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THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA
BY
THOMAS BELT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANTHONY BELT, F.L.S.
HOC SOLUM SCIO QUOD NIHIL SCIO.
THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA
BY
THOMAS BELT.
EVERYMAN, I WILL GO WITH THEE, & BE THY GUIDE
IN THY MOST NEED TO GO BY THY SIDE.
LONDON: PUBLISHED BY
J.M. DENT & SONS LTD.
AND IN NEW YORK
BY E.P. DUTTON & CO.
INTRODUCTION.
In the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," edited by his son, Mr.
Francis Darwin (volume 3 page 188), the following passage occurs:--
"In the spring of this year (1874) he read a book which gave him
great pleasure, and of which he often spoke with admiration, "The
Naturalist in Nicaragua," by the late Thomas Belt. Mr. Belt, whose
untimely death may well be deplored by naturalists, was by
profession an engineer, so that all his admirable observations in
natural history, in Nicaragua and elsewhere, were the fruit of his
leisure. The book is direct and vivid in style, and is full of
description and suggestive discussions. With reference to it my
father wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: 'Belt I have read, and I am
delighted that you like it so much; it appears to me the best of
all natural history journals which have ever been published.'"
Now that the book so highly recommended by such an authority is
about to be introduced to a public which has hitherto only known it
by hearsay, it will be interesting to inquire into the reason of
its appreciation by such men as Darwin and Hooker--and Lyell,
Huxley, and Wallace, with other leaders of the scientific world of
that day, might be quoted to the same effect--and to give some
particulars of the author's short active life.
The Belts were an old family which had been established at Bossal
in Yorkshire since the reign of Richard II. The main line died out
some twenty years ago, but about the beginning of the eighteenth
century a member of the family went to the Tyne to join the
well-known ironworks of Crawley at Winlaton. He and his descendants
remained with the firm for over a century, and he was the
great-great-grandfather of the grandfather of Thomas Belt born at
Newcastle-on-Tyne on November 27, 1832.
Thomas was the fourth child of a family of seven. His mother
possessed a singularly sweet and beautiful disposition; his father,
much given to hobbies, was stern and unbending, and he himself
combined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determination
that unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense of
personal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only roused
to anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then his
indignation, though not loud, was very real, and he acted with a
promptitude which would hardly have been expected from his usually
placid demeanour. A story is told of how one day sitting at table
he saw through the window a man belabouring a woman. Without saying
a word, he rushed out, pinioned the offender by the elbows and,
running him to the top of a steep slope in the street, gave him a
kick which sent him flying down the declivity. The incident is
recalled merely as an illustration of his practical way of dealing
with difficulties which stood him in good stead in many an
out-of-the-way corner of the world when contending with obstacles
caused either by the perversity of man or the forces of nature. He
never carried fire-arms even when travelling in the most unsettled
districts, and his firm but conciliatory manner overcame opposition
in a wonderful way. In ordinary life he was the kindest and most
considerate of men, and his transparent sincerity made friends for
him everywhere. Nor was he ever happier than when assisting others
in those pursuits which occupied his own leisure.
The interesting question as to what led Belt to become a naturalist
is difficult to answer. "Environment" nowadays accounts for much,
but none of his brothers--and all the family had a similar
bringing-up--showed any inclination for what with him became the
ruling passion of his life. And yet, in a wider sense, "environment"
had probably something to do with it. In the first half of the
nineteenth century Newcastle could boast of a succession of
field-naturalists unequalled in the country--Joshua Alder and
Albany Hancock, who wrote the monograph on British nudibranchiate
mollusca for the Ray Society; William Hutton and John Thornhill,
botanists; W.C. Hewitson, Dr. D. Embleton, and John Hancock,
zoologists; Thomas Athey and Richard Howse,
palaeontologists--these, and others like them, were
enthusiastically at work collecting, observing, recording,
classifying. Fresh discoveries were being made every day; what are
now commonplace scientific truisms wore then all the charm of
novelty; the secrets of nature were being unveiled, and modern
science was entering upon an ever-extending kingdom.
Into all this scientific activity Belt was born, and from his
earliest years it may be said of him, as in the well-known lines it
was said of Agassiz:--
"And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe."
"And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvellous tale."
"If happiness," he wrote in his twenty-second year, "consists in
the number of pleasing emotions that occupy our mind--how true is
it that the contemplation of nature, which always gives rise to
these emotions, is one of the great sources of happiness."
The earliest instance which has been remembered of his fondness for
animal life occurred when he was about three years old. He had been
in the garden and came running to show his mother what he had
found. Opening his carefully gathered up pinafore, out jumped two
frogs--to the great dismay of the good lady, for frogs are first
cousins to toads, the dire effects of whose glance and venom were
known to every one.
He received the best education the town could give, and was
fortunate in his schoolmasters--first Dr. J.C. Bruce of antiquarian
fame, and then Mr. John Storey, second to none in his day as a
north-country botanist.
Belt's father was much interested in horticulture; and, possessing
some meteorological instruments, entrusted him, when only twelve
years old, with the keeping of a set of observations which showed
not only the barometric and thermometric readings twice a day, and
the highest and lowest temperatures, but also the rainfall, the
state of the sky, the form of the clouds, and the force and
direction of the wind. The elaborately arranged columns, full of
symbols and figures, look very quaint in the careful boyish
handwriting, and must have absorbed much of his spare time.
Insects, however, had the greatest attraction for him. He writes in
his journal: "I have made a great improvement in the study of
entomology, to which I have an ardent attachment." And a little
later: "I find I have not time to study so many things. I am afraid
that I will not be able to carry on entomology and botany together;
but entomology I will not give up." He had been studying
"electricity, astronomy, botany, conchology, and geology." At the
age of sixteen he wrote: "I feel a longing, a natural desire, to
explore and understand the ways of science. I am ambitious of doing
something that will deserve the praise or excite the admiration of
mankind." When the praise and admiration came, no one could have
been more indifferent to them than himself. Nature, his "nurse,"
had become his queen; and never was there a more devoted,
whole-hearted subject, a more simple-minded follower of science for
its own sake without any thought of the honour or glory that might
accrue thereby.
