99 
Chap. VII.—B. S.] A SOUL IN PURGATORY. 
hear it. “But couldn’t you do anything to get him 
out of it?” he asked. “ I don’t think that I have any 
direct influence in that quarter,” was my reply. “Yes, 
you have,” the stranger assured me. “ I am going to 
have Masses said for his soul, and should feel obliged 
by your giving a few reals towards paying the cost.” 
I was so much pleased with the novel and neat way 
of getting money out of me that I acceded to his 
wishes. He thanked me politely, hut there was a look 
about the fellow that made me think that, after all, I had 
merely contributed towards relieving “ a thirsty soul.” 
A few more hours’ ride brought me to Managua, 
which became, a few years ago, the capital of Nica¬ 
ragua, and which may he described as a large village 
of native huts, to which a few European houses have 
been added. The largest of these houses is the Palacio 
Nacional, with verandas and balconies, in which the 
public offices and the residence of the President of the 
Republic are situated. It overlooks the great square 
and the beautiful Lake of Managua, across which there 
always blows a fresh breeze. Pish is tolerably abun¬ 
dant in this lake, and the most esteemed are two very 
small kinds, belonging to the genera Tetragonopterus 
and Anther inichthys , Sardina and Pepesca, the former 
being in season in March, the latter during the rainy 
months of the year.* The Sardina is the smallest of 
the two, and so much resembles whitebait in look, 
* The specimens of these fish, which I deposited in the collections 
of the British Museum, are held by Dr. Gunther to be the young of 
two species which grow much larger than they are eaten at Managua, 
a fact of which the natives are, I believe, quite unaware. 
H 2 
