138 HACIENDA OF SAN JOSE. Book I. 
was our intention to return by water, we took the road to 
the landing-place of San Ubaldo, which may be called the 
port of Acoyapa. 
On this trip we passed some days on the hacienda of 
San Jose, the owner of which, Don Luciano de la Cuadra, 
received us with perfect hospitality. We had to wait 
here for a passage to Granada until the 3rd of June, there 
being but little intercourse across the lake in this direction. 
The time was spent in walks and rambles in the vicinity 
of the house, partly from a desire to satisfy our curiosity, 
partly from the more serious inducement to improve the 
fare of our dinner table. The hacienda of Don Luciano, 
according to the true Chontales style, was a mere cattle- 
farm, without the slightest agricultural improvement. Not 
even bananas or plantains were cultivated, and a few 
goyol-palms, together with two or three orange-trees, repre- 
sented all the productions of the vegetable kingdom on 
this extensive and splendid estate. Bread is not known 
in Nicaraguan country places, and even at Granada it was 
only eaten by a few foreigners, all the other inhabitants 
contenting themselves with tortillas. Our host had several 
thousand cows on the savanas around his habitation, but 
he had neither milk nor butter. He ordered a cow to be 
killed the day after our arrival ; but as meat will scarcely 
remain fresh for a day in that climate, especially during 
the rainy season, which had now set in, the eatable parts 
of the animal were cut into slices to be dried in the air 
during the intervals between the different showers that fell 
throughout the day. The vultures carried away half of it 
before our eyes, and what remained, and was brought to us for 
dinner the next two or three days, was of a haut-gout rather 
too strong for our taste. We tried to supply our table by 
shooting doves and quails, of which there were numbers 
