r's level, overgrown with reeds,
mangroves, and a low species of palm-tree, the latter forming extensive
thickets in the swamps. After a distance of fourteen or fifteen miles
the land gradually becomes a little higher, and steep embankments of a
brown or reddish clay rise to some ten or twenty feet above the water.
The low palm thickets of the swampy region disappear, and a vegetation
of splendid trees, mostly exogenous, overhung with blooming vines, takes
their place. Flowery garlands, swung from branch to branch, hang over
the stream, while now and then the slender shaft of one of the tallest
species of the palm tribe wafts its little crown of feathery leaves high
over the gorgeous masses of the heavier foliage.

Eight or ten miles higher up the region of the _randales_, or rapids,
begins. Here the river, locked in between wooded hills, presents a new
character of scenery. The trees, covering the hill-sides with an almost
impenetrable forest, exhibit an extraordinary variety of forms in
striking contrast. The most interesting situation in this region is that
of the _Castillo Viejo_. Here, where the river foams over a bed of
rocks, stands the old Spanish castle of _Don Juan_. Since 1780 it has
remained a ruin, though Nicaragua has always kept a few soldiers here,
occupying a shed at the foot of the hill on which the remains of the
fort are seen. In the civil wars of the last years this place has
repeatedly been occupied and evacuated by the contending powers.

Among the rapids, that of the Castillo Viejo is the only one that forms
a real impediment in the navigation of the river. With the necessary
caution canoes may descend, and I myself have passed over it on my way
back to the coast in a bongo carrying forty passengers; upward, however,
all boats must be towed, after having been unloaded....

Above the region of the rapids the river is almost stagnant, and
the designation of the _aguas muertas_, or dead waters, is not
inappropriately applied to it. It is a deep and still water, full
of fish, with low and swampy banks, on which the palm thickets of
the delta reappear.

Beyond this latter portion of the river the Lake of Nicaragua opens to
the view. On the little promontory formed by the lake and the inlet of
the river the custom-house of Nicaragua, designated by the high-sounding
name of the "fort of San Carlos," has been established. There are a few
houses at this place, and a small military force is kept up to p