They also make drinking vessels from the calabash; the largest varieties are called “_guacals_,” or “_aguacals_,” and the smaller ones, made from the long or pear-shaped calabash, “_jicaras_.” These last are often tastefully carved upon their exteriors, and are generally used instead of tumblers. It is indispensable that “_tiste_” should be served in “jicaras,” and amongst the people at large they are also used for coffee and chocolate. But as their bottoms are round, little carved stands are made to receive them. The Indians near the city of Nicaragua make similar cups from a variety of cocoa-nut peculiar to that vicinity, which are celebrated throughout their country for their beauty of shape and ornament. They are black, and highly polished, and when mounted with silver, are greatly prized by foreigners. They occasionally find their way to the principal cities of this country and Europe, and into the curiosity shops, where they are often classed as of Chinese or Japanese origin. Sometimes they bear inscriptions, such as “Soy de Manuela Gomez,” I belong to Manuela Gomez, or “Orar á Dios!” Pray to God! The carving is made with instruments of the rudest description, manufactured by the artist himself from the blade of a razor, or from a three-cornered file, rubbed down to a cutting point on the stones which lie around his hut. He uses this improvised graver with a firm and practised hand. The dress of the Indians is exceedingly simple. On ordinary occasions, the women wear only a white or flowered skirt, fastened around the waist, leaving the upper part of the person entirely exposed, or but partially covered by a handkerchief fastened around the neck. In Masaya and some other places, a square piece of cloth, of native manufacture, and of precisely the same style and pattern with that used for the same purpose before the Discovery, supplies the place of the skirt. It is fastened in some incomprehensible way, without the aid of strings or pins, and falls from the hips a little below the knees. The guipil and nagua are however adopted in nearly all the large towns, and are everywhere worn on festival days and Sundays. The men wear a kind of cotton drawers, fastened above the hips, but frequently reaching no lower than the knees. Sandals supplys the place of shoes, but for the most part both sexes go with their feet bare. The taste for ornament is universal; and a rosary, to which is attached a little golden, silver, or ebony cross, is suspended from the necks of male and female, old and young. They are also fond of flowers, and the girls are seldom without some of them entwined amongst the luxuriant locks of their long, black hair, or braided in a chaplet and encircling their foreheads. [Illustration: AN INDIAN GIRL OF SUBTIABA IN HOLIDAY COSTUME.]