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CHAPTER VI. 
FOREIGN ENTERPRISE IN NICARAGUA.-NEGATIVE RESULT OF OUR 
JOURNEY THROUGH NEW SEGOVIA AND MATAGALPA.-RE¬ 
SOLVE TO TRY CHONTALES.-SKETCH OF THE EXPLORATION OF 
THAT GOLD DISTRICT BY CAPTAIN PIM AND HIS PARTY.-OUR 
RETURN TO LEON. 
Foreigners have already done a great deal for these 
countries; and, if they should but arrive in sufficient 
numbers, would doubtless regenerate them. All im¬ 
provements are due to their efforts or direct influence; 
the natives, unaided, seeming to be incapable of 
emerging from the abject state in which they are 
plunged. This was forcibly brought home to me 
when, on the evening of the 28th of April, long 
after darkness had set in, we heard the whistle of a 
steam-engine, and the hammering of the stampers 
of an ore-crushing mill, and soon after arrived at 
Guayava, the reduction works of a gold mine 
belonging to two Americans, Messrs. Fitzgerald and 
Hussey. A steam-engine in the midst of a virgin 
forest always reminds me of the monks one sees tra¬ 
ct 
