No means exist whereby its trade can be accurately estimated. With the exception of some direct trade with the city of Rivas or Nicaragua, situated on the lake forty-five miles below Granada, the entire commerce with San Juan is conducted through this city. Here are owned nearly all the boats used in the navigation of the lake and river, and here also reside the principal part of the “marineros,” or men employed in managing them. There are several wholesale mercantile houses, trading directly with New York, London, Liverpool, some of the French, Spanish, and Italian ports, and Jamaica. The principal supplies of the merchants have, for a number of years, been obtained from the island last named, where their credit is said to be better than that of the traders from any of the other Spanish States. The transactions are often, if not generally, cash, or what is equivalent, remittances in bullion, indigo, or other staples of high value and little bulk. Advances are often made, however, on prospective crops, which seldom fail. Iron, copper, and China wares, silks, calicoes, cottons, etc., are the principal imports; while, as I have already said, the exports consist of indigo, bullion, hides, Brazil wood, and coffee. As it is almost impossible to limit the production of tropical staples in Nicaragua, such as indigo, coffee, cacao, cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, not to mention hides, dye-woods, and medicines, the wealth and importance of Granada must go on increasing, as the country becomes developed by the introduction of enterprise and capital, both of which are rapidly taking that direction. This remark will hold true, even though the prospective canal, or the projected route of transit between the oceans, should not pass through or near it; for it is really the only eligible position for a large town on the south or western shore of the lake, and is, and must ever remain, nearer than all others to the great centres of population and production. Several American hotels and mercantile houses are already established there, and it is becoming better known than any other city in all Central America. A small steamer now plies between it and San Carlos, at the outlet of the lake. A short wharf or two alone are wanted to facilitate landing, and secure vessels from the waves of the lake, which sometimes roll in here with almost the force and majesty of those of the ocean.