Nicaragua

ANTIQUITIES—ANCIENT STATUE IN THE GRAND PLAZA—MONUMENTS ON THE ISLAND OF MOMOTOMBITA IN LAKE MANAGUA—DETERMINE TO VISIT THEM—THE PADRE PAUL—PUEBLO NUEVO AND OUR OLD HOSTESS—A NIGHT RIDE—“HACIENDA DE LAS VACAS”—A NIGHT AMONGST THE “VAQUEROS”—THE LAKE—OUR BONGO—VISIT THE HOT SPRINGS OF MOMOTOMBO—ATTEMPT TO REACH ONE OF THE “INFERNALES” OF THE VOLCANO—TERRIBLE HEAT—GIVE UP THE ATTEMPT—OVIEDO’S ACCOUNT OF THE VOLCANO—“PUNTA DE LOS PAJAROS”—MOMOTOMBITA—DREAD OF RATTLESNAKES—THE MONUMENTS—RESOLVE TO REMOVE THE LARGEST—A NEST OF SCORPIONS—TRIBULATION OF OUR CREW—HARD WORK—HOW TO SHIP AN IDOL—VIRTUES OF AGUARDIENTE—“PURCHASING AN ELEPHANT”—MORE “PIEDRAS ANTIGUAS”—THE ISLAND ONCE INHABITED—SUPPOSED CAUSEWAY TO THE MAIN LAND—A PERILOUS NIGHT VOYAGE—DIFFICULT LANDING—ALACRAN OR SCORPION DANCE—A FOOT MARCH IN THE FOREST—THE “HACIENDA DE LAS VACAS” AGAIN—SCANT SUPPER—RETURN TO LEON—THE IDOL SENT, VIA CAPE HORN, TO WASHINGTON—A SATISFIED PADRE—IDOLS FROM SUBTIABA—MONSTROUS HEADS—VISIT TO AN ANCIENT TEMPLE—FRAGMENTS—MORE IDOLS—INDIAN SUPERSTITIONS—“EL TORO”—LIGHTING ON TWO LEGS—A CHASE AFTER HORSES—SWEET REVENGE—“CAPILLA DE LA PIEDRA”—PLACE OF THE IDOL—THE FRAY FRANCISCO DE BOBADILLA—HOW HE CONVERTED THE INDIANS—PROBABLE HISTORY OF MY IDOLS—THE ANCIENT CHURCH “LA MERCEDES DE SUBTIABA”—ITS RUINS—GARRAPATAS—TROPICAL INSECTS—SNAKES AND SCORPIONS versus FLEAS AND WOOD-TICKS—A CHOICE OF EVILS.

Amongst the objects of interest which early attracted my attention in Leon, was an ancient figure or statue of stone, planted at one of the corners of the principal plaza. It was of basalt, boldly sculptured, and represented a man with his hands clasped on his breast, and apparently seated upon some kind of pedestal. The lower part of the figure, however, had been broken, and the fragment which remained was little more than one-third of the original length. A fillet was represented bound around the brow, and the head was surmounted by a head-dress somewhat resembling those which are to be observed in some of the ancient Egyptian sculptures. The face was perfect, with the exception of a part of the mouth, which had been broken, and the eyes were apparently closed. The whole expression was grave and serene, and yet so characteristic, that I could not resist the impression that it was copied after a living model. The accompanying engraving will convey a very correct idea of the original, which I procured and presented to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, where it is now deposited.

The back of the figure is square, grooved on the edge, and notched entirely across, so as to resemble overlapping plates. It will be observed that the shoulders appear to be unnaturally elevated; but upon closer examination it will be seen that the original design seems to have been to represent the figure in the act of supporting some heavy body; suggesting the probability that this, in conjunction with others of similar design, once supported an altar, or another and still larger statue. The flat top favors this supposition.

I found, upon inquiry, that this figure, together with many others, had been obtained from the island of Momotombita, in Lake Managua, where there were still a number of interesting monuments. I at once proposed an expedition to the island, and availing myself of the time pending the commencement of my negotiations with the government, set out on the 26th of July, in company with Dr. Livingston, and Padre Paul, editor of “El Correo del Istmo,” the government paper, who was curious in matters of this kind. The Padre was a native of Spain, where he had received a liberal education, but by some mistake had become a priest. I say mistake, not because the Padre was not a good priest, but because nature had intended him for a licenciado, or a politician, if not for a traveller. The government, some days previous to our departure, had sent orders to Managua for boats to be in readiness at a point on the lake, nearest the island, called “Piedras Gordas,” and there to await our arrival. It was late in the afternoon when we left the city for Pueblo Nuevo, where we proposed to pass the night. The road was the same over which we had travelled in our journey to Leon; but the season was now further advanced, and the great plain was shrouded with a vegetation three-fold more luxuriant than before. The maize, which a few weeks previously hardly covered the ground, was now breast high; the cactus fences too were relieved by yellow flowers, and the inner leaves surrounding the stalk, bending outward, displayed their delicate pink linings to the sun.

