396 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



The Flores.— The San Juan.— Nature's Solitude.— Primitive Cookery.— Harbour 

 of San Juan.— Route of the Great Canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific 

 Oceans.— Nicaragua.— Survey for the Canal.— Lake of Nicaragua.— Plan of 

 the Canal. — Lockage.— Estimate of Cost. — Former Efforts to construct the 

 Canal. — Its Advantages. — Central American Hospitality. — Tierra Caliente. — 

 Horrors of Civil War. 



I ROSE about an hour before daylight, and was in my 

 saddle by break of day. We watered our mules at the 

 River Flores, the boundary-line of the states of Costa 

 Rica and Nicaragua. In an hour we reached Skamaika, 

 the name given to a single hut occupied by a negro, 

 sick and alone. He was lying on a bedstead made of 

 sticks, the very picture of wretchedness and desolation, 

 worn to a skeleton by fever and ague. Soon after we 

 came to another hut, where two women were sick with 

 fever. Nothing could be more wretched than these huts 

 along the Pacific. They asked me for remedios, and I 

 gave them some quinine, but with little hope of their 

 ever benefiting by it. Probably both the negro and 

 they are now in their graves. 



At twelve o'clock we reached the River St. John, the 

 mouth of which was the terminating point of the great 

 canal. The road to Nicaragua crossed the stream, 

 and ours followed it to the sea, the port being situated 

 at its mouth. Our whole road had been desolate enough, 

 but this far surpassed anything I had seen ; and as I 

 looked at the little path that led to Nicaragua, I felt as 

 if we were leaving a great highway. The valley of the 

 river is about a hundred yards broad, and in the season 

 of rain the whole is covered with water ; but at this 

 time the stream was small, and a great part of its bed 



