70 NAGAEOTE — PUEBLO NUEVO. Book I. 
overgrown with shrubs of the mimosa, with yellow catkins 
of a most exquisite odour, from which the shrub, which 
yields a gum like the gum arabic, bears the name of 
aroma. 
Nagarote is a village of bad reputation. I arrived there 
at noon and spent an hour at dinner. After I had left, 
my servant rode up to my side and said : " El senor de la 
casa es capitan de ladrones ;" " the landlord of the house 
where we stopped is the chief of a band of robbers." On 
both sides of Nagarote the road passes through a forest, 
and this neighbourhood was deemed among the unsafest 
parts of Nicaragua. 
I left Pueblo Nuevo early in the morning. The streets 
of this village, which is a place of some consideration, are 
between rows of the columnar cactus or organo, the houses 
standing back in the courtyards formed by these natural 
walls. The first part of the road from hence to Leon leads 
again through the woods. The sun had not yet risen when 
I entered them, and in all directions I heard the call 
of the chachalagua, a kind of wild chicken or pheasant, 
common throughout the hot regions of Central America 
and Mexico. I could never succeed in shooting this bird, 
of which I was told in Honduras that it crosses with the 
tame chicken, producing hybrids of which the males are 
highly valued as fighting cocks. 
When the road approaches to within a few leagues of 
Leon the country opens, and a beautiful plain, well 
cultivated with maize, expands before the sight. To the 
left a ridge of wooded hills, bordering the sea-coast, 
discovers itself; to the right is the chain of volcanic peaks 
enumerated above. " There is Leon !" cried my servant, 
a boy of fourteen, with all the pride of a patriotic Nica- 
