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.
THE site of Juigalpa is beautifully chosen, as is usual with the
old Indian towns. It is on a level dry piece of land, about three
hundred feet above the river. A rocky brook behind the town
supplies the water for drinking and cooking purposes. The large
square or plaza has the church at one end; on the other three sides
are red-tiled adobe houses and stores, with floors of clay or red
bricks. Streets branch off at right angles from the square, and are
crossed by others. The best houses are those nearest the square.
Those on the outskirts are mere thatched hovels, with open sides of
bamboo poles. The house I stayed at was at the corner of one of the
square blocks, and from the angle the view extended in four
directions along the level roads. Each way the prospect was bounded
by hills in the distance. North-east were the white cliffs of the
Amerrique range, mantled with dark wood. The intervening country
could not be seen, and only a small portion of the range itself;
framed in, as it were, by the sides of the street. It looked close
at hand, like a piece of artificial rockery, or the grey walls of a
castle covered with ivy. The range to the south-west is several
miles distant; and is called San Miguelito by the Spaniards, but I
could not learn its Indian name.
Our host was a musician, and his wife attended to the guests. As
usual, a number of relations lived with them, including the mother
of our hostess and two of her brothers. It was a very fair sample
of a family amongst what may be called the middle class in
Nicaragua. The master of the house plays occasionally in a band at
dances and festas, and holds a respectable position at Juigalpa,
where the highest families keep stores and shops.
The only work is done by the females--the men keep up their dignity
by lounging about all day, or lolling in a hammock, all wearied
with their slothfulness, and looking discontented and unhappy. One
brother told me he was a carpenter, the other a shoemaker, but that
there was nothing to do in Juigalpa. I suggested that they should
go to Libertad, where there was plenty of work. They said there was
too much rain there. As long as their brother-in-law will allow
them, they will remain lounging about his house; and that will
probably be as long as he has one, for I noticed that the wealthier
Nicaraguans are rather proud of having a lot of relations hanging
about and dependent on them. Now and then they do little spells of
work--get in the cows or doctor one that is sick--but I doubt if
any of them average more than half an hour's work per day. Even
this may be an equivalent for their board, which does not cost
much, being only a few tortillas and beans.
To this have the descendants of the Spanish conquerors come
throughout the length and breadth of the land. With perennial
summer and a fertile soil they might drink the waters of abundance,
but the bands of indolence have wound round them generation after
generation, and now they are so bound up in the drowsy folds of
slothfulness that they cannot break their silken fetters. Not a
green vegetable, not a fruit, can you buy at Juigalpa. Beef, or a
fowl--brown beans, rice, and tortillas--form the only fare. When
Mexico becomes one of the United States, all Central America will
soon follow. Railways will be pushed from the north into the
tropics, and a constant stream of immigration will change the face
of the country, and fill it with farms and gardens, orange groves,
and coffee, sugar, cacao, and indigo plantations. No progress need
be expected from the present inhabitants.
Having finished our business in Juigalpa, we arranged to start on
our return early the next morning, Velasquez going round by Acoyapo
whilst Rito accompanied me to the mines. I had a fowl cooked
overnight to take with us, and set off at six o'clock. I shall make
some remarks on the road on points not touched on in my account of
the journey out. After leaving Juigalpa, we descended to the river
by a rocky and steep path, crossed it, and then passed over
alluvial-like plains intersected by a few nearly dry river beds, to
the foot of the south-western side of the Amerrique hills, then
gradually ascended the range that separates the Juigalpa district
from that of Libertad. The ground was gravelly and dry, with stony
hillocks covered with low trees and bushes. After ascending about a
thousand feet, the ground became much moister, and we reached an
Indian hut on the side of the range, where a few bananas and a
little maize was grown. Indian women, naked to the waist, were, as
usual, bruising maize, this being their employment from morning to
night, whilst the men were sitting about idle. Some mangy-looking
dogs set up a loud barking as we approached. To one of them clung a
young spider-monkey. A number of parrots also gave evidence of the
great fondness the Indians have for animal pets. There is scarcely
a house where some bird or beast is not kept; and the Indian women
are very clever in taming birds, probably by their constant
kindness and gentleness to them, and by feeding them out of their
mouths and fondling them. From near here we had a fine view, and
saw that we had come up the side of a wide valley, bounded on the
right by the Amerrique range, on the left by high rounded grassy
hills, on one of which we could make out the cattle hacienda of La
Puerta. Lines of trees and bamboo thickets marked the course of
numerous brooks that joined lower down and formed the small rivers
we had crossed. Looking down the valley it opened out into a wide
plain, with here and there sharp-topped conical hills, such as
abound in Central America, where they appear to have been taken as
landmarks by the Indians, as many of the old roads lead past them.
