There man reaps without sowing, and the harvest never fails. He has but to stretch forth his hand and feast on dainties such as seldom grace the tables of kings; the citron, the lemon, the orange (with often 10,000 on a single tree), the banana, the mango, the papaya, the cocoa, the tamarind, the milk-tree, the butter tree, and a spontaneous perennial growth of coffee, cacao, sugar, tobacco, and everything that grows or can be grown in any tropical or temperate clime. Half the year he may sling his hammock beneath the shady trees. In the rainy season a few stakes and a thatch of palm leaves afford him ample shelter. Medicinal trees and herbs abound everywhere, for the relief of the few ills to which his flesh is heir. Birds of gayest plumage, flowers of loveliest hue, greet his eyes on every side. In the noble forests, where the pine and the palm grow beside the ceiba, the mimosa, and the stately cactus, the splendours of the rainbow are rivalled in the plumage of parrots, macaws, humming-birds, toucans, and the beautiful winged creature that bears the imperial name of Montezuma. It is the latest and the fairest land of earth, and the heavenly radiance of youth is on its face. So young, that the fires of nature's workshop have not yet died out. The volcano, towering thousands of feet towards heaven, still smoulders or flames, and the earth is shaken ever and anon by the engines of the Titans. Ometepe the glorious lifts his cloud-capped head five thousand feet out of the placid bosom of Lake Nicaragua; Madera, his neighbour, is but eight hundred feet less lofty. Momotombo and Mombacho and El Viejo, and the twin peaks which watch the mouth of Fonseca Bay, are flaming swords guarding the Eden to which the serpent has come, as of old, with a human tongue.