Chap. IV.—B. S.] 
ARRIVAL AT OCOTAL. 
61 
even -when we did get to any habitations, we found pro¬ 
visions of any kind scarce. Almost invariably there 
ensued the same interrogatory between us and the na¬ 
tives. “ Have yon any eggs for sale ?” we asked. “ No 
hay ” (there are none) was the reply.—“ Plantains ?” 
—“ Ho hay.”—“ Fowls ?” — “ Ho hay.”—“ Indian 
corn?” —“Ho hay.” — “ Milk?” — “Ho hay.”— 
“Beans ?”—“ Ho hay.” And so on through the whole 
catalogue of things they were likely to have. “ Then 
what on earth do yon have ?”—“ Hada, senor, absoluta- 
mente nada.”—“ But you must live on something,” we 
began to argue.—“ We have a little of this and a little 
of that,” was the invariable reply; “ but not enough to 
spare you any.” It was a hard case to find one’s stock 
of provisions getting lower and lower without a chance 
of replenishing it. "Want of regular and sufficient food 
and so much active exercise soon began to tell upon 
us; and towards the end of our journey, there was no 
danger of our assuming any aldermanic proportions. 
After the first few days we found the mountains 
higher, the temperature cooler, and instead of leafless 
woods, forests of pine and evergreen oak. A week’s 
hard riding, from seven to twenty leagues a day, 
brought us to the end of the first stage of our 
journey. 
Ocotal, the capital of Hew Segovia, which derives 
its name from the pine, or ocote, formerly plentiful 
in the neighbourhood. Ocote, or rather Ocotl, is a 
name of Aztec derivation, brought here, with many 
others, by Mexican immigrants, during the time of 
Montezuma; for the Mexican Empire tried to extend 
