Chap. VI. OROGRAPHY OF NICARAGUA. 87 
in an exhausted state, produced, no doubt, by the inhala- 
tion of the gases which emanated from the bottom. The 
guide, who had descended after me, was nowhere to be 
seen, nor did he answer my repeated calls. With the 
utmost exertion I succeeded in reaching the foot of the 
wall where the rope hung down from the old stump, and 
when I looked up I despaired of ever emerging from the 
crater again. After a while, however, I resumed con- 
fidence. The guide, who had been collecting sulphur, 
reappeared. We reascended by the rope, and in the pure 
atmosphere beyond the crater I soon acquired new strength. 
At the edge of the woods we found our horses. By four 
o'clock in the afternoon we were again in the village, and 
before night I had returned to Leon. 
The main features of the orography of Nicaragua have 
been well established by Mr. Squier's map of the country. 
On the maps that existed before the publication of his work, 
the volcanoes of the plain of Leon, for which he has re- 
claimed the old Indian denomination of the Maribios, 1 were 
represented as being in connexion with the mountains 
of New Segovia on one side, and with the Nicaraguan 
coast range of hills on the other. This was a double error. 
Three lines of mountains or hills, parallel to each other 
and to the coast of the Pacific, pass through Nicaragua, 
and they are not connected by transverse yokes, which do 
not exist. 
From the narrows and rapids of the San Juan river, 
which, at that place, passes through an interruption in the 
chain, the main ridge of the country takes the general 
north-westerly course as far as the department of Choluteca, 
1 Being the name of a tribe of- I tain region, which, as a district, . was 
Indians formerly inhabiting this moun- ( called MaribieJioa. 