On August 10, 1849, he records: "I have been thinking for the last
few days about fixing on some subject or pursuit on which to devote
my life, as it is of no use first starting one subject and then
another, thus learning nothing. After giving it a good deal of
consideration, I have determined on studying 'Natural History,' not
confining myself to any one branch of that vast subject. As this is
a subject on which I intend to devote my leisure hours during the
greater part if not the whole of my lifetime, I consider it to be
of the greatest importance that I should lay a good foundation for
it. I therefore intend during the ensuing winter to study the
English language and composition, so as to be able to describe
objects and explain my sentiments with greater clearness and
precision than I can at present." The last sentence illustrates the
systematic thoroughness of all his work which was one reason of his
success.
Belt's "leisure hours" were soon more numerous than he had
anticipated when recording his determination to devote them to
natural history. Already his health had shown signs of giving way,
and presently there was a nervous break-down which necessitated his
giving up all work and being out in the open air as much as
possible. But what appeared to be probably the wrecking of his life
provided the opportunity which might not otherwise have occurred of
encouraging and developing his inborn love of nature. Becoming a
member of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, he interested
himself greatly in the local fauna and flora, and formed very
complete collections of the plants, insects, and shells. His name
occurs frequently in the "Transactions" of the Club as the recorder
of species new to the district. His health gradually improved, but
it was doubtful whether he would be able to bear the strain of any
indoor occupation, for which indeed he felt an ever-increasing
aversion.
It was the time of the discovery of gold in Australia, and after
much discussion he and his elder brother joined the stream of
adventurers and sailed in 1852 for Victoria. In this rough "school
of mines" he acquired that insight into the building-up of the
earth's crust and that practical knowledge of minerals which served
him so well in after-life as a mining engineer. But although the
whole colony was in the grip of the gold-fever, Belt retained the
same quiet habits of observation which had marked him at home--for
there, as to whatever part of the world his work subsequently
called him, the engineer was always at heart a naturalist. He
proved an excellent observer, and a certain speculative tendency
led him to group his observations so as to bring out their full
theoretical bearing.
Amid real hard work he found time to evolve a theory of whirlwinds
and to speculate upon the soaring of birds. A companion has
recorded in the following terms another matter which engaged much
of his attention at this time: "The boldest of his speculations,
and one of the soundest, as after-events proved, was his plan for
crossing the Australian continent. He proposed, at the time the
government expedition was mooted, to replace the costly plans of
the government by the following scheme:--That he and his brother
Anthony (who was unfortunately lost in the "Royal Charter") should
be conveyed to the Gulf of Carpentaria, with about twenty
pack-horses loaded with provisions and water; that an escort should
protect them for some twenty miles from the coast, and that then
the two voyagers only, with their pack-horses, should make their
way to Cooper's Creek, the farthest known accessible point from the
Victorian settled districts. Belt argued justly: 'If we fail, only
two lives will be lost, but all chances are in our favour; we are
provided with water and food more than ample to cover the distance
we have to travel. Every step of our road carries us homeward and
to safety. If we never find a drop of water on the road, our
animals have enough to carry those who have to bear the whole
journey to their goal, and as the animals succumb they will be shot
or turned adrift.' The event showed Belt's sagacity. The
unfortunate government expedition left Melbourne loaded with
camp-followers and impedimenta, and by the time they reached a few
stages beyond Cooper's Creek were well-nigh exhausted. Burke, the
leader of the expedition, in desperation started with his two men,
Wills and King, and bravely struck out for the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Through desert and fertile plains, not altogether destitute of
water, they reached in safety the northern shore of Australia; but
the energy, the courage, and the strength that took them this long,
weary journey did not suffice to carry them back over double the
distance to their camp. Brave hearts! they struggled on; but King
only, and as a worn-out man, ever saw Cooper's Creek again. Belt's
plan would have solved the problem without loss of life and at a
tenth of the cost." He always regretted that he had not the means
of carrying it out independently of government assistance.
After eight years in Australia Belt returned to England, married,
and was successively manager of mining companies in Nova Scotia,
North Wales, and Nicaragua, sandwiching in between these
appointments a visit to Brazil to report upon some gold mines in
the province of Maranham. In whatever part of the world his work
took him he turned for rest and relaxation to the branches of
natural science for which the locality offered the greatest
opportunity.
In Nova Scotia he began those investigations into the cause and
phenomena of the glacial period which were to be the study of the
last years of his life, and to which he himself attached the
greatest importance. In Wales he took up the question of the age of
the rocks in the neighbourhood of Dolgelly, and after much study of
their fossils proposed the now accepted classification of the
Lingula flags of the Lower Silurian system into the Maenturog flags
and slates, the Festiniog flags, and the Dolgelly slates. The
collecting of lepidoptera was his chief amusement in Brazil, where
he made his first acquaintance with the teeming life of the torrid
zone and laid the foundation for those observations on tropical
nature which his longer stay in Nicaragua gave rise to, and which
are recorded in this book.
After his return from Central America, his services were in great
request as a consulting mining engineer, and the succeeding years
of his life were spent in almost continual travel: over all parts of
Great Britain, to North and South Russia, Siberia, the Kirghiz
Steppes, Mexico, and the United States. It was on one of his annual
visits to Colorado that he was seized with sudden sickness and died
on September 21, 1878, at the early age of forty-five.
Thomas Belt was an accurate and intelligent observer possessed of
the valuable faculty of wonder at whatever is new or strange or
beautiful in nature, and the equally valuable habit of seeking a
reason for all he saw. Having found or imagined one, he went on to
make fresh observations, and sought out new facts to see how they
accorded with his supposed cause of the phenomena. "The Naturalist
in Nicaragua" has therefore a value and a charm quite independent
of the particular district it describes. As a mere book of travel
it is surpassed by scores of other works. The country and the
people of Nicaragua are too much like other parts of tropical
Spanish America, with their dull, lazy inhabitants, to possess any
novelty. There is little in the book that can be called adventure,
and still less of geographical discovery.
And yet, the many and highly diversified phases in which life
presents itself in the tropics enabled the skilled naturalist to
fill a volume with a series of episodes, experiences, and
speculations of which the reader will never tire. His keen powers
of observation and active intellect were applied to various
branches of scientific inquiry with unflagging ardour; and he had
the faculty of putting the results of these inquiries in a clear,
direct form, rendered the more attractive by its simplicity and
absence of any effort at fine writing. He does not obtrude his own
personality, and, like all genuine men, he forgets "self" over his
subject. Instead of informing us whether or not he received "the
salary of an ambassador and the treatment of a gentleman," he
scatters before us, broadcast, facts interesting and novel,
valuable hints for future research, and generalisations which amply
repay a close study. Not alone the zoologist, the geologist, but
the antiquarian, the ethnologist, the social philosopher, and the
meteorologist will each find in these pages additions to his store
of knowledge and abundant material for study.
