Page:Nicaraguan Antiquities (1886).djvu/18

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Pacific, were dug out. In a valley, or rather ravine (Stat. 4), near Alta Gracia, where a heap of pretty large, partly cut stones seemed to indicate the site of a large building, several fragments of pottery were found together with a cup of earthen ware, and a well preserved little sitting image of painted terra cotta, pretty similar to that figured by Bransford, 1. c, p. 59. At a height of nearly 350 m. above the level of the lake on the west side of the majestically beautiful volcanic cone (Stat. 5), while digging in a rather extensive stone-mound, a very pretty, vaulted earthen urn with lid, painted in three coulours, was found, and, besides, a great many fragments of pottery. I made excavations also at six other places in Ometepec, for inst. in the isthmus between Ometepec and Madera, but without any results worthy of record.

I stayed in this charming double-island for more than a month, roving through it on horse-back and on foot in all directions, ascending the volcano, rowing and sailing over the delightful lagoons and bays, that border its shores, and amongst which I shall late forget that very paradise for the hunter, Laguna de Santa Rosa and Charco Verde. Having left Ometepec about the beginning of February, my next visit was to «tierra firme», where I made some easily executed, but not very successful excavations, immediately to the north of San Jorge. From Departemento de Rivas' I sailed to Las Isletas, also called Los Corales, an extremely beautiful little archipelago, just southwards of Granada. The whole group owets its existence to the volcano Mombacho, which towers high above it, the islands consisting exclusively of the remains of one or more eruptions of Mombacho. But the vegetation here is so powerful and luxuriant, that it has changed those piles of black stones into smiling islands, which the traveller is never tired of admiring. Only on the outside of the