Beyond the plain in the grey distance were the waters of the lake
and the peaks of Ometepec and Madera.
We had now to ascend the side of a ravine, the road, or rather
path, being through a bamboo thicket for about a mile, the bamboos
touching our knees on either side and arching close overhead, so
that we had to lie on the mules' necks a great part of the way.
Some portions of the road were dangerously steep and rocky; but as
fully a league in distance is saved by taking this by-path, instead
of the main road by way of La Puerta, I generally preferred
travelling by it, especially as I often took rare and new beetles
on the bushes. I usually, when travelling, carried a net fixed to a
short stick, and caught the insects as I passed along, off the
leaves, without stopping; so abundant were they, that it was very
rare for me to take the shortest journey without finding some new
species to add to my collection. On this journey I did not,
however, take many insects, as the latter half of the year 1872,
for some reason or other, was a very unfavourable season for them.*
[* It is curious that Mr. W.H. Hudson should have selected this
same summer of 1872-73 as affording on the pampas of South America
an exceptionally good example of one of those "waves of life" in
which there is a sudden and inordinate increase in many forms of
animal life. See "The Naturalist in La Plata" chapter 3.] The
scarcity of beetles was very remarkable. The wet season set in a
little earlier than usual, but I do not think that this caused the
dearth of insects as at Juigalpa, where there had been scarcely any
rain, there were very few compared with the two former years. The
year before, when the season was nearly as wet, beetles, especially
longicorns, had been very abundant; and the first half of 1872 had
not been characterised by any scarcity of them. Some of the fine
longicorns that appear in April were numerous. No less than five
specimens of a large and beautiful one (Deliathis nivea, Bates),
white, with black spots, that we considered one of our greatest
rarities, were taken in that month. It was not until the end of May
that the great scarcity of beetles, compared with their abundance
in former years, became apparent. I think all classes of beetles
had suffered. Many fine lamellicorns, that were generally numerous,
were not seen at all; neither were many species of longicorns,
usually common. A fig-tree that I had growing in my garden had been
much injured by a longicorn (Taeniotes scalaris) in 1870 and 1871,
but was not touched in 1872.
Butterflies were also scarce, but it was the second season that
they had been so. Some ants were affected; in others, such as the
leaf-cutter, I noted no perceptible diminution in number. A little
ant (Pheidole sp.) that used to swarm on a passion flower which
grew over the house, attending on the honey glands, and scale
insects, disappeared altogether; and another species (Hypoclinea
sp.) that it used to drive away took its place. A small stinging
black ant (Solenopsis sp.), that was a great plague in the houses,
was also fortunately scarce. In the beginning of June nearly all
the white ants or termites ("Comiens" of the Nicaraguans) died. In
some parts of my house they lay in little heaps, just as they
dropped from the nests above in the roof, and most of the nests
were entirely depopulated. I examined some of the dead termites
with a magnifier, but could detect no difference in them, excepting
that they seemed a little swollen.
That some epidemic prevailed amongst the insects there can be no
doubt; and it is curious that it should have attacked so many
different species and classes. I am not sure that it was confined
to the insects, for there was also a great mortality amongst the
fowls, many dying from inflammation of the crop, and two large
parrots fell victims to the same disease. This disease amongst the
birds may not, however, have been connected in any way with that
amongst the insects. I recollect that in 1865 there was a somewhat
similar mortality amongst the wasps in North Wales. In the autumn
of the preceding year they had been exceedingly abundant, and very
destructive to the fruit. In the next spring, numerous females that
had hibernated commenced making their paper nests, and I
anticipated a still greater plague of wasps in the autumn than we
had had the year before; but some epidemic carried off nearly all
the females before they finished building their nests, and in the
autumn scarcely a wasp was to be seen. I saw also in the Natural
History magazines notices of their scarcity in all parts of
England.
