The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-30
LOVELY NICARAGUA -s~
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BY p. H. sELkNAP.


 1 black old castle which Nelson once cap- tured and briefly held from the spaniards; then look down, where near the wharf a
 butcher Is plying his art on a beast, by
 way of appetizing you for its flesh set be- fore you at breakfast. There Is some. but l little, Ice in Nicaragua, that animal | food Is killed and served on the same day, of course. @ necessity from the heat.
 Transferred to the other stern-wheeler
 above the rapids, she has not many miles to go (though slowly against the stream)
 up to San Carlos. The river lies wide and
 deep between the continuing tall borders | of matted forest But San Carlos itself
 comes into view on the right on a sum
 blighted, bare landscape; and here Is met l Lake Nicaragua, one hundred and ten feet above the sea. The sharks in the lake, | said to be the only fresh water sharks,
 are explainable in remembering that the western sde arose from submergence, enclosing this great lake and the neigh
 boring sheet of Managua, which were part of the Pacific ocean.
 The garrison and town of San Carlos clothe a shadeless promontory where to face westerly Is to look off over the sill yer placids of the lake, which has de- l lighted the engineering profession by its l depth This is in places adequate for 1
 easy channeng; locks down the San l Juan and on the western side cut would | graduate the vessels to a.d from the
 lake level. And turning to the south. the eye passes across the San Juan's head as | 1t leaves the lake, and sweeps some | stretches of woodland on the farther side at distance which would be background in a picture. broken by the low face of a | river coming forward from the direction /, of Costo Rica. The Rio Frio, always 1 cold from some altitude flows into the : lake at a right angle to the San Juan
 not far from where the greater stream l drains out.
 When Don Jose ZeIaya made himself
 president a certain long steam launch
 mounting a gun was named the '1S93' in
 celebration of the new government There l is also one other man-of-war but 1t has
 been suggested that Nicaragua has a | navy of ninety-four vessels-there is the
 "'9S" and then the Victoria. In the in-
 terva1s when there is no uprising at Leon
 or revolt elsewhere. and no suspicious sign l from Costa Rica. the Victoria, an excel-
 lent large propeller is used for passen-
 gers.
 An Archipeiago.
 If you cross the lake by day you will see
 the Soentinames, an archipelago of small, | sweet islands, that lie like flowers on this | inner sea; the loveliness of them and soft l ceved as unsurpassable Then comes In approach that peculiar marvel of the | land, Ometepe, a faultless half oval stand ing upright in the lake; and it wears on
 the summit, streaming with the trade 1 wind Pacificward what seems weft of | cloud, though the clear Armament is else all one blue. It is beheld with delighted wonder--it is so beautiful, and so strange l The twin Madeira, at hand on her own l island, extinct while Ometepe may be yet | somewhat eruptive, is lower and imper- 1 feet of shape. without the curious sym metry of the ghostly taller presence. That l strange volcano strikes the silent tone of the lands mystery; or Ometepe Is the readless countenance of Nicaragua, the | natural Sphinx of tropic like no other. l Caldera is right near this apparition and | it's mate, on the west side shore. An ac- l tual surf breaks there on the volcanoes feet. The northwest Trades blowing con- stant during at least the forepart of the year, are slanted upward by meeting the | Great Divide the mountainous spurs crossing the San Juan's path about half way down. and hurrying on westward the winds do not strike Lake Nicaragua till some twenty miles off the land; but the surface which expands reposed before San Carlos becomes on it's western areas all breeze driven wave and roller. These ticles-the purifying lake Oake Managua. tool, combined with the fine strong sweep of air straight from the Atlantic ocean, make the magnificent heathfulness of the Western Side. For 1t is not merely dis triet less malarious than most of the tor rid zone; It's saubrity is positive; 1t is part of the world for the physicians to name to their pilgrims. The eastern parts of the country are no better in this respect than the generality of such attitudes.
 Point for Departure.
 The steady Trades accumulate the lake water up to level of six inches higher at Caldera than 1t stands at San Carlos. Caldera Is simply geographical position, the name applied from an old boiler on the beach, the relic of wreck. This Is the point where the canal has been meant to leave the interior shore for the coast of the Pacific. where the hacienda styled Brito. something like eighteen miles away, has a haven convertible into larger harbor There is no hesitation as to the Caldera point for departure, but San Juan del Sur, on the ocean. offers an alternative debouchment. To adopt this more southerly direction of San Juan del Sur would not involve increase of dis- tanee-might lessen it-but most of the work would be excavation all the way, On the other hand the advantage of the various minor streams embraced in the survey to Brito is not exactly determna- ble; their size is so apricious-rivulets or pools in the dry season and inordinate floods under the rains-that 1t is problem atic to strike the average of all their con ditions to govern construction with refer ence to that average. That this could be done the commissioners reported. But it appears that the procedure most lately preferred for the Pacific section of Nic- aragua canal is to cut from the boiler on the lake shore through to San Juan del Sur
 Little Rivas is visited in this neigh borhood. where, still hale. one of William | Walkers old hlibusters (athough he dis owns the identity) keeps a drug store. A ! dummy engine with a car bumps out Cor 1 init is hard to decide) to the fresh water sea, to San Jorge Rivas bit of a port, and 1 the wizard volcano is in near sight once more. Everywhere signs and seemings make 1t realized that the country has it's distinctiveness from this unusual lake; when it and Manugua suffered their sea change from open salt gulf they conveyed l something half beside nature to the land. | Other regions are soft and rife, others may have a river flowing either way in the different stage of the year. but the