The Padre was mounted on a splendid mule, gaily caparisoned, and with his cassock tucked up, heavy riding boots, and massive silver spurs, followed by his servant, with an “alforjas,” full of edibles, made a dashing figure at the head of our little cavalcade. He rode like a trooper, and seemed to enjoy the freedom of the forest quite as much as any sinner. A stranger might have taken him for a soldier in disguise, or an eager lover speeding to a distant mistress. It was a tearing ride, that twenty-four miles to Pueblo Nuevo, and in less than three hours we dismounted at the door of the house where I had slept on my previous journey. The old lady and her five daughters had had no warning of our coming, and were evidently mortified to be found sans satin slippers, and with hair dishevelled. But before supper was ready they all made their appearance in full costume, as before, and we ventured upon a compliment or two by way of compensating for the contretemps of our sudden arrival.

We found that it was yet upwards of three leagues to the “Piedras Gordas” where our boat was waiting, and as we were anxious to be there by sunrise, we resolved to proceed to a cattle estate, near the place, that night. The Padre did not relish the idea of leaving comfortable quarters for the doubtful accommodations of the “hacienda de las vacas” and was eloquent in describing the difficulties and dangers of riding through unfrequented forest paths in the night time; but the Padre was in a minority, and had to submit. We accordingly procured a guide, and started. For a couple of miles we kept the main road, and got along smoothly; we then turned off at right angles into the forest. The night was exceedingly dark, and the path narrow, and even in the daytime obscure. But our guide seemed entirely at home, and we followed as well as we were able. Occasionally he shouted “cuidado!” “take care,” which was the signal to fall flat on our horses, in order to escape the limbs and branches of the trees. But notwithstanding all our caution, we got some most ungentle thumps and scratches, and were several times nearly dragged from our saddles. Once we became entangled for a quarter of an hour, in the top of a fallen tree, and had literally to cut our way through it with our swords and machetes. The Padre considerately kept in the rear, and got the benefit of all our experiences. Our progress was necessarily very slow, and I began to fear that we had lost our way, and almost to repent that we had not taken the Padre’s advice, when we heard the lowing of cattle and the barking of dogs in the distance. Thus encouraged, we pressed on, and soon came into a broader path. We pursued this for some distance, the barking of the dogs becoming every moment more distinct, until finally emerging from the woods, we galloped towards a little eminence, where a number of fires proclaimed the existence of the cattle rancho. It was surrounded by a kind of stockade, or fence of upright posts, and, as we approached, we were saluted with a ferocious “Quien vive?” who are you? Night descents by robbers, on the haciendas, during civil disturbances in the country, are by no means uncommon occurrences; and as the estates have usually a considerable number of men attached to them, they sometimes result in severe fights. Our approach had therefore alarmed the establishment, and had not our guide been known, we might have been turned back with a volley, instead of having the gate opened to us with an invitation to enter. In the centre of the square was a mud house, surrounded by a thatched shed, beneath which a dozen hammocks were suspended. Three or four fires were smouldering just outside of this shed, and around them were reclining some calves which had been bitten by bats, or injured by wild animals. A dozen surly dogs stalked amongst the swarthy “vaqueros,” or herdsmen, whose half naked figures were just visible by the faint red light of the fires. A couple of women, alarmed by the sound of voices, hurried, scantily dressed, from the house, but were at once reassured by the Padre. Altogether, with the champing horses, and the gleaming of arms, shut in as it was by the darkness as with a pall, the scene was singularly wild and picturesque.