The great mortality amongst the insects of Chontales in 1872 has
some bearing on the origin of species, for in times of such great
epidemics we may suspect that the gradations that connect extreme
forms of the same species may become extinct. Darwin has shown how
very slight differences in the colour of the skin and hair are
sometimes correlated with great immunity from certain diseases, and
from the action of some vegetable poisons, and the attacks of
certain parasites.* (* "Descent of Man" volume 1 page 242; and
"Animals and Plants under Domestication" volume 2 pages 227-230. I
have taken the examples given from the same author.) Any varieties
of species of insects that could withstand better than others these
great and probably periodical epidemics, would certainly obtain a
great advantage over those not so protected; and thus the survival
of one form, and the extinction of another, might be brought about.
We see two species of the same genus, as in many insects, differing
but little from each other, yet quite distinct, and we ask why, if
these have descended from one parent form, do not the innumerable
gradations that must have connected them exist also? There is but
one answer; we are ignorant what characters are of essential value
to each species; we do not know why white terriers are more subject
than darker-coloured ones to the attacks of the fatal distemper;
why yellow-fleshed peaches in America suffer more from diseases
than the white-fleshed varieties; why white chickens are most
liable to the gapes; or why the caterpillars of silkworms, which
produce white cocoons, are not attacked by fungus so much as those
that produce yellow cocoons? Yet in all these cases, and many
others, it has been shown that immunity from disease is correlated
with some slight difference in colour or structure, but as to the
cause of that immunity we are entirely ignorant.
At last we reached the summit of the range, which is probably not
less than three thousand feet above the sea, and entered on the
district of Libertad. Rounded boggy hills covered with grass, sedgy
plants, and stunted trees replaced the dry gravelly soil of the
Juigalpa district. The low trees bore innumerable epiphytal plants
on their trunks and boughs. Many of these are species of
Tillandsia, which sit perched up on the small branches like birds.
They have sheathing leaves that hold at their base a supply of
water that must be very useful to them in the dry season. Insects
get drowned in this water, and the plants may derive some
nourishment from their decomposing bodies, but I believe the
principal object is to obtain a supply of moisture, as the roots of
the plants do not hang down to the ground, like those of many other
epiphytes in the tropics, nor are they provided with bulbs like the
orchids. Some plants that hold liquids in cup-shaped leaves are
simply insect traps, many of them growing in bogs, where the supply
of moisture is perennial and constant. Such is the Indian-cup
(Sarracenia) that grows in the bogs of Canada, and the Californian
pitcher-plant (Darlingtonia californica), which also grows in bogs,
and is such an excellent fly-trap, that there is generally a layer
of from two to five inches of decomposing insects lying at the
bottom of the cup.* (* See "Nature" volume 3 pages 159 and 167.)
The different species of Drosera, or sun-dews, possess quite a
different apparatus for catching insects, and they also live in
bogs, which supports the inference that plants growing in such
situations have some especial need to obtain nutriment, which they
cannot draw from the decaying vegetation on which they live.
Possibly they obtain the salts of potash in this way. I did not
notice any provision in the leaves of the Bromeliaceous epiphytes
of Chontales to ensure the capture of insects, but often saw their
dead bodies in the water held at the base of the leaves, and any
that came to drink would be very liable to slip into the water from
off the nearly perpendicular side of the leaf and be drowned. It is
not impossible that the small supply of mineral salts required for
the organisation of these plants that do not draw any nutriment
from the earth may be obtained from dead insects, but, as I have
already stated, I believe that the principal object is to lay up a
store of water to carry them safely through the dry season.
Incidentally, the further advantage has been gained that insects
fall into the receptacles of water and are drowned, affording in
their decomposition nourishment to the plants.
