Chapter II: Introduction: Chapter 1

Arrival at Greytown.--The river San Juan.--Silting up of the harbour.--Crossing the bar.--Lives lost on it.--Sharks. --Christopher Columbus.--Appearance of the town.--Trade. --Healthiness of the town and its probable cause.--Comparison between Greytown, Pernambuco, and Maceio.--Wild fruits.--Plants. --Parrots, toucans, and tanagers.--Butterflies and beetles. --Mimetic forms.--Alligators: boy drowned at Blewfields by one. --Their method of catching wild pigs.

CHAPTER 2.

Commence journey up San Juan river.--Palms and wild canes. --Plantations.--The Colorado river.--Proposed improvement of the river.--Progress of the Delta.--Mosquitoes.--Disagreeable night. --Fine morning.--Vegetation of the banks.--Seripiqui river. --Mot-mots.--Foraging ants: their method of hunting.--Ant-thrushes. --They attack the nests of other ants.--Birds' nests, how preserved from them.--Reasoning powers in ants.--Parallel between the mammalia and the hymenoptera.--Utopia.

CHAPTER 3.

Journey up river continued.--Wild pigs and jaguar.--Bungos.--Reach Machuca.--Castillo.--Capture of Castillo by Nelson.--India-rubber trade.--Rubber-men.--Method of making india-rubber.--Congo monkeys. --Macaws.--The Savallo river.--Endurance of the boatmen.--San Carlos.--Interoceanic canal.--Advantages of the Nicaraguan route. --The Rio Frio.--Stories about the wild Indians.--Indian captive children.--Expeditions up the Rio Frio.--American river steamboats.

CHAPTER 4.

The lake of Nicaragua.--Ometepec.--Becalmed on the lake.--White egrets.--Reach San Ubaldo.--Ride across the plains.--Vegetation of the plains.--Armadillo.--Savannahs.--Jicara trees.--Jicara bowls. --Origin of gourd-shaped pottery.--Coyotes.--Mule-breeding.--Reach Acoyapo.--Festa.--Cross high range.--Esquipula.--The Rio Mico. --Supposed statues on its banks.--Pital.--Cultivation of maize. --Its use from the earliest times in America.--Separation of the maize-eating from the mandioca-eating indigenes of America. --Tortillas.--Sugar-making.--Enter the forest of the Atlantic slope.--Vegetation of the forest.--Muddy roads.--Arrive at Santo Domingo.

CHAPTER 5.

Geographical position of Santo Domingo.--Physical geography.--The inhabitants.--Mixed races.--Negroes and Indians compared.--Women. --Establishment of the Chontales Gold-Mining Company.--My house and garden.--Fruits.--Plantains and bananas; probably not indigenous to America: propagated from shoots: do not generally mature their seeds.--Fig-trees.--Granadillas and papaws.--Vegetables. --Dependence of flowers on insects for their fertilisation.--Insect plagues.--Leaf-cutting ants: their method of defoliating trees: their nests.--Some trees are not touched by the ants.--Foreign trees are very subject to their attack.--Method of destroying the ants.--Migration of the ants from a nest attacked.--Corrosive sublimate causes a sort of madness amongst them.--Indian plan of preventing them ascending young trees.--Leaf-cutting ants are fungus-growers and eaters.--Sagacity of the ants.

CHAPTER 6.

Configuration of the ground at Santo Domingo.--Excavation of valleys.--Geology of the district.--Decomposition of the rocks. --Gold-mining.--Auriferous quartz veins.--Mode of occurrence of the gold.--Lodes richer next the surface than at lower depths. --Excavation and reduction of the ore.--Extraction of the gold.-- "Mantos".--Origin of mineral veins: their connection with intrusions of Plutonic rocks.

CHAPTER 7.

Climate of the north-eastern side of Nicaragua.--Excursions around Santo Domingo.--The Artigua.--Corruption of ancient names. --Butterflies, spiders, and wasps.--Humming-birds, beetles, and ants.--Plants and trees.--Timber.--Monkey attacked by eagle. --White-faced monkey.--Anecdotes of a tame one.--Curassows and other game birds.--Trogons, woodpeckers, mot-mots, and toucans.

CHAPTER 8.

Description of San Antonio valley.--Great variety of animal life. --Pitcher-flowered Marcgravias.--Flowers fertilised by humming-birds.--By insects.--Provision in some flowers to prevent insects, not adapted for carrying the pollen, from obtaining access to the nectaries.--Stories about wasps.--Humming-birds bathing. --Singular myriapods.--Ascent of Pena Blanca.--Tapirs and jaguars. --Summit of Pena Blanca.

CHAPTER 9.