The animals attended to, the next thing was to dispose ourselves for the night. The women offered us the house, in which were two naked hide beds. My bones were agonized at the sight of them, and I chose a hammock beneath the shed, and wrapping myself in my blanket, tumbled in. The men gave up their places without grumbling, and stretched themselves on the bare earth. Soon all was still, except the melancholy howl of the “mono colorado,” and the low, distant murmur of the lake. I slept soundly until roused by Ben’s morning gun at the earliest dawn. He had already prepared a cup of chocolate, which, with a cracker and a jicara of fresh milk, constituted our breakfast. The horses were saddled, and giving the princely sum of a rial each to the men whom we had so summarily dislodged, we started for the lake. The road was through a beautiful forest of large trees, which the cattle kept comparatively free from underbrush, and which had occasional open places, where the ground was covered with long fresh grass. Half an hour brought us to the shore. The sun had not yet risen, but a brilliant coronet of rays shot up above the sharply defined and fantastic outlines of the distant mountains of Segovia, and was reflected in the tremulous waters of the lake. Immediately in front, towered the volcano of Momotombo; its lower half purple in the shade, and its upper of the richest amber. A thin column of smoke rose almost perpendicularly from its summit, which first caught the crimson rays of the sun, and then changed to gold. Upon the right, a perfect cone, was the island for which we were bound, and in the foreground our boat, half drawn up on the shore, and near by, at the root of a great tree, clustering around their breakfast fire, was its crew. They had been encamped here for two days, awaiting our arrival; and would have waited a month for that matter—for what was time to them, so long as the lake furnished fish, and plantains were plenty?

Our horses were fastened to a long rope, one behind the other, and sent back in charge of our guide to the hacienda, with express instructions to have them on the shore again at nightfall, in case we should return. Our boat, like some of the bongos on Lake Nicaragua, was hollowed from the single trunk of a cebia tree. It was upwards of forty feet long, and full six feet broad, permitting a tall man to lie across its bottom. There was no wind, and the men were obliged to take to their oars. And as it was not greatly out of our way, we determined before going to the island to pass to the foot of the great volcano, and visit the hot springs at its base. The intervening bay is upwards of ten miles broad, but we crossed it before nine o’clock. While on the lake, we had an excellent opportunity to view the volcano. It is about six thousand feet, or one mile and a fourth, in perpendicular height, and very steep,—so steep, indeed, that even if there were no danger in the ascent, it would probably be impossible to reach its summit. Its lower half is covered with trees, which in the ravines that seam its sides run up still higher, gradually narrowing like the points of a ruff. The upper half seems made up of scoria, which, near the summit, gives place to ashes of a white color. The crater appears small and regular in outline; and there are some openings on the sides, towards its base, which emit steam and smoke, and around which sulphur is deposited on the rocks. These are called “infernales,” and we observed one on the side towards us, at a comparatively small elevation, which greatly excited our curiosity, and which we resolved to visit.

At the point where we landed, the ground was composed of a kind of ochery earth, of a dark red color, varied with yellow, which the boatmen told us was used for paint. A fourth of a mile to the right, and immediately at the edge of the lake, were the “fuentes calientes,” or hot springs. They are hundreds in number; in fact, for a considerable extent, the ground was covered with white incrustations, resembling a field of snow; and as we walked over it, the sound of the water beneath was like that of a violently boiling cauldron. There were numerous openings, from which rose columns of steam, and where the water boiled up to the height of from six inches to two feet. Around some of these places the deposites had gradually built up little cones, with openings in the centre, where the clear water bubbled as in a kettle. I sent specimens of the deposites to the United States for analysis, but they unfortunately miscarried, and I am consequently unable to give the constituents of which they are made up. They will no doubt be duly announced when the “Grand Volcano Hotel, and North American Natural Hot Spring Bath Establishment,” shall be opened for invalids, on the shores of Lake Managua.

Between the shore and the true base of the volcano is a gentle slope, ridged with beds of lava, which run down into the lake, but which have become disintegrated on the surface, and are now covered with coarse grass, bushes, and clumps of trees. Here cattle from distant haciendas are allowed to roam from one year’s end to the other, until they become almost as wild as the deer themselves. The vaqueros occasionally visit them, to mark the young ones, or to select the best ones for sale, but beyond this they receive no care or attention. We started over this slope, in the direction of the smoking orifice which we had observed from the lake. But we were under the lee of the mountains, where not a breath of wind reached us, and exposed to the full glow of the sun; and before we had gone a mile, we almost repented of our undertaking. The doctor, the padre, and myself alone persisted in proceeding. The surface became rougher as we advanced, and scrubby trees and thorny bushes impeded our progress, and shut out from view the place which we were struggling to reach. We next came to ridges of treacherous, scoriaceous sand, which yielded beneath our feet, and which we only ascended by clinging to the clumps of grass which grew here and there, and by driving our swords to their hilts in the ground, as supports. But our progress was slow and painful, and we were compelled to pause every second minute to recover our strength. Finally, the sun was no longer hot, it was withering, and the dry scoriæ became blistering to the touch. I looked up towards the top of the volcano, and shall never forget its utterly bald and desolate appearance. The atmosphere on its sides seemed to undulate with heat, and the reflected rays burned my eyeballs. I turned to my companions, and found that they suffered equally with myself. The padre had wisely bound his handkerchief over his head and eyes. It was folly, he said, to attempt to go further, and we concurred with him, and retraced our steps. The descent was of course comparatively easy, but when I reached the boat, I was completely exhausted, and adequately convinced of the folly of attempting to climb volcanoes under a tropical sun, at midday.