Our road now lay over the damp grassy hills of the Libertad
district. It edged away from the Amerrique range on our right. To
our left, about three miles distant, rose the dark sinuous line of
the great forest of the Atlantic slope. Only a fringe of
dark-foliaged trees in the foreground was visible, the higher
ground behind was shrouded in a sombre pall of thick clouds that
never lifted, but seemed to cover a gloomy and mysterious country
beyond. Though I had dived into the recesses of these mountains
again and again, and knew that they were covered with beautiful
vegetation and full of animal life, yet the sight of that
leaden-coloured barrier of cloud resting on the forest tops, whilst
the savannahs were bathed in sunshine, ever raised in my mind vague
sensations of the unknown and the unfathomable. Our course was
nearly parallel to this gloomy forest, but we gradually approached
it. The line that separates it from the grassy savannahs is sinuous
and irregular. In some places a dark promontory of trees juts out
into the savannahs, in others a green grassy hill is seen almost
surrounded by forest. When I first came to the country, I was much
puzzled to understand why the forest should end just where it did.
It is not because of any change in the nature of the soil or
bedrock. It cannot be for lack of moisture, for around Libertad it
rains for at least six months out of the twelve. The surface of the
ground is not level on the savannahs, but consists of hill and
dale, just as in the forest. Altogether the conditions seemed to be
exactly the same, and it appeared a difficult matter to account for
the fact that the forest should end at an irregular but definite
line, and that at that boundary grassy savannahs should commence.
After seeing the changes that were wrought during the four and a
half years that I was in the country, I have been led to the
conclusion that the forest formerly extended much further towards
the Pacific, and has been beaten back principally by the agency of
man. The ancient Indians of Nicaragua were an agricultural race,
their principal food then, as now, being maize; and in all the
ancient graves, the stone for grinding corn is found placed there,
as the one thing that was considered indispensable. They cut down
patches of the forest and burnt it to plant their corn, as all
along the edge of it they do still. The first time the forest is
cut down, and the ground planted, the soil contains seeds of the
forest trees, which, after the corn is gathered, spring up and
regain possession of the ground, so that in twenty years, if such a
spot is left alone, it will scarcely differ from the surrounding
untouched forest. But it does not remain unmolested. After two or
three years it is cut down again and a great change takes place.
The soil does not now contain seeds of forest trees, and in their
stead a great variety of weedy-looking shrubs, only found where the
land has been cultivated, spring up. Grass, too, begins to get a
hold on the ground; if it prevails, the Indian, or Mestizo, does
not attempt to grow corn there again, as he knows the grass will
spoil it, and he is too indolent to weed it out. Often, however,
the brushwood has been cut down and burnt, and fresh crops of corn
grown several times before the grass has gained such an advantage
that the cultivator gives up the attempt to plant maize. There is
then a struggle between the weedy shrubs and the grass. The
leaf-cutting ants come to the aid of the latter. Grass they will
not touch, excepting to clear it away from their paths. The thick
forest they do not like, possibly because beneath its shade the
ground is kept too damp for their fungus beds. But along the edge
of the forest, by the sides of roads through it, that let in the
air and sunshine, and in clearings, they abound. They are
especially fond of the leaves of young trees, many of which are
destroyed by them. Should the brushwood ultimately prevail, and
cover the ground, the Indian or Mestizo comes again after a few
years, cuts it down, and replants it with maize. But as most of his
old clearings get covered with grass, he is continually encroaching
on the edge of the forest, beating it back gradually, but surely,
towards the north-east. As this process has probably been going on
for thousands of years, I believe that the edge of the forest is
several miles nearer the Atlantic than it was originally.
