84 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. VI.— B. S. 
tion at Dundee, it appears that about the year 1850 a 
hoy, in digging holes for the uprights of a house near 
the present town of Lihertad, turned up some excellent 
ore which attracted the attention of a man of some 
mining experience. In course of time, the news of 
the discovery reached Granada, and caused some little 
excitement; hut the filibuster war then raging in Nica¬ 
ragua checked every legitimate enterprise. As soon as 
affairs became a little more settled, a very fine lode 
was traced out close to the banks of the river Mico, a 
tributary of the Escondido, or Blewfields river. This 
lode, afterwards named the San Juan, was worked 
upon after the native system, many pozos and bancos 
being driven upon it with remarkable success. The 
discovery of two or three smaller mines in the vici¬ 
nity followed, but it was not until the gem of the dis¬ 
trict, the famous Javali Mine, was opened out that the 
real richness of Chontales became apparent. Consign¬ 
ments of ore having been made to a -well-known firm 
in London, and Captain Pirn’s attention drawn to the 
matter while in Nicaragua, he was enabled on his 
return to England to lay the subject before some 
practical men, by whom it was decided to send out 
proper persons to examine such gold and silver mines 
as might have been partially developed. 
On November 17, 1864, Captain Pirn, Mr. White, 
Consul-General for Nicaragua, and Mr. W ill him C. 
Paul, a mining engineer, sailed from Southampton in 
one of the vessels of the Poyal West India Mail Packet 
Company for Grey Town, which they reached on the 
12th of December. They found that they should be 