Oviedo speaks of this volcano as one very high, “its summit pierced by a multitude of separate orifices, whence smoke is always rising, which can be seen at the distance of twenty leagues. No flame,” he continues, “is visible by day or night. An abundance of sulphur may be found here, according to the report of those who have used it in the manufacture of powder, and also of those who have used it for other purposes. On the sides and parts adjacent to this volcano, for a distance of five or six leagues, there is an abundance of springs of boiling water like the Sufretarari, (Solfatara,) that may be seen at Pouzzole, two or three leagues from Naples. I should think that all these mountains formed but one mine of sulphur. There are also orifices through which proceeds a stream of air, so warm as to be unendurable. If we approach it, we seem to hear the uproar of a vast number of forges in full blast, sometimes ceasing, and in a few moments recommencing again; but the time the noise can be heard is at least four times as long as the pauses. Near the village of Totoa is a thermal spring, so warm that the Indians use it for cooking their meat, fish, and bread. These articles of food are cooked in less time than it would take to repeat the Credo twice; and as for eggs, they would be done sooner than an Ave.”

We found our men quietly smoking their cigars under the shade of a tree, perfectly careless as to whether they stayed there all day or proceeded. Such an imperturbable set I verily believe were never before got together. We told them to push off for the island, which they did in the most leisurely manner. The wind had begun to blow, and as it was against us, they towed the boat along under the lee of the shore, walking by its side in the water, which, at the distance of a quarter of a mile out, was hardly breast-deep. We saw many deer, and a number of lazy alligators on the shore, but beyond the reach of our rifles. We finally came to the “Punta del Pajaro,” a high ledge of naked basaltic rocks projecting out into the lake, and covered with myriads of water-fowls. Here our men took to their oars, and paddled direct for the island. The afternoon wind was now blowing strongly, and the lake was rough. It required two hours’ hard rowing to bring us to the island, where we pulled ashore in a little cove, protected from the swell of the lake.

This island is volcanic, and rises in a regular cone from the water’s edge, to the height of two thousand eight hundred feet. It is about eight miles in circumference, and is covered with a dense forest. The shore where we landed was stony, but a short distance back the stones gave place to sand and a rich loam. Victorino, our patron, knew the locality of the monuments, and putting on his sandals, took his machete, and led the way, peering suspiciously to the right and the left. We inquired the cause of his caution, and received the comforting assurance “hay muchos cascabeles,” “there are many rattlesnakes!” The Dr. whipped out his sword, stepped high, and constantly startled us by mistaking vines, coiling on the ground, for “cascabeles.” After proceeding for about half an hour, we came to a spot where the underbrush and bushes gave place to high grass. Here was a kind of natural amphitheatre, within which the ground was smooth, sloping gently towards the lake, and shadowed over with high trees. This, Victorino informed us, was the site of the monuments, but they had all fallen, and the tall grass hid them from our view. We were compelled to beat it down with our machetes, and thus discover the figures one by one. As I have said, many had been carried away, and most of those which remained were broken, or so defaced as to be of little value for my purposes. Victorino said that he could remember when there were as many as fifty statues here, and when some of them stood erect. According to his account and that of others, they had been arranged in the form of a square, their faces looking inwards; and the position of those which remained, and of the fragments, confirmed the story. Amongst the few still entire, was one of large size, and which a party, sent by the English Consul, had a few years before endeavored to carry away for the British Museum, but after getting it part of the way to the lake, had abandoned it in despair. It was ruder than some of the others, but perfect, and I at once resolved to remove it, with a view of sending it to the United States. I accordingly sent Victorino to bring his boat and men to the nearest point possible, and with Dr. Livingston, the Padre, and Ben, began to cut down small trees of the proper size for skids or pries, and to open a path to the lake. When Victorino came with his lazy crew, we set them to work also, but they did not accomplish much, and we soon found that we had to bear the burthen of the labor ourselves. With great difficulty we cleared a road, and laying down large skids rolled the figure upon them. Beneath it a colony of “alacrans del monte,” or black scorpions, had established themselves; and in an instant they swarmed around our legs. The half naked Indians retreated precipitately, but, protected by our high, thick boots we stood our ground, and stamped the little stinging monsters to death with our heels. It was not, however, until we had succeeded in moving the statue some distance from the spot, that we could persuade the Indians to rejoin us. After two hours of hard work, we rolled it to the shore; but now the question was to get it in the boat. Victorino protested, in the first place, against trying to carry it at all, as it would surely crush the boat and drown us; and, in the second place, against putting it in the bottom, which, he said, it would inevitably break through. In fact we were a good deal staggered ourselves; we had not thought of this, but nevertheless determined not to lose our labor. If it was put at the bottom, even though it might not break through, it was clear that we never could muster force enough to get it out. So we decided that it should be carried by placing it lengthwise on the rowers’ seats, which, in order to support the weight, were to be strengthened by crossbars. The men stood aghast at our proposition, and at first utterly refused to assist us. They took the padre aside and told him that “these Americans were certainly crazy.” We however promised them each a half dollar extra, administered a dose of brandy and water, and finally got them to take hold again. An inclined plane of timbers was built up against the boat, which was half filled with stones, to sink her as low as possible, and to fix her firmly in the sand. The statue was then gradually rolled on board. More than once I thought our fabric would break down; had it done so there would have been more crushed legs than whole ones in the company. After it was secured, part of the stones were thrown out, and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing the bongo afloat, and perfectly balanced. A profile view of this figure is given in the foregoing engraving. It is regularly cut in black basalt, or trachyte, of intense hardness. The features of the face are singularly bold and severe in outline; the brow is broad, the nose aquiline, the cheeks high, the mouth open, and containing what we may infer (for reasons which will be given elsewhere) was intended to represent a human heart. The arms and legs are rudely indicated, but the distinctive sexual features are broadly marked. And here it may be observed that, while most of these statues represent males, some of them represent females; and there are but few in which the sex is not distinguishable. The reason for these distinctions may be found in the fact that the doctrine of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature, or Nature Active and Passive Male and Female, was recognized in nearly all the primitive religious systems of the New as well as of the Old World, and in none more clearly than in those of Central America. Besides this figure, we carried off the colossal head represented in the above drawing; but found nothing more which would repay the trouble of removal. There may have been other figures of interest hidden in the long grass and bushes; and Victorino informed us that upon the opposite side of the island there was still another place, where there were formerly many “piedras antiguas;” but that also was overgrown with grass. It was now late, and unless we spent the night on the island, it was clear we could make no further examinations. And as I proposed to return in the dry season, when the grass might be removed by burning, we concluded to relinquish our explorations for the present.