With all this, the work is not a mere catalogue of dry facts: it is
eminently a readable book, bringing vividly before us the various
subjects with which it is concerned. Minutely accurate in his
description of facts and bold in his reasoning upon them, Belt
covered so much ground that some of his theories have not held
their own; but others have stood the test of time and been absorbed
into the world's stock of knowledge, while all bear witness to the
singular grasp of his mind and have stimulated thought and
observation--which is a great virtue in theories, be they true or
false.
It has been already stated that Belt devoted the scanty leisure of
his last years to the study of the glacial period, entering with
zest into the consideration of its cause, the method of deposition
of its beds, and the time-relationship of man to it--complex
questions on which his imagination had full scope, and which, had
his life been prolonged, his patient accumulation of evidence might
have ultimately led him to suggest answers that would have been
generally accepted by scientific men. But the cause of the
remarkable change of climate during those late Tertiary and
post-Tertiary times known as the glacial period is still without a
completely satisfactory explanation. In Belt's day geologists were
inclined to get over the difficulty of accounting for the phenomena
by any feasible terrestrial change by explaining them as the result
of cosmical causes, and Croll's theory of the increase of the
eccentricity of the earth's orbit was widely received among them.
Belt, on the other hand, held that the cold was due to an increase
in the obliquity of the ecliptic. But these astronomical
explanations have not met with much acceptance by physicists; and
so chemists have been turned to by some geologists for support of
the hypothesis of the variation in the amount of carbon dioxide in
the air, or of other alterations in the atmosphere, while others
have gone back to the idea of geographical changes. That
considerable oscillations of the relative levels of land and sea
took place during the Ice Age has been now clearly established, and
the general result of the investigations favours Belt's opinion
that the land during part of that period stood much higher than now
over the northern regions of Europe and North America. It would,
however, lead us too far away from the present book to enter into
even a cursory examination of his views upon the glacial period,
and those readers who desire to pursue the matter will find
assistance for doing so in the bibliography at the end of this
Introduction.
Of more immediate interest to us are the "observations on animals
and plants in reference to the theory of evolution of living forms"
which the title-page announces as a part of the narrative, and
which indeed form the main portion of the work. Upon the
publication of Darwin's "Origin of Species" in 1859, Belt had
become an ardent evolutionist, and was henceforth always on the
look-out for facts in support of the theories which had breathed
such new life into biological studies. In Nicaragua he devoted
special attention to those wonderful protective resemblances,
especially among insects, which Bates had explained by his theory
of "Mimicry;" and as the subject crops up again and again in this
book, the non-scientific reader will find it helpful to have before
him an outline of the expanded and completed theory--though he
should be warned that some writers have been too much inclined to
attribute to "mimicry" any accidental resemblance between two
species. How far such accidental resemblances may be carried is
probably well illustrated by the bee, the spider, and the fly
orchis of our own downs and copses.
"Mimicry" proper is often confused with "protective resemblance,"
and it will be advisable to begin with the consideration of the
latter.
Concealment, while useful at times to all animals, is absolutely
essential to some; and it is wonderful in what different ways it is
attained. In cases of "cryptic resemblance to surroundings" the
shape, colouration, or markings are such as to conceal an animal by
rendering it difficult to distinguish from its immediate
environment. In most cases the effect is PROTECTIVE; but in snakes,
spiders, mantids, and other preying animals it is termed
AGGRESSIVE, since it enables these animals to stalk their prey
undetected. It is probable that this power, when possessed by a
vertebrate animal, nearly always bears the double meaning, as in
the green tree frog, where the colouration is protective so far as
it provides concealment from snakes, which are particularly fond of
these frogs, and aggressive in that it allows flies and other
insects to approach without suspicion.
There may be either General Resemblance to surrounding objects or
Special Resemblance to definite objects. The plain sandy colour of
desert animals, the snow white of the inhabitants of the arctic
regions, the inconspicuous hues of nocturnal animals, the stripes
of the tiger and the zebra, the spots of the leopard and the
giraffe have all a cryptic effect which at a very short distance
renders the creatures invisible amid their natural surroundings.
Nor is it necessary in order to attain this invisibility that the
colouring should be really dull and plain. It all depends upon the
habitat. Mr. Wallace has described "a South American goatsucker
which rests in the bright sunshine on little bare rocky islets in
the upper Rio Negro where its unusually light colours so closely
resemble those of the rock and sand that it can scarcely be
detected till trodden upon." A little observation will supply large
numbers of instances of such protective colouration.
It is, however, in the insect world that this principle of
adaptation of animals to their environment is most fully and
strikingly developed. "There are thousands of species of insects,"
says Mr. Wallace again, "which rest during the day clinging to the
bark of dead or fallen trees; and the greater portion of these are
delicately mottled with grey and brown tints, which though
symmetrically disposed and infinitely varied, yet blend so
completely with the usual colours of the bark, that at two or three
feet distance they are quite undistinguishable."
In protective resemblances at their highest state of perfection the
colouring is not constant but, as Professor Poulton puts it in his
delightful book on "The Colours of Animals", "can be adjusted to
harmonise with changes in the environment or to correspond with the
differences between the environment of different individuals." The
seasonal change of colour in northern animals is a well-known
instance of the former, and the chameleon's alterations of hue of
the latter.
Besides General Resemblance, in which the general effects of
surrounding colours are reproduced, we have Special Resemblance, in
which the appearance of a particular object is copied in shape and
outline as well as in colour. Numerous instances will be found in
this book, and a "Leaf Insect" and a "Moss Insect" are illustrated.
But the classic example is the butterfly from the East Indies so
graphically described by Mr. Wallace, Kallima paralekta, which
always rests among dead or dry leaves and has itself leaf-like
wings spotted over with specks to imitate the tiny fungi growths on
the foliage it resembles. "It sits on a nearly upright twig, the
wings fitting closely back to back, concealing the antennae and
head, which are drawn up between their bases. The little tails of
the hind wings touch the branch and form a perfect stalk to the
leaf, which is supported in its place by the claws of the middle
pair of feet which are slender and inconspicuous. The irregular
outline of the wings gives exactly the perspective effect of a
shrivelled leaf." The wonderful "stick insects" in like manner
mimic the twigs of the trees among which they lurk. Nor need we go
abroad in search of examples, for among our own insects are
countless instances of marvellous resemblances to the inanimate or
vegetable objects upon which they rest. One of the most interesting
is that of the geometer caterpillars, which are very plentiful, and
any one can observe them for himself even in a London garden. They
support themselves for hours by means of their posterior legs,
forming an angle of various degrees with the branch on which they
are standing and looking for all the world like one of its twigs.
