Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1895-08-29
AMONG THE s1cARAauAss'
recent American Visitor =
scrlbes the Country

p.,ent American Visitor
.cribes the Country.
Vincent l.. Cooke has recently IT,
turned from Nicaragua, where he spent
considerable time with the unt'n'ed az.
lives This visit was sufficient 70 sal,'
ate MIR, Cooke with the Central A e.,,,ead
can states, and he returns con ,. aaua
that he does not care to spen ~, h.s uas ~
in FIAT sunburned country. inere 49,. aau
n good many opportunities Tor IuAne
money in Nicaragua said MIR. Go9 n..t
"if one could stand the climate. Dus
thls Is hard for an American TO 40, "
account of the fevers of n malaflai sols
which take hold very readily upon un,
ncclimated persons. There are souu
many Americans at Bluetields. ana oa n1
Of them. a Missourian, keeps the l'o'e.
Mt which I stopped. He charges nls
fellow-countrymen $1,aO for Do ,;,',, ~
beer and SO cents for an oru nla y
drink. That is the usual charge e1. -
varies according to the rate OF M-
change. Outside Of Blletields anu utey
town. however, there arc no AMeI,-
cans or English, and from the Atlan1ic
to the Pacific nothing but spanls,hi. ., -
spoken, and cons cquently, it is a ilt.le
inconvenient 70 one not speakihs'
Spanish to travel through the country.
/ made the trip and was followed most
of the way by n government detective,
who finally succeeded in stealing from
my grip a lot Of notes that L had lhuue
to use in my articles. They We're ~
English, and he probably could NOT
read them. The country, about tnat
time, was keeping strict espionage
on all strangers, and may have been
regarded as suspect.
1.-THE first night l was in Bluelields
was arrested, considerably to my sur
prise, for being on the street after .
o'clock. 1 was wandering around very
innocently when two guards threw,
their guns up in my face, and demands-
ed, in Spanish, who l was. Not pelng
able to understand or answer them, l
said: No savoy and they took me to
the hotel and communicated to me
that I had better stay there all night.
The country was undergoing one of It's
frequent changes in the heads OF de.
partments about that time, and the
officials We're careful to prevent people
being around too much.
Nicaragua is divided into depart
ments, corresponding to our states,
each department being under a pre-
feet, or, as it would be called in this
country, governor The president,
who is elected, appoints the projects,
and they make all the laws for their
departments, which are absolute and
constructed entirely according to the
humor Of the project making them.
The law against murder is such as to
almost encourage the taking of human
life. The penalty for a person con-
victed of this crime is ten years i'm
prisonment, but in order to convict,
there must be two witnesses to the
deed. AS result, it is comparatively
easy to commit murder and be acquit-
ted. When a foreigner is convicted
they usually bleed him and his friends
as much as possible and then kick him
out of the country.
The countrys standing army is a
ridiculous affair. 1t consists of from
1900 to $500 men and boys. ranging
in age all the way from fourteen to
sixty years. The men are armed with
the old Remington rife Of the 1874 pat
ent, but when they get into the heat Of
a fight they throw away their guns and
use the machette, a knife something 4
like those used by butchers, but COZ.
siderably longer. They use this, in
fact, for everything from table knife
to corn parer. The most Of the SOL
diers are barefooted, and they general
~ wear trousers made Of jeans and a
light shirt. open in the front at all
times. The costumes of the civilians
are very limited, and the women usu-
ally wear nothing but cloth around !,
their waists, and they, too, 20 bare
footed.
The transportation facilities in Mel
aragua are both limited and primitive.
There is only one railroad, and that isi
a short one. The general method Of
travel is by small boats, built after +hd
pattern OF the stern-wheel steamers on
1he mississippi river which ply slow-lI
y upon shallow streams, ranging inj|
depth from six to two feet, At the)l
start a boat is taken which suits tha
depth OF water, and as the river ha1
comes shallower the passengers All
transferred to other boats Of lej 4
draft successfully. 1t took me six da(
to make a trip of 100 miles in TIL Il
way. There is great deal Of land l AZ
the country out of which q ners / n
could make fortune raising cofd III
and other native products if there "a
any means Of getting what is prod,,ceA-
10 shipping port. But the watar-
ways leading from these sections ara
so shallow that they would have 70 a he
ufedged to considerable extent ~
ranroads would have to be built. which
would be very expensive on account ~
the heavy brush and underprnut =,
winch would have to be cleared awav ~
IL Inc land, however, which is near ~
shipping ports is we'll worth invast;no o
N II a man can stand the cli1na+es
anyone who can afford to invest * nno
WING, Without getting any returns for ', Eve
years can make fortune quite ron;d 1 :.
~ after that period of time has ela 1
g ~ planting coffee. 1t takes the cat Tea !
1--WE 1--WE years to grow and bear oood
crop, but at the end of that limo /, s ',oas X
son would realize $50 per cont ont a. q pei
money invested p>N een' On tfie 81
,,,.o r ln, Nicaraguans are verv m,oh \
pa"Sokea with this government ~ a na
count . or the part it took in the N p, az
UelOS trOi1h)cc 80 Vie t1l1o- X