The island of Momotombita was anciently inhabited, and called Cocobolo. I observed fragments of pottery, and of vessels of stone, strewed all over the shore; and in the little cove where we landed there were evidences that the rocks had been rolled away to facilitate the approach of boats to the land. At a point on the shore of the main land, nearly opposite the island, is a line of large stones, extending for the distance of one or two hundred yards into the water, and projecting above it. The Indians have a vague tradition that this was a causeway built by “los antiguos habitantes,” extending from the shore to the island; and Capt. Belcher, of the British navy, who travelled here in 1838, seems to think the story not improbable. The supposed causeway is nothing more than a narrow vein of rock injected at some remote period through a fissure in the superior strata or crust of the earth; and being harder than the materials surrounding it, has retained its elevation, while they have been worn away by the action of the water.

It was quite sunset when we pushed off from the island; and when we got out from under its lee, we found the wind blowing a gale, and the sea high. Ours was a ticklish load; and, as the bongo had no keel, the necessity of keeping her directly before the wind was obvious; for had she rolled a foot on either side, the stone would have overset us in a twinkling. Victorino was anxious but cool, and his men were too much alarmed not to obey orders, and we put up the sail and got under way without accident. Fortunately the winds here blow with great steadiness, or our voyage might have been rendered more perilous than it was, and that would have been quite unnecessary. The night fell, dark and cloudy; the Padre and M—— soon became seasick, and the crew, consoling themselves that we had a priest on board, gathered around the foot of the mast, and silently told their beads. Ben stationed himself, knife in hand, at the halyards, and I clung to a stick of light wood which I found in the boat, and calculated the chances of getting ashore by its aid, in case our stone god should upset us. Altogether we had a serious time, and the three hours which we occupied in passing to the land seemed quite as long as six under ordinary circumstances. It was so dark that we could not distinguish the shore, but fortunately the fire, left by the men in the morning, fanned by the wind, had caught in the trunk of the tree at the foot of which it was built, and answered the purpose of a lighthouse in guiding us to our destination. Here we succeeded in landing under the lee of some large rocks, against which the surf broke with the force and noise of the ocean. I now quite comprehended why Capt. Belcher, old salt as he was, declined venturing upon this lake, even after having brought a boat for the purpose all the way from Realejo. I felt no ordinary degree of satisfaction when I found myself on terra firma once more. In removing the loose articles of our equipment from the boat, Ben was twice stung in the hand by a scorpion, and danced about the shore in an agony of pain. I however wrapped his hand in a cloth soaked in brandy, and gave him copious internal doses of the same,—the best, and usually the most accessible, remedy.

