134 - POPULATION OF LOVAGO. Book I. 
miles distant from Acoyapa, has existed, and its inhabitants 
have been Christians long before the time of the transmi- 
gration of the Caribs, it is beyond any doubt that the appli- 
cation of the name of the latter to the tribe of the Woolwas 
is erroneous. As to the Indians of Ldvago, one of my 
travelling companions, Dr. Bernharcl, who was called to 
visit a sick person in that village, brought me the informa- 
tion that all the words of my Woolwa vocabulary, with 
the exception of one only, were understood at Ldvago, 
though the Indian dialect of the village was nearly extinct. 
From this fact we may conclude that the whole Indian 
population of Chontales, in the whole or in part, were of 
the same race with the Woolwas. Mr. Squier has dis- 
covered certain traces of affinity between the language of 
the Woolwas and that of other tribes farther to the north 
and north-west, to whom he has applied the general appella- 
tion of the Lenca race. Thus the name Boswas, or " the 
three rivers," derived from the Woolwa language, corre- 
sponds to the names Amacwas and Was-presinia, which 
are those of two tributaries of the Patuca. 1 
From all these particulars it is probable that the old 
Chontales Indians, who, according to Oviedo, spoke one of 
the five Indian dialects of Nicaragua, were the same race 
as the Lencas of Mr. Squier — a race spread all over Mos- 
quitia and part of the State of Honduras. 
One fact seems to oppose this opinion. The people of 
Ldvago, in their conversation with my travelling com- 
panion, stated that their ancestors, as well as those of the 
inhabitants of the little town of Camoapan, about sixty 
miles to the north-west, had come from the neighbourhood 
of Masaya. It is not very probable that this statement 
1 Squier, * The States of Central America.' London, 1858, p. 247. 
