trees are long, leafless, rope-like vines, straignt as a
stretched line, or twisted and coiled, extending from
tree to tree in graceful festoons. The sky seems lit-
erally a-thrill with birds of bright plumage and sweet
song, of endless colors and species — conspicuous among
which is the bright, crimson muca, with its long, fan-
feathers tipped in black.
At Castillo rapid there is a town called Castillo, of about one hundred inhabitants, and standing on a hill near by an old ruined fort, which in its palmy days presented formidable opposition to unfriendly ascents of the river. Though built principally of brick and cement, there are sections of it in stone. In shape it is quadrangular, three stories, or sections, in height, with a broad flat top, and parapet six feet high, with embrasures on either side. Without, and also within the first section, are deep moats, and in the interior are dark vaults connected by narrow passages. There were several hotels at Castdlo, and passengers some- times rested there for the night.
Approaching the lakes, the flora dwindles to low bushy palms and short coarse grass. At San Carlos, at the outlet of Lake Nicaragua, there is a dilapidated fort, similar to Fort Castillo, though less formidable. Between the fortress and the lake is a town of about twenty-five small thatched houses.
Lake Nicaragua presents a scene of rare sublimity. The oblong inland sea, a hundred miles and more in length by sixty miles in width, its waters isle-dotted and crystalline, basks under a tropical sky of livid purple tone, and from its swelling shores, hills and mountains lift themselves into mists thickened by smoking volcanic peaks. Rising from the very midst of the water is the slumbering volcano Ometepe, with its twin brother Madera, whose cone-shaped crests are four and five thousand feet above the surface of the lake, and whose circumference at ihe base is nearly forty miles. On its western shore is Virgin bay, a dirty little tov/n with a dozen dirty little tav-
