100 EIVAS. Book I. 
very garden of Nicaragua. Plantations of cacao, fields of 
maize, orchards loaded with every description of fruit, 
form a wall of the most luxuriant vegetation on either 
side, so that the view is entirely restricted to the closest 
objects, with the exception only of the two cones of Ome- 
tepe^ rising majestically into the air. The whole region is 
of unsurpassed fertility, and it is impossible to calculate 
what it might produce if cultivated with care and intelli- 
gence. Cacao, however, is the principal production of this 
section of Nicaragua. The view from the hills to the west 
of the town is rich beyond description. From their foot, 
the plain, entirely covered with verdure, slopes gently 
down to the lake. 
Rivas itself was more than half in ruins, and a more 
dreary sight than these crumbling walls could scarcely be 
looked upon, bearing as they did the double marks of 
destruction by earthquake and by a most sanguinary civil 
war. Rivas had suffered the horrors of both within a short 
interval of time. At the period of my visit the hopes 
and expectations excited by the canal project had pro- 
duced a spirit of activity and enterprise which, had the 
scheme been carried on, would soon have replaced these 
ruins by new buildings. Everywhere I saw hands em- 
ployed in tearing down old walls, in manufacturing sun- 
dried bricks, in cutting timber, and in other occupations 
connected with the building of houses. The impulse 
given to the whole country by the prospects of a brighter 
future, of course, was more strongly felt at Rivas, a town 
situated almost upon the line which, it was generally sup- 
posed, the inter-oceanic canal would follow. It is generally 
known how these expectations have been deceived. The 
disappointment was followed by renewed civil wars and by 
the ravages of the cholera, so that, if the condition of Rivas 