The long cylindrical body is kept stiff and immovable, with the
separations of the segments scarcely visible, and its colour is
obscure and similar to that of the bark of the tree. Kirby and
Spence tell of a gardener mistaking one of these caterpillars for a
dead twig, and starting back in great alarm when, on attempting to
break it off, he found it was a living animal.
Sometimes concealment is secured by the aid of adventitious
objects. Many lepidopterous larvae live in cases made of the
fragments of the substances upon which they feed; and certain
sea-urchins cover themselves so completely with pebbles, shells,
and so forth, that one can see nothing but a heap of little stones.
Perhaps, however, the most interesting instance is the crab
described by Mr. Bateson, which "takes a piece of weed in his two
chelae and, neither snatching nor biting it, deliberately tears it
across, as a man tears paper with his hands. He then puts one end
of it into his mouth, and after chewing it up, presumably to soften
it, takes it out in the chelae and rubs it firmly on his head or
legs until it is caught by the peculiar curved hairs which cover
them. If the piece of weed is not caught by the hairs, the crab
puts it back in his mouth and chews it up again. The whole
proceeding is most human and purposeful."
There is another class of colours in which not concealment but
conspicuousness is the object aimed at. Such colours are borne by
animals provided with formidable weapons of defence (the sting of
the wasp, for example), or possessed of an unpleasant taste or
offensive odour, and their foes come by experience to associate
this form of colouring with disagreeable qualities and avoid the
animals so marked. Belt was the first to account, in this way, for
the conspicuous colouration of the skunk; and it is now believed
that startling colours and conspicuous attitudes are intended to
assist the education of enemies by enabling them to learn and
remember the animals which are to be avoided. The explanation of
warning colours was devised by Mr. Wallace to account for the
brilliancy in the tints of certain caterpillars which birds find
disagreeable, and the subject has been principally studied by
experiments upon such caterpillars. But examples of warning colours
are recognised, among many others, in the contrasted black and
yellow of wasps, bees, and hornets, the bright red, black, and
yellow bands of the deadly coral snakes, and the brilliantly
coloured frog of Santo Domingo which hops unconcernedly about in
the daytime in his livery of red and blue--"for nothing will eat
him he well doth know."
But--and here comes in the principle to which the term "mimicry" is
now restricted--if warning colours are helpful to noxious animals,
then defenceless animals acquiring these colours will share in the
protection afforded by them. And so we find a deceptive similarity
between animals occurring in the same district, but not closely
related, in which the mimicked form is unpalatable or has an odour
repulsive to birds and lizards. It must, of course, be understood
that the mimicry is unconscious, the result, as in the cases of
cryptic resemblance, having been brought about by natural
selection--the less perfect the mimicry the more liable are the
individuals to be attacked, and the less chance have they of
reproducing their kind.
This imitation was first accounted for by Mr. Bates in the case of
the Heliconidae, a group of showy, slow-flying abundant butterflies
possessing "a strong pungent semi-aromatic or medicinal odour which
seems to pervade all the juices of their system." It does not
follow, of course, that what seems to us a disagreeably smelling
fluid should prove distasteful to the palate of a lizard or a bird.
But careful observation of the butterflies convinced both Bates and
Wallace that they were avoided, or at any rate not pursued, by
birds and other creatures; and Belt found that they were rejected
by his tame monkey which was very fond of other insects. So their
conspicuous wings, with spots and patches of yellow, red, or white
upon a black, blue or brown ground, may fairly be considered an
example of warning colouration--though Mr. Thayer has with great
ingenuity and acumen endeavoured to show that the markings are
effective for concealment and that their value as warning marks is
doubtful. Now, says Mr. Beddard, "in the same situations as those
in which the Heliconias are found there also occur, more rarely,
specimens of butterflies minutely resembling the Heliconias, but
belonging to a perfectly distinct family--the Pieridae. They belong
to the two genera Leptalis and Euterpe, consisting of numerous
species, each of which shows a striking likeness to some one
particular species of Heliconia. This likeness is not a mark of
near affinity; it affects no important character, but only the
shape and colouration of the wings."
The particular resemblance here described was the origin of the
theory of Protective Mimicry, the conditions under which it occurs
being, according to Mr. Wallace:
1. That the imitative species occur in the same area and occupy
the same station as the imitated.
2. That the imitators are always the more defenceless.
3. That the imitators are also less numerous in individuals.
4. That the imitators differ from the bulk of their allies.
5. That the imitation, however minute, is external and visible
only, never extending to internal characters or to such as do
not affect the external appearance.
There are plenty of examples of this phenomenon, such as the
hornet-like moths and bee-like flies of our own country, and many
other instances will be found in these pages. One discovered in
tropical America by Mr. W.L. Sclater would have much delighted Belt
had he come across it. In that region of the world the leaf-cutting
ants present a very characteristic appearance as the column
proceeds homewards, each ant carrying a piece of leaf held
vertically in its jaws; and a homopterous insect has been found
that faithfully resembles an ant bearing its burden. The latter is
suggested by the thin compressed green body of the insect, and its
profile is precisely like that of the jagged edge of the fragment
of leaf held over the back of the ant.
Of all the Nicaraguan fauna, judging from the narrative, the ants
occupy the most prominent position. Both indoors and out they are
ever in evidence. Belt describes the foraging ants, which do not
make regular nests of their own, but attack those of other species
and prey upon every killable living thing that comes in their way;
the leaf-cutting ants, whose attacks upon his garden were repelled
with so much difficulty; standing armies of ants maintained by
certain trees for their protection, and many other kinds, some of
which kept his attention constantly on the stretch. Much space is
devoted to their habits and wonderful instincts, amounting in many
cases, so Belt considered, to as clear an evidence of reasoning
intelligence as can be claimed for man himself. Indeed, after
reading the account of their freeing of an imprisoned comrade and
their grappling with problems arising out of such modern inventions
as carbolic acid and tramways, we need not feel surprised if an
observer accustomed to scrutinise the animal world so closely feels
sceptical on the subject of "instinct" viewed as a mysterious
entity antithetically opposed to "reason" and supposed to act as
its substitute in the lower orders.
