Harper's Magazine

HARPER'S • NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. NO. LXV.-OCTOBER, 1855.-VOL XI. SQUIKr- " p L CASTILLO," or the mins of the old tion of the military air quite irresistible. Bnt Jj fort of San Juan, is the first place, in the while the degenerate and amalgamated sons of actual occupation of Nicaragua, which the trav the Conquistadors excite only mingled pity and eler encounters on the river San Juan. Here, contempt, the traveler can not resist a feeling for the first time, he is saluted by the nautical of admiration for those iron adventurers who flag of blue white and blue, with a central ovnl raised here, in the midst of a vast tropical wil inclosing a triangle and three volcanoes — the lat derness, before the Puritan landed at Plymouth, ter eminently typical, as H • suggested, of or New York was founded, those massive forti the political state of the country. Here, too, he fications which, even in their ruins, seem to bid will have his gravity put to the test by a squad defiance to the destroyer, Time ! of hopeless tatterdemalions, armed with little The hill occupied by the fort is steep, and muskets,try as "valientes," who figure and in the who bulletins are supposed of the conn- to be stands in an angle of the river, which, at its feet, is interrupted by difficult rapids. It thus com the garrison of "El Castillo." I say supposed mands the stream, both up and down, for a long to be, since if they do not occupy the old fort distance. The view from its summit is exceed they certainly do occupy a couple of modern ingly fine, taking in miles on miles of emerald shanties on the hill, close beneath its walls. forest, relieved by broad, silvery reaches of wa And, moreover, a sentinel paces in front of the ter. Bat excepting the small village which the gateway of the works, on which there is not a Transit Company has brought into existence at single gun, and which can be entered only by a the base of the bill, there is not a sign of civil rickety bridge of rotten poles laid across the ization — not a single white cottage, not a sin fosse. His responsibility, therefore, is heavy, gle green field, but only the silent, interminable especially when any one is looking on, at which wilderness. times his musket is carried with a stiff affecta- We reached the Castillo at night, after a Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1&TJ5, by Harper and Brothers, in the Clerk'a Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New Vork. Vol. X I.— No. 65.— Oo 578 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. passage of four days from San Juan del Norte, we reached the last rapids which are encount and were received with great cordiality by Mr. ered in ascending, called the " Rapides delToro." Ruggles, tlie agent of the Transit Company at The river here spreads itself out over a broad that point. He gave us beds in his establish ledge of rocks, among the detached masses of ment, in which wo extended our limbs in happy which the water whirls and eddies in deep, dark consciousness that there was " scope and verge pools, rendering navigation both difficult and enough." H nevertheless protested that his dangerous. During the dry season, these rapids ex]>erience in bestowing himself on a box throe arc impassable for the river steamers, and pas feet by two for the previous four days, had given sengers are obliged to make a third portage on him an almost irresistible tendency to shut him foot. We left our men to force the boat up self up like n clasp-knife. And Captain M , against the strong current, and entered the nar not to be behindhand, formally complained of the row path which leads through the woods pasi unsubstantial nature of his pillow, as compared the rapids. About midway, already surrounded with the pickle-jar and pair of boots which had by dank vegetation, we found the ruins of a done service in that capacity on board of our small thatched hut, and evidences that its for boat. mer occupant had there undertaken to effect a Rain fell during the night ; but, as usual, the clearing. A few paces distant from it, two morning was clear, and we rose early to aid in rough crosses, rotting above an oblong hollow in tracking our boat past the " Raudal del Cas the ground, in which the water of the rains was tillo." These rapids almost deserve the name guttered, green and festering, told too plainly of falls, and are only ascended with great dif the fate of those who had built it. A few months ficulty. The steamers of the Transit Company more, and nothing would remain to attest that do not attempt to pass them, but land their pas they had lived ; but perhaps even those lone sengers below, who pass on foot and re-embark slumbercrs have left behind them, on the banks in other vessels a few hundred yards higher up. of the bright Hudson or of the turbid Missis A rude wooden railway is built from the lower sippi, hearts that bleed and eyes that weep bit to the upper landing, for carrying baggage and ter tears when affection recalls the memory of freight. A short time previous to our visit, one the loved and lost. Our gay and almost reck of the steamers plying above the rapids was car less party lifted their hats reverently as they ried over the fall, and a considerable number of passcd in silence the sunken graves in the forest. passengers drowned. The affair was assiduously Above the " Rapides del Toro," the river, al hushed up, lest its publicity should injure the though still having a strong current, is broad credit of the route. and deep, and almost deserves the name of an At the period of my first visit, a single hut, estuary of Lake Nicaragua. The banks also built on the " platforma," or ancient water-bat begin to subside, and the trunks of fallen trees, tery of the fortress, in which were stationed a still clinging by their roots to the shore, line the few soldiers to aid the boatmen in effecting the edge of the stream. Above them trail long, ascent of the rapids, was the only evidence of cable-like lianes, or vines, pendant from the human occupation. A year later, when I passed loftiest branches of the trees, and often support down the river, homeward bound, even that ing, in their turn, clusters of parasitic plants solitary hut had been deserted; its roof had blushing with gay flowers. As the traveler ad fallen in, it was surrounded by rank weeds, and vances, he observes that the banks become still a lean wolf darted from its open doorway when lower, and that the forest trees, diminishing in I approached. Less than three years had size, are interspersed with feathery palms, which elapsed, and now a brisk village of several hundred inhabitants had sprung up at the base of the old for tress ; a row of neat cot tages, and several large, barn-like structures, face tiously labeled "Hotels," occupied the site of the solitary hut, and 1'ned the previously deserted and desolate shore. We breakfasted togeth er at the "Crescent Ho tel," where we had ham and eggs at California prices, or rather more than twenty times their value, and at nine o'clock were again cramped together in our boat, aud on our way up the river. About noon VIEW OS b.v.N Jl'A.N lUVta. NICARAGUA: AN EXPLORATION FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN. sre lOZT SAK CAKLC*. gradually usurp the shores with thou- graceful the fat and funny colonel who had done me the plumes, to the exclusion of other vegetable honor of parading his scanty garrison in glorifi forms. They constitute a dense covering to the cation of my previous visit. Don Patricio in earth, from which they exclude every ray of vited us to the matutinal cup of coffee, and ;he sun, and it lies sodden and lifeless beneath pressed us to remain to breakfast, but we were I heir shade. The streams which wind beneath eager to proceed, and inconsiderately declined. them are dark and sluggish — fit haunts for alli Forgetting my former cx)>eriences in the coun gators and unclean monsters such as made hor try, I really deluded myself that we might get rible the Saurian period, with those huge, mis off in the course of three or four hours, since we shapen forms which the geologists have pictured had nothing in the world to do but to put up to us from casts in rocky strata, within whose a temporary mast. Rut no Nicaraguan boat's stony leaves we can never be too thankful to crew was ever known to get away from San Heaven that they are securely packed away! Carlos under a day, for each one has there some The names of these streams correctly indicate coffee-colored inamorata, to whom he invaria the character of the surrounding country. There bly brings some article of tribute from the port. is the "Rio Palo del Arco," arched with trees, We had left the boat w ith strict injunctions to "Poco Sol," Little Sun, and "Rio Mosquito," the men to get it ready for our immediate de suggestive of sleepless nights and objurgations parture, which they unhesitatingly promised to bordering on the blasphemous.

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