Our horses were not to be found; either our guide had not brought them down, or else had returned with them to the rancheria. We held a council as to whether it was best to camp on the shore or push through the forest to our quarters of the preceding night. The uncomfortable wind and a few heavy drops of rain decided us; and, with Victorino, bearing some brands of fire at our head, we set out. It was as dark as Erebus in the woods, and quite impossible to discern the person next in advance. We however followed the fire, and after a weary march came to the hacienda. We were tired and hungry, but there was nothing to eat except tiste and curds. We made the most of these, but went to our hammocks unsatisfied, consoling ourselves, however, with the prospect of an illimitable breakfast at the house of our hostess of the five slippered daughters, in Pueblo Nuevo.

Before leaving next morning, I distributed the promised favors amongst our crew, and engaged the entire force of the estate to assist our guide, who was to return with a cart for the statue. A few days after, it reached Leon, having broken down three carts on the road. I subsequently sent it to Realejo, whence it was shipped, via Cape Horn, for the United States. It is now deposited in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, at Washington. And thus terminated my first antiquarian episode in Nicaragua. The Padre expressed himself satisfied; one such ride, he said, was enough for a lifetime.

I have elsewhere said that the Indians of Subtiaba brought me two idols, shortly after my arrival in Leon. A reduced back view of the first of these is presented in the subjoined engraving. It had been broken, and a portion, perhaps comprising one-third of the entire figure, had been lost. The part which remains is something less than six feet in height by eighteen inches in diameter, or upwards of four feet in circumference. The face has been battered with heavy sledges, and its features obliterated. The ornaments upon the back and elsewhere are, however, very well preserved, and are quite elaborate; more resembling those of Copan than any others discovered in the country. The face seems to project through the widely distended jaws of some animal, the head of which serves as a head dress. The ancient Mexican soldiers had a common practice of wearing the heads of animals, or helmets in imitation of them, on their heads in battle, to render themselves horrible, and frighten their enemies. Upon its breast the figure sustains a kind of plate, or some piece of armor, and upon its right arm wears a shield. The carving seems to have been very good; but the zeal of the early Christians, and the corroding tooth of time, have greatly injured the entire statue, which is now in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

Idol from Subtiaba, No. 2.—This figure closely resembles that just described, and, like that, has suffered greatly from the same cause. The features of the face are entirely obliterated; the design of the head dress is, however, more apparent, and is palpably what I have already indicated, the jaws of some monstrous animal, between which the face of the figure projects. It is less elaborately sculptured than No. 1, but of the same material, and corresponding in size. One hand rests upon the breast, the other hangs loosely at the side. This idol also is deposited in the museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

Idols from Subtiaba, No. 3.—Subsequent to the presentation of the two figures above described, I had a fragment brought to me, of which a front view is given in the annexed engraving. It is of sand-stone, two feet six inches high, by ten or twelve inches in diameter, much frayed and worn by exposure, and greatly injured by violence. It bears evidences of having been elaborately ornamented, and seems to have been designed to represent a female. Its most singular feature, however, is a mask of the human face, which is held upon the abdomen by both hands. Perhaps, however, the Indians were right in suggesting that it represents an opening in the abdomen, held apart by the hands, and exposing some mythological figure therein concealed. There are some reasons in support of this suggestion, which it would hardly be proper to submit in a work of this popular character. The figure has also been broken, and less than half of it now remains.