In reference to their methods of obtaining food, ants have been
classified as hunting, pastoral, and agricultural, "three types,"
as Lord Avebury remarks, "offering a curious analogy to the three
great phases in the history of human development." As regards their
social condition they differ from mankind in having successfully
established communism. At the present day all the social
hymenoptera possess a unique interest on account of their
working-order or neuters. These, as is well-known, are females
whose normal development has been checked. Are we to assume that
"once upon a time" a woman's rights movement sprang up in bee-hives
and ant-hills which ended in reducing the males to a very
unimportant position and in limiting the number of the fully
developed females? Are we to expect that the "strong-minded" women
arising among us are the forerunners of a "neuter" order and the
heralds of a corresponding change in human society?
"It is full of theories," says the author, writing of his book;
modestly adding, "I trust not unsupported by facts." And so
naturally does he dovetail the two together that the theories often
seem portions of the facts. On all kinds of subjects suggestive
reasons are proposed:--why the scarlet-runners which flowered so
profusely in his garden never produced a single pod; why the banana
and sugar-cane are probably not indigenous to America; why gold
veins grow poorer as they descend into the earth; why whirlwinds
rotate in opposite directions in the two hemispheres; why the
earthenware vessels of the Indians are rounded at the bottom and
require to be placed in a little stand--on all the varied matters
that come under his observant eyes he has something interesting to
say. You learn how the natives obtain sugar, palm-wine, and rubber;
what is the use of the toucan's huge beak, and how plants secure
the fertilisation of their flowers. You watch the tricks of the
monkey, the humming-bird's courtship, the lying in wait of the
alligator, and all the ceaseless activity of the forest--that
forest so monotonous in its general features, but fascinating
beyond measure when the varied life-histories working out within it
are realised--and you share in the keen joy of the naturalist who
has written with such simple eloquence of the beauty, the wonder,
and the mystery of the natural world.
A.B.
The following is a list of the works of Thomas Belt:--
An inquiry into the Origin of Whirlwinds,
Philosophical Magazine volume 17 1859 pages 47-53.
Mineral Veins: an Inquiry into their Origin
founded on a Study of the Auriferous Quartz Veins of Australia,
London 1861.
On some Recent Movements of the Earth's Surface
and their Geological Bearings [1863] Nova Scotian Institute of
Natural Science Proceedings and Transactions
volume 1 part 1 1867 pages 19-30.
List of Butterflies observed in the Neighbourhood of Halifax,
Nova Scotia [1863] Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science
Proceedings and Transactions volume 2 part 1 1867 pages 87-92.
On the Formation and Preservation of Lakes by Ice Action,
Geological Society Quarterly Journal volume 20 1864 pages 463-465,
Philosophical Magazine volume 28 1864 page 323,
Nova Scotian Institute of Natural Science Proceedings and
Transactions volume 2 part 3 1867 page 70.
The Glacial Period in North America [1866] Nova Scotian Institute
of Natural Science Proceedings and Transactions
volume 2 part 4 1867 pages 91-106.
On some New Trilobites from the Upper Cambrian Rocks of North Wales,
Geological Magazine volume 4 1867 pages 294-295.
On the "Lingula Flags" or "Festiniog Group" are the
Dolgelly District, Geological Magazine
volume 4 1867 pages 493-495, 536-543; volume 5 1868 pages 5-11.
The Naturalist in Nicaragua, London 1874 2nd edition
revised and corrected 1888.
Glacial Phenomena in Nicaragua, American Journal of Science
volume 7 1874 pages 594-595.
An Examination of the Theories that have been proposed to account
for the Climate of the Glacial Period,
Journal of Science volume 4 1874 pages 421-464.
The Steppes of Siberia, Geological Society Quarterly Journal
volume 30 1874 pages 490-498,
Geological Magazine Decade 2 volume 1 1874 pages 423-424.
The Glacial Period, Nature volume 10 1874 pages 25-26.
Niagara: Glacial and Post-Glacial Phenomena,
Journal of Science volume 5 1875 pages 135-156.
The Drift of Devon and Cornwall: its Origin, Correlation with
that of the South-West of England, and Place in the Glacial
Series, Geological Society Quarterly Journal
volume 32 1876 pages 80-90;
Geological Magazine volume 2 1875 pages 622-624,
Philosophical Magazine volume 1 1876 pages 159-161.
On the Geological Age of the Deposits containing Flint Implements
at Hoxne, in Suffolk, and the Relation that Palaeolithic Man
bore to the Glacial Period,
Journal of Science volume 6 1876 pages 289-304.
On the First Stages of the Glacial Period in Norfolk and Suffolk,
Geological Magazine volume 4 1877 pages 156-158.
The Steppes of Southern Russia, Geological Society Quarterly Journal
volume 33 1877 pages 843-862;
Philosophical Magazine volume 4 1877 pages 151-152.
On the Loess of the Rhine and the Danube,
Journal of Science volume 7 1877 pages 67-90.
The Glacial Period in the Southern Hemisphere,
Journal of Science volume 7 1877 pages 326-353.
Quartzite Implements at Brandon,
Nature volume 16 1877 page 101.
On the Discovery of Stone Implements in Glacial Drift
in North America, Journal of Science volume 8 1878 pages 55-74.
The Superficial Gravels and Clays around Finchley, Ealing,
and Brentford, Journal of Science volume 8 1878 pages 316-360.
Notes on the Discovery of a Human Skull in the Drift near Denver,
Colorado, Proceedings of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science at St. Louis,
Missouri August 1878 volume 27 (1879) pages 298-299.
[The notes within square brackets have been added to this edition
by the writer of the Introduction. ]
[Title-page of the First Edition.]
THE
NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA
A NARRATIVE OF
A RESIDENCE AT THE GOLD MINES OF CHONTALES;
JOURNEYS IN THE SAVANNAHS AND FORESTS;
With Observations of Animals and Plants in Reference to
the Theory of Evolution of Living Forms.
BY THOMAS BELT, F.G.S.
AUTHOR OF
"MINERAL VEINS," "THE GLACIAL PERIOD IN NORTH AMERICA," ETC. ETC.
