Chap. XXII.—B.P.] NICARAGUAN IDEA OF COLONIZATION. 367 
magnitude. I have done so, not with a view of dis¬ 
couraging any adventurous follower in my footsteps, 
but in order to prepare him for many disappointments 
and much labour, to say nothing of expense, before 
he can expect even a glimmer of success to cross the 
chequered path he has chosen. 
To bring my transit reminiscences up to this date, I 
may mention that, finding how impossible it was to 
form a company to carry out this great project, I made 
a flank movement, with the idea that Nicaragua ought 
herself to help in a work so very much to her benefit. 
Amongst her legislators there are many who see the 
matter in this light; but unfortunately, in proportion 
to the diminutiveness of a country so is the division 
of opinion amongst its inhabitants, and Nicaragua is 
no exception to the rule. 
I had hoped to bring Mosquito and Nicaragua to¬ 
gether, so as to form a united State, and then to con¬ 
nect their interests still more firmly by a road, laid 
down for the most part by immigrants, who, on proper 
encouragement, would have made the intervening coun¬ 
try between the oceans their home. By the simple 
act of acknowledgment on the part of Nicaragua of 
those claimants who had staked so much money upon 
the grants made to them by the former authorities of 
Mosquito, this could have been effected; and the 
joint enterprises of colonization and transit might then 
have been made with mutual advantage to travel har¬ 
moniously together. I paved the way for such a 
union by a public meeting at Blewfields (see Appen¬ 
dix), interesting if only from the fact that it was the 