In this way many acres in the neighbourhood of Pital were taken
from the forest, and added to the grass-lands, whilst I was in the
country. The brushwood-land does not yield such good crops as the
virgin forest, but it is nearer to the huts of the cultivators, who
live out on the savannahs, so that whenever the weedy shrubs gain
possession of a spot sufficiently large for a clearing, and choke
off the grass, these places are again cut down and burnt, and thus
the forest is never allowed to establish outposts, or advanced
stations, in the disputed ground. What would be the result if man
were withdrawn from the scene, I do not know, but I believe that
the forest would slowly, but surely, regain the ground that it has
lost through long centuries. The thickets and dense brushwood that
always spring up along the edge of the forest, and consist of many
shrubs that the leaf-cutting ants do not touch, would gradually
spread, and beat back the grass. In their shade and shelter, seeds
from the forest would vegetate and grow, and thus, I think, very
slowly, inch by inch, the forest would regain its long-lost
territory, and gradually extend its limits towards the south-west,
until it reached its old boundaries, where a change in the physical
character of the land, or in the amount of moisture precipitated,
would stay its further progress. It is far more likely, however,
that man will drive back the forest to the very Atlantic than that
he will quit the scene.
After passing the Indian graves, about a league from Libertad, we
turned off to the right, by a path that led directly to the Mico,
without going through the town. After crossing several rounded
grassy hills, we reached the river, and found it swollen with
recent rains, but fordable. Sometimes travellers are detained
several days, unable to cross, and I was always glad when,
returning to the mines, I had put it behind me. Now and then a
traveller is drowned when attempting to cross the swollen river,
but these accidents are rare, as it is well known, by certain rocks
being covered, when it is unfordable. If carried away, a traveller
has little chance to save his life, as just below the crossing the
river is rapid and the banks precipitous. I heard of one man who
had had a very narrow escape. He was trying to cross on mule-back,
but his beast lost its footing, rolled over, and was rapidly washed
away. The poor man was carried into the roaring rapids, and would
soon have been drowned, but a herdsman on the bank, who was looking
for cattle, threw his lasso cleverly over the drowning traveller,
and dragged him on shore. Some of the "vacqueros," as the herdsmen
are called, are wonderfully adroit in throwing the lasso; when
riding at full speed, they throw it over the horns of the cattle,
or the heads of the horses, and can hold the strongest if sideways
on. But I have seen some old bulls that knew how to get loose; they
would run straight away from the vacquero in places where he could
not ride round them, and getting a straight pull on the lasso,
would break it, or draw it out of his hands. There are no horses or
mules, and very few cattle, however, that know how to do this, I
was told by the herdsmen.
After crossing the river, we soon reached Pital, where I had a cup
of tea and got a fresh mule. We now turned nearly at right angles
to our former course, and struck into the dark forest, the road
through which I have already described. It was very wet and muddy.
In some places, although it was only the commencement of the wet
season, the mules sank above their knees. On this occasion, as on
many others, I had often to notice how well the mule remembered
places where in some former year it had avoided a particularly bad
part by making a detour. I was riding a mule that had tender feet,
having just recovered from the bite of a spider, that had
occasioned the loss of one of its hoofs, and when it came near to a
place where it could escape the deep mud by going over a stony part
it would slacken its pace and look first at the mud, then at the
stones, evidently balancing in its mind which was the lesser evil.
Sometimes, too, when it came to a very bad place, which was better
at the sides, I left it to itself, and it would be so undecided
which side was the best, that making towards one it would look
towards the other, and end by getting into the worst of the mud. It
was just like many men who cannot decide which of two courses to
take, and end by a middle one, which is worse than either. And just
as in men, so in mules, there is every variety of disposition and
ability. Some are easily led, others most obstinate and headstrong;
some wise and prudent, others foolish and rash. The memory of
localities is much stronger in horses and mules than in man. When
travelling along a road that they have been over only once, and
that some years before, where there are numerous branch roads and
turnings, they will never make a mistake, even in the dark; and I
have often, at night, when I could not make out the road myself,
left them to their own guidance, and they have taken me safely to
my destination. Only once was I misled, and that through the too
good memory of my mule. Many years before it had been taken to a
pasture of good grass, and recollecting this, it took me several
miles out of my road towards its old feeding-ground, causing me to
be benighted in consequence.
I reached the mines at nine o'clock, and found that during my
absence it had been raining almost continuously, although at
Juigalpa there had been only a few slight showers.