The idols above described, as I have already said, were brought to my house by the Indians; and I know nothing concerning them, except that they were exhumed near the base of the Cerro Santiago, to the south-west of Leon, where they had been buried for several generations. I subsequently learned of the existence of others in the same direction, and went, in company with a guide, kindly obtained for me by General Guerrero, to examine them. Our route lay through Subtiaba, in the direction of the ocean. We passed over a beautiful undulating country, full of abandoned plantations, and watered by several fine streams, skirting the hills to the south-west of Leon. At the distance of about three or four leagues from the city, we came to a series of “jicarales,” in the midst of which was a cattle estate. Cows and deer were herding together, the latter appearing quite as tame as the first. Beyond the hacienda was a high, bare hill, steep as the pyramids, called Mount St. Michael, the base of which is studded round with large loose stones, causing our horses to stumble fearfully, and over which we passed with great difficulty. We then came to the finest “jicaral” I had yet seen. It resembled a well-kept New England orchard; the trees had fewer parasites to rob them of their vitality, and the ground was covered with a smooth carpet of grass. Intermixed with these were numbers of the wild “jocote” or plum-trees, heavily laden with yellow and red fruit, which was not unpleasant to the taste, but which poisoned my lips, and made them sore for a week. The same fruit, when cultivated, is fine, and is used in a great variety of ways. The forest in which the idols were concealed commenced abruptly upon one side of the “jicaral,” and was an almost impenetrable mass of vines, underbrush, and broad-leaved tropical plants. A thousand monuments might have been buried here for years without being discovered, except by the merest accident; and as we had to cut our path with our swords, I began to have serious misgivings as to the success of our expedition. Our guide, however, peering from side to side, seemed confident as to his whereabouts, as well as to that of the “piedras,” and in half an hour we came to the spot where they had existed. I say had existed, for although the ground was strewn with fragments, but a single figure, “Idol from Subtiaba, No. 4,” remained entire. It stood as shown in the accompanying plate, partially buried in the earth. Its height above the ground was six feet four inches; the material, sand-stone. As in the other instances, the face had been mutilated, but the remainder of the figure was nearly perfect. The hair seemed to be thrown back from the forehead in rolls; or perhaps what I have supposed to be the hair is a modified example of that kind of ornamental featherwork so common in the ancient monuments of Mexico, Yucatan, and Central America. A broad collar passes around the neck, and a circular plate, or shield, with an attempt at a representation of a human face in the centre, is suspended from it, in front of the figure. A kind of belt passes around the body, above the hips, from which depends a flap, like that frequently worn by the Indians of the frontiers, even to this day. At the lower extremity of this is a round, cup-shaped hole, capable of containing about a quart, the purposes of which are not apparent.

In cutting paths around this figure, I came upon an oblong elevation of stones, which seemed to have been the base of some edifice, or one of the ancient teocallis or altars of the aborigines. It was about two hundred feet long, sixty broad, and ten high. Around the edges the stones still retained some degree of regularity, but the whole was nevertheless a ruin, and large trees were growing on its summit. The numerous fragments of sculpture scattered around this spot showed conclusively that it had been visited by systematic violence, not only anciently, at the period of the Conquest, but subsequently, and within a very few years. My guide told me that he could remember the time when the Indians came here secretly by night, and performed strange dances around these idols, and poured out libations before them. The ground around the single erect figure above described was comparatively free from undergrowth, showing that even now it is secretly visited, by the descendants of the people who first erected it, for the performance of traditionary, sacred ceremonies. The priests are vigilant in detecting and putting down these remnants of idolatry; and only a few months before my arrival had broken up a remarkable figure of an animal called “El Toro,” the bull, which existed about a league distant from this very spot, and to which the Indians, for a long time, openly resorted, to make offerings of tiste, and to perform dances preparatory to putting their crops in the ground. The destruction of the idol was effected secretly, and afterwards proclaimed to have been done by the lightnings of indignant heaven; but one of my Indian friends told me privately that the Indians understood the trick, and knew that this lightning went on two legs, and wore a cassock! I would have gone to the spot, and endeavored to have restored the fragments for a sketch, but my guide told me that the natives had carried them off and buried them.

While engaged with the stones, we had carelessly, and as usual, let our horses go loose. For the first time, they now took it into their heads to abuse this indulgence, and trotted off. The more we endeavored to coax them back the more vicious they were, and finally dashed off at full speed into the “jicaral,” where they kicked up their heels in great glee. The prospect of a walk back to Leon, with the loss of saddles, pistols, swords, and other et ceteras, if not of the brutes themselves, was little calculated to excite our admiration of these antics. The chase continued half an hour, when we succeeded in securing the horse of our guide; but unfortunately he was the poorest of the whole, and not able to come near the others in a race. Luckily our guide had a lasso, and after another half hour of manœuvring, in which we all got heated and angry, my own horse was secured. He was duly “lathered” for his pains, and was handed over to the guide to pursue the others; being the fleetest, the business was soon done. We took precious good care that they should not get the upper hand of us again that day, and rode them home with a malignant pressure on the terrible Mexican bit, and with no stinted application of the equally terrible Spanish-American spur.

Upon our return, the guide conducted us out of our way into a kind of amphitheatre amongst the hills, to what he called the “Capilla de la Piedra,” the Stone Chapel. It was a large rock of conical shape, placed high on the slope facing the entrance to this natural circus, and upon that side had a niche, or hollow, capable of containing four or five persons, and which seemed to have been cut in the rock. I failed to satisfy myself whether it was natural or artificial; but finally concluded, from its position and regularity, that it was a natural opening in the rock, enlarged and modified by art. There were traces of fire, and fragments of broken pottery around it, and immediately in front a large flat stone, which might have been used for an altar. As I looked at it, surrounded by rough, frowning rocks, and shrouded with vines, I fancied it an appropriate niche for an idol, and imagined this natural amphitheatre filled with a superstitious multitude, in blind adoration before it, while the blood of human sacrifices flowed perhaps on the very spot where I now stood.

