Chap. III. HOME LIFE AT GRANADA. 41 
to leave our horses above. Numerous cattle, however, be- 
longing to some farm in the neighbourhood, and roaming 
about in the woods, descend daily down to drink at the lake. 
The latter may be two or three miles in circumference. 
Its water, according to the statement of Dr. B , 
then resident in Granada, contains a considerable propor- 
tion of iodine, and has been effectually made use of in the 
cure of the wen, a disease so frequent in the neighbouring 
town of Masaya. It has a disagreeable saltish taste, and 
Dr. B himself, who was of our party, had a violent 
attack of vomiting produced by drinking it. 
My time between these and the more extended excur- 
sions, which will be related in the following chapters, was 
spent in town, in what I may call my home life at Granada. 
It was always an interval of recovery from fatigues, and 
under this plea I may venture to claim the kind reader's 
attention for a few minor remarks. 
I lived in the house of a German physician, at that time 
practising at Granada. Our life was rather of a sybaritic 
kind for a country like Nicaragua. When the dinner was 
ready, the dishes were carried in procession from the 
kitchen through the courtyard to the dining-room, which 
was an open verandah, by the servants, who, on that occa- 
sion, represented the dignity of the household by a strictly- 
observed hierarchical order. At the head of the procession 
the cook — a withered beauty with fresh yellow flowers in 
her black hair, her naked feet in a pair of dirty white satin 
shoes embroidered with gold, the reboso thrown over her left 
shoulder, and a cigar in her mouth, carrying a plate on 
each hand, spread out at the side of the head in a horizontal 
line with the ears. In a manner equally studied, though a 
little less pretending, the others, male and female, followed, 
and the rear was brought up by a boy carrying an earthen 