"It was his faith--perhaps is mine--
That life in all its forms is one,
And that its secret conduits run
Unseen, but in unbroken line,
From the great fountain-head divine,
Through man and beast, through grain and grass."
LONGFELLOW.
[Dedication of the First Edition.]
TO
HENRY WALTER BATES,
WHOSE ADMIRABLE WORK,
"THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS,"
HAS BEEN MY GUIDE AND MODEL,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK,
AS A TOKEN OF RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP.
(SKETCH MAP OF NICARAGUA.)
CONTENTS.
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.
CHAPTER 21.
Return to Santo Domingo.--The birds of Chontales.--The insects of
Chontales.--Mimetic forms.--Departure from the mines.--Nicaragua as
a field for emigration.--Journey to Greytown.--Return to England.
INDEX.
. . .
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE 1. SKETCH MAP OF NICARAGUA.
PLATE 2. ALLIGATORS.
PLATE 3. HEADS OF MOT-MOTS.
PLATE 4. COMMISSIONER'S HOUSE AT SANTO DOMINGO.
PLATE 5. NEST OF LEAF-CUTTING ANT.
PLATE 6. MACHINERY OF CHONTALES GOLD-MINING COMPANY.
PLATE 7. SECTION OF MINE SHOWING METHOD OF EXTRACTING THE ORE.
PLATE 8. SECTION OF SAN ANTONIO LODE.
PLATE 9. HUMMING-BIRDS (Florisuga mellivora, LINN.).
PLATE 10. TONGUES OF HUMMING-BIRD AND WOODPECKER.
PLATE 11. PITCHER-FLOWER (Marcgravia nepenthoides).
PLATE 12. FLOWER OF THE "PALOSABRE."
PLATE 13. ADVENTURE WITH A JAGUAR.
PLATE 14. PENA BLANCA.
PLATE 15. INDIAN STATUES.
PLATE 16. PATH UP STEEP HILL.
PLATE 17. QUISCALUS.
PLATE 18. BULL'S-HORN THORN.
PLATE 19. LEAF OF MELASTOMA.
PLATE 20. NATIVE STILL.
PLATE 21. NATIVE PLOUGH.
PLATE 22. GEOLOGICAL SECTION NEAR OCOTAL.
PLATE 23. HORNET AND MIMETIC BUG.
PLATE 24. GEOLOGICAL SECTION AT MASAYA.
PLATE 25. LONGICORN BEETLES OF CHONTALES.
PLATE 26. LEAF INSECT.
PLATE 27. MOSS INSECT.
. . .
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The following pages have been written in the intervals between
arduous professional engagements. Begun on the Atlantic during my
voyage home from Central America, the first half relieved the
tedium of a long and slow recovery from the effects of an accident
occurring on board ship. The middle of the manuscript found me
traversing the high passes of the snow-clad Caucasus, where I made
acquaintance with the Abkassians, in whose language Mr. Hyde Clark
finds analogies with those of my old friends the Brazilian Indians.
I now write this brief preface and the last chapter of my book
(with Bradshaw's "Continental Guide" as my only book of reference),
on my way across the continent to the Urals, and beyond, to the
country of the nomad Kirghizes and the far Altai mountains on the
borders of Tibet; and when readers receive my work I shall probably
have turned my face homewards again, and for weeks be speeding
across the frozen Siberian steppes, wrapped in furs, listening to
the sleigh bells, and wondering how my book has sped. It is full of
theories--I trust not unsupported by facts: some thought out on the
plains of Southern Australia; some during many a solitary sleigh
drive over frozen lakes in North America; some in the great forests
of Central and South America; some on the wide ocean, with the
firmament above and below blending together on the horizon; and
some, again, in the bowels of the earth when seeking for her hidden
riches. The thoughts are those of a lifetime compressed into a
little book; and, like the genie of the Arabian tale, imprisoned in
an urn, they may, when it is opened, grow and magnify, or, on the
contrary, be kicked back into the sea of oblivion.
This much is necessary; not to disarm criticism, but to excuse
myself to those authors whose labours on some of the subjects I
have treated of I may not have mentioned. I have, during my
sojourns in England, worked hard to read up the literature of the
various questions discussed, but I know there must be many
oversights and omissions in referring to what others have done;
especially with regard to continental writers, for I know no
language but my mother-tongue; and their works, excepting where I
have had access to translations, have been sealed books to me.
I am indebted to Mr. H.W. Bates for much assistance, and especially
for undertaking the superintendence of these sheets in their
passage through the press; to Mr. W.C. Hewitson, of Oatlands Park,
I am under many obligations, for taking charge of my entomological
collections, for naming many of my butterflies, and for access to
his magnificent collection of Diurnal Lepidoptera. Mr. Osbert
Salvin and Dr. P.L. Sclater have named for me my collection of
birds; and for much entomological information I am indebted to
Professor Westwood, Mr. F. Smith, and Dr. D. Sharp; whilst, in
botany, Professor D. Oliver, of Kew, has kindly named for me some
of the plants. Through the assistance of these eminent authorities,
I trust that the scientific names scattered throughout the book may
be depended upon as correct.
Nijni Novgorod,
October 9th, 1873.
THE NATURALIST IN NICARAGUA.
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 an alligator.
Their method of catching wild pigs.
At noon on the 15th February 1868, the R.M.S.S. "Solent," in which
I was a passenger, anchored off Greytown, or San Juan del Norte,
the Atlantic port of Nicaragua in Central America. We lay about a
mile from the shore, and saw a low flat coast stretching before us.
It was the delta of the river San Juan, into which flows the
drainage of a great part of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and which is
the outlet for the waters of the great lake of Nicaragua. Its
watershed extends to within a few miles of the Pacific, for here
the isthmus of Central America, as in the great continents to the
north and south of it, sends off by far the largest portion of its
drainage to the Atlantic. In the rainy season the San Juan is a
noble river, and even in the dry months, from March to June, there
is sufficient water coming down from the lake to keep open a fine
harbour, if it were not that about twenty miles above its mouth it
begins to dissipate its force by sending off a large branch called
the Colorado river, and lower down parts with more of its waters by
side channels. Twenty years ago the main body of water ran past
Greytown; there was then a magnificent port, and large ships sailed
up to the town, but for several years past the Colorado branch has
been taking away more and more of its waters, and the port of
Greytown has in consequence silted up. All ships now have to lie
off outside, and a shallow and, in heavy weather, dangerous bar has
to be crossed.* [* Greytown is still the headquarters of Nicaraguan
trade with Europe and Eastern America though the attempts to
improve the harbour by dredging and building jetties have had only
partial success. Its great opportunity passed with the final
abandonment, in favour of the Panama route, of the scheme for an
inter-oceanic canal by way of the lakes, with its eastern terminus
a mile to the north of the town at a spot which was named
"America."]