Journey to Juigalpa.--Description of Libertad.--The priest and the bell.--Migratory butterflies and moths.--Indian graves.--Ancient names.--Dry river-beds.--Monkeys and wasps.--Reach Juigalpa.--Ride in neighbourhood.--Abundance of small birds.--A poor cripple.--The "Toledo."--Trogons.--Waterfall.--Sepulchral mounds.--Broken statues.--The sign of the cross.--Contrast between the ancient and the present inhabitants.--Night life.

CHAPTER 10.

Juigalpa.--A Nicaraguan family.--Description of the road from Juigalpa to Santo Domingo.--Comparative scarcity of insects in Nicaragua in 1872.--Water-bearing plants.--Insect-traps.--The south-western edge of the forest region.--Influence of cultivation upon it.--Sagacity of the mule.

CHAPTER 11.

Start on journey to Segovia.--Rocky mountain road.--A poor lodging. --The rock of Cuapo.--The use of large beaks in some birds. --Comoapa.--A native doctor.--Vultures.--Flight of birds that soar. --Natives live from generation to generation on the same spot.--Do not give distinctive names to the rivers.--Caribs barter guns and iron pots for dogs.--The hairless dogs of tropical America. --Difference between artificial and natural selection.--The cause of sterility between allied species considered.--The disadvantages of a covering of hair to a domesticated animal in a tropical country.

CHAPTER 12.

Olama.--The "Sanate."--Muy-muy.--Idleness of the people.--Mountain road.--The "Bull Rock."--The bull's-horn thorn.--Ants kept as standing armies by some plants.--Use of honey-secreting glands. --Plant-lice, scale-insects, and leaf-hoppers furnish ants with honey, and in return are protected by the latter.--Contest between wasps and ants.--Waxy secretions of the homopterous hemiptera.

CHAPTER 13.

Matagalpa.--Aguardiente.--Fermented liquors of the Indians.--The wine-palm.--Idleness of the Nicaraguans.--Pine and oak forests. --Mountain gorge.--Jinotega.--Native plough.--Descendants of the buccaneers.--San Rafael.--A mountain hut.

CHAPTER 14.

Great range composed of boulder clay.--Daraily.--Lost on the savannahs.--Jamaily.--A deer-hunter's family.--Totagalpa.--Walls covered with cement and whitewashed.--Ocotal.--The valley of Depilto.--Silver mine.--Geology of the valley.--Glacial drift.--The glacial period in Central America.--Evidence that the ice extended to the tropics.--Scarcity of gold in the valley gravels. --Difference of the Mollusca on the east and west coast of the Isthmus of Darien.--The refuge of the tropical American animals and plants during the glacial period.--The lowering of the sea-level. --The land shells of the West Indian Islands.--The Malay Archipelago.--Easter Island.--Atlantis.--Traditions of the deluge.

CHAPTER 15.

A Nicaraguan criminal.--Geology between Ocotal and Totagalpa. --Preparations at Totagalpa for their annual festival. --Chicha-drinking.--Piety of the Indians.--Ancient civilisation of tropical America.--Palacaguina.--Hospitality of the Mestizos. --Curious custom at the festival at Condego.--Cross range between Segovia and Matagalpa.--Sontuli.--Birds' nests.

CHAPTER 16.

Concordia.--Jinotega.--Indian habits retained by the people. --Indian names of towns.--Security of travellers in Nicaragua. --Native flour-mill.--Uncomfortable lodgings.--Tierrabona.--Dust whirlwind.--Initial form of a cyclone.--The origin of cyclones.

CHAPTER 17.

Cattle-raising.--Don Filiberto Trano's new house.--Horse-flies and wasps.--Teustepe.--Spider imitating ants.--Mimetic species. --Animals with special means of defence are conspicuously marked, or in other ways attract attention.--Accident to horse.--The "Mygale."--Illness.--Conclusion of journey.

CHAPTER 18.

Division of Nicaragua into three zones.--Journey from Juigalpa to lake of Nicaragua.--Voyage on lake.--Fresh-water shells and insects.--Similarity of fresh-water productions all over the world. --Distribution of European land and fresh-water shells.--Discussion of the reasons why fresh-water productions have varied less than those of the land and of the sea.

CHAPTER 19.

Iguanas and lizards.--Granada.--Politics.--Revolutions.--Cacao cultivation.--Masaya.--The lake of Masaya.--The volcano of Masaya. --Origin of the lake basin.

CHAPTER 20.

Indian population of the country lying between the great lakes of Nicaragua and the Pacific.--Discovery and conquest of Nicaragua by the Spaniards.--Cruelties of the Spaniards.--The Indians of Western Central America all belonged to one stock.--Decadence of Mexican civilisation before the arrival of the Spaniards.--The designation "Nahuatls" proposed to include all the Mexican, Western Central American, and Peruvian races that had descended from the same ancient stock.--The Nahuatls distinct from the Caribs on one side and the Red Indians on the other.--Discussion of the question of the peopling of America.