seventy-one and four-tenths cents per acre, assuming exchange at two and a half. Not a ruinous sum, but clearing and removing the small stumps, leaving the large ones to rot out, was estimated at forty dollars per acre, making the value of arable land considerable. The best grade of labor costs fifty cents per day, but it must be borne in mind that a Nicaraguan accomplishes rather less than half as much as his northern contemporary, which brings the actual cost of work to about what it would be in the United States. The cultivation of cacao is probably the most profitable form of agriculture which a man of moderate means and limited experience can successfully undertake. Each native laborer, if employed upon piece work, takes care of about one thousand trees, yielding twelve hundred pounds annually, but the seven or eight years which elapse before the trees begin to bear render the possession of some capital essential to success. Doubtless an energetic American farmer could accumulate money in Nicaragua, but the life involved is not to be recommended.

On the twentieth of September we finished our survey, and two days later we broke camp and moved to Rivas. Defections and assignment to other duty had reduced the number of "officers" to three, and, as I had discharged many of the mozos, it was a small party which

struggled along the muddy trail and into Rivas. With mingled feelings of regret and satisfaction we bid adieu to the last of our dusky retainers, our days of labor ended and our work well done.

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CHAPTER XI

NARRATIVE RIVAS TO GRANADA

IFE in Rivas was a pleasant change from the privations and monotony of

the preceding nine months, and we were glad of the two days which elapsed before the sailing of the "Victoria," as it enabled us to stow and make an inventory of camp equipment to be left behind, and to pack such articles as we wished to take with us. The air was full of rumors of another insurrection, and our mozos were locked up in the cuartel as soon as we discharged them, a vigorous protest from us being necessary to procure their release. "Volunteers" were brought to town in large numbers, sentries were posted everywhere, and the streets in the vicinity of the plaza became unsafe after nightfall, a bullet following a challenge so quickly as to disconcert any but a readytongued native. On Saturday afternoon suspected citizens were notified to report at the cuartel, where they were locked up over night, as a precautionary measure.

Early Sunday morning we were astir, completing our packing and preparing for departure.

Soon after we had finished our coffee and rolls, the usual Central American substitute for breakfast, the whistle of the locomotive from the neighboring market place notified us that it was time to leave, and we set forth, accompanied by a small band of faithful mozos, who risked conscription to see us off. Climbing aboard the decayed remains of an American street car, among white-clad men and black-eyed, barefooted women, we sat until, with a snort, a groan and a jerk, our remarkable train moved off. Rolling along through familiar scenes, never so attractive as when seen for the last time, we reached the lake shore and went aboard the "Victoria." The long wooden wharf was covered with a surging crowd of travellers and friends, stevedores, and women selling dulces, fruit or carved jicaras, and the neighboring beach was lined with half-naked lavanderas, sousing clothes in the water, laying them upon logs or stones and beating them with clubs, the approved native method of washing. “El '93," which was following the "Victoria" about to prevent her capture by insurgents, lay between us and the shore, the gaudy uniforms of her crew contrasting sharply with the heterogeneous costumes of the "volunteers," while a fleet of native sailing craft - clumsy schooners for the most part swung at anchor near by.

After the delay which travellers in Central

America soon come to regard as inevitable, we cast off our moorings and headed for Ometepe, "El '93" puffing sturdily along in our wake. The day was extremely hot, and the lake lay like a mill-pond around us, but as we gained headway a gentle breeze due to our own motion made it very comfortable where we sat beneath an awning on the hurricane, deck. As the mainland faded to a narrow strip of green with purple hills beyond, the lofty, symmetrical cone of Ometepe loomed above us, its lower slopes clad in verdure and its peak of gray volcanic ash vanishing in clouds. It has been inactive since 1883, emitting only small quantities of steam and sulphurous vapor, but it retains its singularly perfect form, in sharp contrast to Madera, another peak on the same island, which, extinct for ages, has succumbed to disintegrating influences and lost the characteristic volcanic shape. Running in as close to shore as the shoal water would permit, we lay to, our keel stirring up the mud beneath, while a large dugout transferred passengers and freight backwards and forwards between the steamer and the beach.

The island of Ometepe contains many aboriginal remains large stone idols grotesquely carved, burial vases and bowls of pottery, small gold idols, copper implements and little stone amulets. Stone idols are common in