All we could see from the steamer was the sandy beach on which the
white surf was breaking, a fringe of bushes with a few coco-nut
palms holding up their feathery crowns, and in the distance a low
background of dark foliage. Before we anchored a gun was fired, and
in quick answer to the signal some canoes, paddled by negroes of
the Mosquito coast, here called "Caribs," were seen crossing the
bar, and in a few minutes were alongside. Getting into one of the
canoes with my boxes, I was rapidly paddled towards the shore. When
we reached the bar we were dexterously taken over it--the Caribs
waited just outside until a higher wave than usual came rolling in,
then paddling with all their might we were carried over on its
crest, and found ourselves in the smooth water of the river.
Many lives have been lost on this bar. In 1872 the commander of the
United States surveying expedition and six of his men were drowned
in trying to cross it in heavy weather. Only a few mangled remnants
of their bodies were ever found; for what adds to the horror of an
upset at this place, and perhaps has unnerved many a man at a
critical moment, is that large sharks swarm about the entrance to
the river. We saw the fin of one rising above the surface of the
water as it swam lazily about, and the sailors of the mail steamers
when lying off the port often amuse themselves by catching them
with large hooks baited with pieces of meat. It is probable that it
was at one of the mouths of the San Juan that Columbus, in his
fourth voyage, lost a boat's crew who had been sent for wood and
fresh water, and when returning were swamped on the bar. Columbus
had rounded Cape Gracias a Dios four days before, and had sailed
down the coast with a fair wind and tide, so that he might easily
have reached the San Juan.
Inside the bar we were in smooth water, for but a small stream is
discharged by this channel. On our right was a sandy beach, on our
left great beds of grass growing out of the shoal water--weedy
banks filled up the once spacious harbour, and cattle waded amongst
the long grass, where within the last twenty years a frigate has
lain at anchor. Wading and aquatic birds were abundant in the
marshes, amongst which white cranes and a chocolate-brown jacana,
with lemon-yellow under wing, were the most conspicuous. A large
alligator lazily crawled off a mud-spit into the water, where he
floated, showing only his eyes and the pointed scales of his back
above the surface. The town was now in full view--neat,
white-painted houses, with plume-crowned palms rising amongst and
over them, and we landed at one of several wooden wharves that jut
into the river.
Greytown, though only a small place, is one of the neatest tropical
towns that I have visited. The houses, especially in the business
portion of the town, are well built of wood, and painted white with
brown roofs. Pretty flower gardens surround or front many of them.
Others are nearly hidden amongst palms and bread-fruit, orange,
mango, and other tropical fruit trees. A lovely creeper (Antigonon
leptopus), with festoons of pink and rose-coloured flowers, adorns
some of the gardens. It is called la vegessima, "the beautiful," by
the natives, and I found it afterwards growing wild in the
provinces of Matagalpa and Segovia, where it was one of the great
favourites of the flower-loving Indians. The land at and around
Greytown is perfectly level. The square, the open spaces, and many
of the streets are covered with short grass that makes a beautiful
sward to walk on.
The trade in the town is almost entirely in the hands of foreign
residents, amongst whom Mr. Hollenbeck, a citizen of the United
States, is one of the most enterprising. A considerable import
trade is done with the States and England. Coffee, indigo, hides,
cacao, sugar, logwood, and india-rubber are the principal exports.
I called on Dr. Green, the British Consul, and found him a most
courteous and amiable gentleman, ready to afford protection or
advice to his countrymen, and on very friendly terms with the
native authorities. He has lived for many years in Nicaragua, and
his many charitable kindnesses, and especially the medical
assistance that he renders in all cases of emergency, free of
charge, have made him very popular at Greytown. His beautiful house
and grounds, with a fine avenue of coco-nut trees in full bearing,
form one of the most attractive sights in Greytown. I found Mr.
Paton, the vice-consul, equally obliging, and I am indebted to him
for much information respecting the trade of the port, particularly
with regard to the export of india-rubber, the development of which
trade he was one of the first to encourage.
Behind the town there is a long lagoon, and for several miles back
the land is quite level, and interspersed with lakes and ponds with
much marshy ground. Perfectly level, surrounded by swamps, and
without any system of drainage, either natural or artificial,
excepting such as the sandy soil affords, Greytown might be thought
a very unhealthy site for a town. Notwithstanding, however, its
apparent disadvantages, and that for nine months of the year it is
subject to heavy tropical rains, it is comparatively healthy, and
freer from fever than many places that appear at first sight better
situated. Much is due to the porous sandy soil, but more I believe
to what appears at first sight an element of danger, the perfect
flatness of the ground. Where there are hills there must be
hollows, and in these the air stagnates; whilst here, where the
land is quite level, the trade winds that blow pretty constantly
find their way to every part, and carry off the emanations from the
soil. As a similar instance I may mention the city of Pernambuco,
on the eastern coast of Brazil, containing 80,000 inhabitants. It
is perfectly level like Greytown, surrounded and intersected with
channels of water, above the level of which it only stands a few
feet. The crowded parts of the town are noted for their evil smells
and filth, but, though entirely without drainage, it is celebrated
for its healthiness; whilst a little lower down the coast, the town
of Maceio, situated about sixty feet above the sea, surrounded by
undulating ranges and with a good natural drainage, is much more
unhealthy, fevers being very prevalent. As at Greytown so at
Pernambuco, the trade winds blow with much regularity, and there
are neither hills nor hollows to interfere with the movements of
the air, so that miasmatic exhalations cannot accumulate.
Surrounding the cleared portions around Greytown is a scrubby bush,
amongst which are many guayava trees (Psidium sp.) having a fruit
like a small apple filled with seeds, of a sub-acid flavour, from
which the celebrated guava jelly is made. The fruit itself often
occasions severe fits of indigestion, and many of the natives will
not swallow the small seeds, but only the pulpy portion, which is
said to be harmless. I saw another fruit growing here, a yellow
berry about the size of a cherry, called "Nancito" by the natives.
