146 
CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATED. 
ready, the driver mounts the tongue, with a long pole, prepared 
to “ stir up the animalshe gives the inimitable whoop, and 
they are under way. When he wants them to bear to the left, 
he applies the end of the pole to the right-hand leader, shoves 
him out, and they come to, and vice versa. On the road there 
is always in attendance a little boy, whose duty it is to “ grease 
the wheels.” He is supplied with a quantity of green bark, and 
when the wheels creak he applies a piece; it winds around the 
axle, and seems to ease the pain. This, to a person accustomed 
to an easy carriage, would seem an uncomfortable mode of per¬ 
forming a journey; yet, dear reader, in this same cart, at this 
particular time, there is a gentleman and lady, well-known in 
Hew York circles, on their way to Nicaragua, en route to the 
United States. They are seated on their trunks, in a recum¬ 
bent attitude, with heads uncovered, each drop of the wheel 
seeming to give rise to new phrenological developments. 
There is a spacious hotel now being built here, and there is 
a prospect that the town will become Americanized. We were 
obliged to take lodgings at a private house. We lived on 
chickens, eggs, and carna , or beef dried in strings, and sold by 
the yard. At night we slung ourselves up in hammocks, at the 
mercy of the mosquitos. After a detention of two days, we 
succeeded in hiring passage, in carts, for Chinandega. Our 
driver was anxious to start at an early hour, and hitched his 
oxen to the cart at 2 P. M. We seated ourselves on trunks, in¬ 
side, and were soon under way. 
Nothing could have been more ludicrous than the appearance 
of the passengers, as each had assumed a peculiar attitude. 
Here sat a lank doctor of six feet three, his feet hanging out at 
the fore-end of the cart, his legs and body being warped up 
along the side of the covering, his head sticking out behind. 
On the other side, seated flat in the bottom, was a man very 
nearly as tall, but not half so amiable, who had somewhat the 
appearance of a clothes-rack unshipped, and seemed to think 
this a suitable occasion for the use of hard words. He was 
under oath all day, and swore himself to sleep at night. Soon 
after starting, our driver, with the greatest precision, brought 
up against a rock, which not only caused a great mortality 