I have said that I knew not whence the Indians obtained the idols which they brought to me, beyond that they were exhumed at the base of the Cerro de Santiago, near Subtiaba. Now the Fray Francisco de Bobadilla, of the Order of Mercy, was especially active in the conversion of the Indians of Nicaragua, which process, according to the chronicler Oviedo y Valdez, consisted in baptizing them, giving them a Christian name, and exacting forty grains of cacao! Bobadilla converted forty thousand in three months in the dominions of the cazique of Nagrando, whose principal town was where the city of Leon now stands. He also prevailed upon the cazique to allow him to throw down the idols which stood in “the spacious and sumptuous temple which the Indians, under the special direction of the devil, had erected there,” and to set up the cross in their stead. After he had battered the faces of these idols with a mace, Bobadilla threw them down from their high places, intending to burn them with fire, in order to show the Indians the impotence of their teots; but, “during the night some did take them away and buried them, so that they could not be found.” And it is not unlikely that those are the very idols exhumed for me by the Indians of Subtiaba, two of which, after doubling the Horn, now frown down upon the “hijos de Washington,” from the west corridor of the Smithsonian Institution!

Upon the site of this temple was afterwards built the Christian church “La Mercedes de Subtiaba,” which for more than two hundred years has been in ruins. Its adobe walls have subsided into brambly mounds, and all is formless save the piers on which its wooden pillars stood, and its low, Moorish archway, flanked by two slender columns, which rise white and spectral above a tangled mass of verdure. The town, of which it was once the centre, has shrunk in the lapse of time, and is now a mile distant; and the aboriginal city of which Bobadilla speaks, which covered three square leagues, and had more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, has dwindled to less than one fourth of that number. We visited this church on our return. Ben cut away the bushes with his machete, and we rode over the outline mounds, and stood where the simple Indians had knelt, centuries ago, in silent awe before the symbols of a new and imposing religion. A few rude wooden crosses marked the deep pits within which were heaped the victims of the cholera, when in 1837, five years after it had devastated our country, it more than decimated the population of Leon. Two or three Indians, returning from their daily toil in the fields, hearing our voices, pushed their way through the bushes, and reverently took off their hats, when they entered the sacred area. We asked them if they knew aught of the ancient church, or who built it? “Quien sabe?” was the sole reply, and they moved the forefinger of the right hand slowly back and forth, in token of ignorance. It was very ancient, they said—“muy, muy antigua!” Upon the smooth stucco beneath the arch, rudely scratched in the lime, I read, “Juan Peralta, Estranjero, 173.”

This church was built before Hudson floated on the waters of the magnificent river bearing his name; before the Pilgrims knelt on the wintry shores of New England, and before Smith spread the terrors of his arm among the Indians of Virginia. And unless some sacrilegious hand shall level the ancient archway, it will yet stand for centuries to mark the site of aboriginal superstition, and attest the zeal of the Fray Bobadilla, who baptized forty thousand Indians, receiving therefor, if they all “paid up,” one million six hundred thousand grains of cacao. Pious Bobadilla!

There are several other ruined and abandoned Christian churches now buried in the forests in the suburbs of Subtiaba, the dwelling-places of the bats and birds, over whose crumbling walls, and around whose falling columns, creep the wild vines, blooming with flowers, and shedding their fragrance above the silent and deserted altars of the Most High. Ruins upon ruins—Christian church and heathen shrine, they have all sunk down together.

We returned to Leon to find ourselves covered with “agarrapatas” or wood ticks, with which the forest fairly swarms during the dry season, and which are brushed off upon travellers by the thousand. They penetrate straight to the skin, and bury their heads in the flesh, causing an irritation which drives many people to distraction. When once fastened it is impossible to detach them by force, without leaving the head in the flesh, where it gets along on its own account, apparently a great deal better than when encumbered by the body. The only mode of removing them is with a ball of soft wax, which is rubbed over the body, and to which they adhere. Some are small, hardly visible to the naked eye, others are of the size of flax, and even of melon seeds; but “the smaller the worser.” Next to the fleas they rank as the predominant annoyance of the country. Musquitoes (sancudos), in Leon, the principal towns, and the open parts of the country generally, there are none; but compared with fleas and “agarrapatas,” the snakes, scorpions, “chinches,” “sancudos,” and all the other abominations of tropical climates are mere bagatelle, and scarcely worth the mentioning.