Chap. VII. A JICARAL — THE UGLE. 105 
becomes nearly as hard as stone, and cracked in all direc- 
tions, so that it is sometimes exceedingly rough, and with 
its dark colour appears almost like a field of lava. Between 
the trees some tufts of a coarse kind of grass, and bushes 
of the aroma mimosa, with the sweet-scented yellow 
catkins, are scattered. The ground under the trees is 
strewed with the fruits, which are eagerly sought and eaten 
by the cattle, the succulent pulp allaying at the same time 
their hunger and thirst. But the skeletons of cows, horses, 
and mules lying about form an essential feature of a more 
extended Jicaral, as a considerable number of these animals 
die in these localities from want of food and water during 
the dry season. On a large scale a region of Jicarales 
extends all along the foot of the table-land of Chontales, 
Matagalpa, and New Segovia. 
Another peculiar feature of the country between Eivas 
and San Juan del Sur consists in some small localities 
with permanent moisture, covered with thickets, of ever- 
green trees with glossy leaves like those of most tropical 
species of Ficus, to which they may belong. A con- 
siderable quantity of milk exudes from the broken branches 
or leaves. Around these dark green groups of trees the 
country was covered with dry grass and scattered shrubs 
which, at that time of the year, stood loaded with yellow, 
white, pink, and lilac-coloured flowers, the whole pro- 
ducing the effect of an immense park. 
Farther west, where the hills began to be higher, 
reaching, as far as an estimate may be reliable, an eleva- 
tion at least of one thousand feet above the sea, the road 
entered the forest, which, in this region, follows the coast 
of the Pacific. I came to a brook rushing in cascades 
through a ravine, where I saw many of the trees called 
Ufle or Ugle, one of the several species from which 
