180 OMOA — ITS SITUATION". Book T. 
gay one too. We have a ball every Saturday, where a 
considerable "quantity of champagne is consumed. I, of 
course, have never to pay for it : there are some very 
liberal gentlemen here, who are in the habit of treating the 
rest. Every Sunday we have our recreations likewise. 
This is the day for our democratic assemblies, and Monday 
and Tuesday are the days for the nigger balls. No want 
of fine girls here ! " And in this strain our countryman 
continued, freely communicating his store of knowledge 
respecting the ladies of Omoa, by which he expected to 
excite our warm interest. He told us he was a jeweller 
by profession, who made himself useful at this place by 
repairing the gold chains of the girls, a job which he con- 
fessed he never did well enough to let the chains last for 
more than a single evening. Never did I meet a man 
more contented with his position, and certainly, if the 
" travail attrayant " of the Fourierists is more than a 
Utopian dream, the happy jeweller of Omoa enjoyed, and I 
hope still enjoys, its reality. 
The situation of Omoa, though endowed with all the 
charms of tropical scenery, with the most luxuriant vegeta- 
tion, is neither healthy nor favourable to commercial in- 
terests ; and as soon as a communication is opened from 
Puerto Cortez into the interior it will lose what little im- 
portance it has now as a port of entry. With the mer- 
chants the rest of the population will remove to the latter 
place, where all the conditions unite for a town of greater 
extent. In expectation of such a change, some of the in- 
habitants, even at the time of our visit, had discontinued to 
keep their houses in repair. 
The town is situated a quarter of a mile from the beach, 
a savana extending across the intervening space. To the 
eastward of the latter is an eminence, from which a view 