It is often preserved by them with spirit and eaten like olives.
Beyond the brushwood, which grows where the original forest has
been cut down, there are large trees covered with numerous
epiphytes--Tillandsias, orchids, ferns, and a hundred others, that
make every big tree an aerial garden. Great arums perch on the
forks and send down roots like cords to the ground, whilst lianas
run from tree to tree or hang in loops and folds like the
disordered tackle of a ship.
Green parrots fly over in screaming flocks, or nestle in loving
couples amidst the foliage, toucans hop along the branches, turning
their long, highly-coloured beaks from side to side with an
old-fashioned look, and beautiful tanagers (Ramphocaelus
passerinii) frequent the outskirts of the forest, all velvety
black, excepting a large patch of fiery-red above the tail, which
renders the bird very conspicuous. It is only the male that is thus
coloured, the female being clothed in a sober suit of
greenish-brown. I think this bird is polygamous, for several of the
brown ones were always seen with one of the red-and-black ones. The
bright colours of the male must make it very conspicuous to birds
of prey, and, probably in consequence, it is not nearly so bold as
the obscurely-coloured females. When a clear space in the brushwood
is to be crossed, such as a road, two or three of the females will
fly across first, before the male will venture to do so, and he is
always more careful to get himself concealed amongst the foliage
than his mates.
I walked some distance into the forest along swampy paths cut by
charcoal burners, and saw many beautiful and curious insects.
Amongst the numerous butterflies, large blue Morphos and narrow,
weak-winged Heliconidae, striped and spotted with yellow, red, and
black, were the most conspicuous and most characteristic of
tropical America. Amongst the beetles I found a curious longicorn
(Desmiphora fasciculata), covered with long brown and black hairs,
and closely resembling some of the short, thick, hairy caterpillars
that are common on the bushes. Other closely allied species hide
under fallen branches and logs, but this one clung exposed amongst
the leaves, its antennae concealed against its body, and its
resemblance to a caterpillar so great, that I was at first deceived
by it. It is well known that insectivorous birds will not touch a
hairy caterpillar, and this is only one of numberless instances
where insects, that have some special protection against their
enemies, are closely imitated by others belonging to different
genera, and even different orders. Thus, wasps and stinging ants
have hosts of imitators amongst moths, beetles, and bugs, and I
shall have many curious facts to relate concerning these mimetic
resemblances. To those not acquainted with Mr. Bates's admirable
remarks on mimetic forms, I must explain that we have to speak of
one species imitating another, as if it were a conscious act, only
on account of the poverty of our language. No such idea is
entertained, and it would have been well if some new term had been
adopted to express what is meant. These deceptive resemblances are
supposed, by the advocates of the origin of species by natural
selection, to have been brought about by varieties of one species
somewhat resembling another having special means of protection, and
preserved from their enemies in consequence of that unconscious
imitation. The resemblance, which was perhaps at first only remote,
is supposed to have been increased in the course of ages by the
varieties being protected that more and more closely approached the
species imitated, in form, colour, and movements. These
resemblances are not only between insects of different genera and
orders, but between insects and flowers, leaves, twigs, and bark of
trees, and between insects and inanimate nature. They serve often
for concealment, as when leaves are imitated by leaf-insects and
many butterflies, or for a disguise that enables predatory species
to get within reach of their prey, as in those spiders that
resemble the petals of flowers amongst which they hide.
(PLATE 1. ALLIGATORS IN SAN JUAN RIVER.)
That I may not travel over the same ground twice, I may here
mention that on a subsequent visit to Greytown I rode a few miles
northward along the beach. On my return, I tied up the horse and
walked about a mile over the sand-bank that extends down to the
mouth of the river. A long, deep branch forms a favourite resort
for alligators. At the far end of a sand-spit, near where some low
trees grew, I saw several dark objects lying close to the water on
the shelving banks. They were alligators basking in the sun. As I
approached, most of them crawled into the water. Mr. Hollenbeck had
been down a few days before shooting at them with a rifle, to try
to get a skull of one of the monsters, and I passed a dead one that
he had shot. As I walked up the beach, I saw many that were not
less than fifteen feet in length. One lay motionless, and thinking
it was another dead one, I was walking up to it, and had got within
three yards, when I saw the film over its eye moving; otherwise it
was quite still, and its teeth projecting beyond its lips added to
its intense ugliness and appearance of death. There was no doubt,
however, about the movement of the eye-covers, and I went back a
short distance to look for a stick to throw at it; but when I
turned again, the creature was just disappearing into the water. It
is their habit to lie quite still, and catch animals that come near
them. Whether or not it was waiting until I came within the swoop
of its mighty tail I know not, but I had the feeling that I had
escaped a great danger. It was curious that it should have been so
bold only a few days after Mr. Hollenbeck had been down shooting at
them. There were not less than twenty altogether, and they swam out
into the middle of the inlet and floated about, looking like logs
in the water, excepting that one stretched up its head and gave a
bellow like a bull. They sometimes kill calves and young horses,
and I was told of one that had seized a full-grown horse, but its
struggles being observed, some natives ran down and saved it from
being pulled into the water and drowned. I heard several stories of
people being killed by them, but only one was well authenticated.
This was told me by the head of the excellent Moravian Mission at
Blewfields, who was a witness of the occurrence. He said that one
Sunday, after service at their chapel at Blewfields, several of the
youths went to bathe in the river, which was rather muddy at the
time; the first to plunge in was a boy of twelve years of age, and
he was immediately seized by a large alligator, and carried along
under water. My informant and others followed in a canoe, and
ultimately recovered the body, but life was extinct. The alligator
cannot devour its prey beneath the water, but crawls on land with
it after he has drowned it. They are said to catch wild pigs in the
forest near the river by half burying themselves in the ground. The
pigs come rooting amongst the soil, the alligator never moves until
one gets within its reach, when it seizes it and hurries off to the
river with it. They are often seen in hot weather on logs or
sand-spits lying with their mouths wide open. The natives say they
are catching flies, that numbers are attracted by the saliva of the
mouth, and that when sufficient are collected, the alligator closes
its jaws upon them, but I do not know that any reliance can be
placed on the story. Probably it is an invention to account for the
animals lying with their mouths open; as in all half-civilised
countries I have visited I have found the natives seldom admit they
do not know the reason of anything, but will invent an explanation
rather than acknowledge their ignorance.