The people of Nicaragua are generally scrupulously clean in their persons, except when travelling or ill, and then the touch of water is prohibited. But beyond the grand sala, and the apartments appropriated to visitors, their houses are frequently very far from being patterns of neatness. I have seen sleeping apartments, occupied by families of the first respectability, which certainly had not been swept for weeks, not to say months. Yet the beds in these rooms were clean and neat—the more so perhaps from the contrast. These remarks are less applicable to Granada than Leon, for in the former city the example of the foreign residents has worked a partial reformation amongst the native housekeepers. The Spanish people, in all parts of the world, are temperate in their habits. Those of Nicaragua in this respect do no discredit to their progenitors. Strong liquors are little used except amongst the lower orders of the population; and even here excess is less common than with us. The sale of brandy and the “aguardiente,” or native rum, is a government monopoly, and is confined to the “estancos,” or licensed establishments, where it pays a high duty to the State. I do not remember to have seen a single respectable citizen drunk during the whole of my residence in the country. Yet a bottle of “cogniac” is usually offered to the stranger, whenever he pays a visit. A considerable quantity of sweet or Spanish wines, are used in the principal towns, but the lighter French wines have the largest consumption. There is a delicious kind of _liqueur_ made from the Muscatel grape, called “Italia,” or “Pisco,” which is brought from Peru. It is, however, produced in small quantities, upon, I believe, a single estate, and is consequently introduced in Nicaragua to a very limited extent. Should it ever become generally known to the people of the United States, it would, no doubt, create for itself a large demand. But whether it can be produced in sufficient quantities to supply a considerable market, is a point upon which I am ignorant. [Illustration: ANCIENT METLATL, OR GRINDING STONE.]