60 
DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. IT.—B. S. 
deeds of mankind, and giving the latest account of 
the pulsation of the world. But that time is as yet 
distant, and Spanish Americans need not he afraid 
that the great immigration which they so much fear 
will speedily set in; hut when it does, they and all 
their artful contrivances to keep foreigners out will 
he no more effectual than the attempt of man to stay 
the tide of the ocean. 
The country, after leaving Jamaili, was quite parched 
up, and almost the only green things were some gigantic 
Pilocerei , or old-man cactuses, and a few melon-cactuses 
and Opuntias. We passed the villages of Alanguina 
and Totogalpa, and crossing the river Coco, the hanks 
of which were clad with willows, the lovely green of 
which was quite a relief to the eye after seeing so 
much dried-up vegetation, we entered, on the 9th of 
April, 1866, the town of Ocotal, where we were 
allowed to take up our quarters in the house of Don 
F. Yalconcello. This was the first stage of our journey 
from Leon, and its principal features may thus be 
recapitulated:— 
The first few days we had to pass wooded plains, where 
we suffered much from want of water and from excessive 
heat and dust; all the trees, with the exception of a 
few wild figs, being as leafless as most of ours are in the 
depth of winter, and where animal life was represented 
principally by the lizard tribe, both species and indivi¬ 
duals being numerous, and by monkeys, parrots, ma¬ 
caws, and deer, not to mention any smaller forms. The 
district traversed was hut thinly peopled. One whole 
day we did not meet with a single human being; and 
