40 LAGUNA DE SALINAS. Book I. 
proportion, and so heavy that I found it difficult to take it 
home with me behind the saddle. My horse, too, was 
very much frightened when I first tried to lay the reptile 
on his back. I cannot tell the exact species of the animal, 
but it had a complete resemblance to some boa snakes I 
have seen in menageries ; and a Nicaraguan, who passed 
by while I was occupied in opening its body, called it bova. 
In the abdomen I found ten or twelve young ones of eight 
or nine inches in length, on which I noticed the fact that 
their brains lay entirely bare under a most delicate and 
transparent membrane. When I entered the city with my 
unusual game I produced quite an excitement, — not that 
the snake was thought to be a dragon and I a second St. 
George, but because nobody imagined that I could have 
taken it home for another purpose than to eat it. When, 
on another occasion, I caught a large toad and put it in 
alcohol, some fellow, who saw me do so, asked his com- 
panion : a What can these foreigners do with the toads ? " 
— " Comen " — " they eat them " — answered the other with 
an indescribable expression of contempt. To save the 
honour of the European nations, I pretended to catch toads 
for the purpose of preparing medicine. "Para remedio " 
— " for making medicine " — was my answer to similar 
questions from that time. 
In company with some friends I made an excursion to 
the Laguna de Salinas, which lies four or five miles to 
the west of Granada. It is a formation similar to that of 
the locality described above, called La Joya. In an ele- 
vated and thickly-wooded region a wide circular chasm is 
sunk, the bottom of which is occupied by a lake. The sur- 
rounding wall is not quite perpendicular, and a path leads 
down to the cauldron — as the formation may appropriately 
be designated 5 but the descent is very steep, and we had 
