Chap. V.—B. S.] JINOTEGA AND MATAGALPA. 
75 
oranges, twenty for one real, we pushed on for Jino- 
tega, a town of two hundred houses and a church,— 
hedges of tall yucca-trees imparting to it a rather cha¬ 
racteristic look. "We alighted in one of the best houses, 
which we found, however, disgustingly dirty, and 
full of fleas and jiggers. We were directed to it hy 
some Americans who were selling leaf tobacco in the 
street at the rate of one real per pound. They be¬ 
longed to a set of immigrants, in all thirteen families, 
from the Southern United States, who had formed 
themselves into a company for the purpose of carry¬ 
ing on agricultural operations here. They had grown 
tobacco, maize, onions, beans, etc., hut had succeeded 
only with the tobacco, and were not getting on well. 
I advised them to go to parts of Nicaragua where they 
could sell their produce for ready money. 
The white convolvulus, which flowers all night, and 
at the first rays of the rising sun begins to wither, 
was still in full bloom when we left Jinotega, and 
after riding in a south-easterly direction about seven 
leagues over a rough, stony road, we arrived at 
Matagalpa, the capital of the department of the same 
name. One of the first buildings on entering the 
town, for I suppose I must call it a town, though we in 
Europe would call it a mere village, was a flour-mill, 
the only one I had seen in the country, wheat being 
grown in some of the hills in the neighbourhood, 
hut the flour prepared from it proving very dark and 
coarse. We made straight for the house of Sr. Be¬ 
nito Morales, whom we had been led to believe had 
some gold mines to sell. He was absent from home, 
