan 

 del Norte, often called Greytown since the time of its occupation by the English. 

 This town, famous in the history of the wars between the Spaniards and bucca- 



Fig. 124.— San Juan del Noete befoee the Constetjction of the Piee. 



Scale 1 : 85,000. 



85°44 



West oF OreenwicK 



85°4o 



Depths. 



Oto 16 

 Feet. 



32 Feet and 

 upwards. 



3,300 Yards. 



neers, and long the scene of English and American rivalries, is the only seaport of 

 Nicaragua on the Atlantic side. Its little white wooden houses, with their smiling 

 garden plots, trailing plants, and shady palm-groves, are surrounded by swampy 

 tracts, backwaters and channels, alternately flooded and filled with mud, which should 

 make Greytown a hotbed of fever. Yet according to the testimony, not merely of 

 engineering speculators, but of disinterested travellers, it is really one of the least 

 insalubrious places along the whole seaboard. This is mainly due to the porous 

 nature of the volcanic matter washed down by the river, so that the surface waters 



