The municipality of Subtiaba, in common with the barrios of some of the towns, holds lands, as I have said, in virtue of royal grants, in its corporate capacity. These lands are inalienable, and are leased to the inhabitants at low and almost nominal rates. Every citizen is entitled to a sufficient quantity to enable him to support himself and his family; for which he pays from four rials (half a dollar,) to two dollars a year. This practice seems to have been of aboriginal institution; for under the ancient Indian organization, the _right to live_ was recognized as a fundamental principle in the civil and social system. No man was supposed to be entitled to more land than was necessary to his support; nor was he permitted to hold more than that, to the exclusion or injury of others. In fact, many of the institutions of the Indians in this country were recognized, and have been perpetuated by the Spaniards. Some of the ceremonies of the aboriginal ritual have also been incorporated amongst the rites of the Catholic Church. In many respects it is hard to say whether the conquerors have assimilated most to the Indians, or the Indians to the Spaniards. For, however rude and subverting the first shock of Spanish conquest in America, the subsequent policy of Spain, framed and directed by the famous Council of the Indies, was that of conciliation. In common with the church, it conceded much to the habits and feelings of the aborigines, and to a certain extent conformed to them. The conquest of Nicaragua was effected with no less violence than that of Mexico and Peru; and if we may credit the account of Las Casas, the pious bishop of Chiapa, who visited the country in person, it was both attended and followed by extraordinary cruelties. He charges the enormity chiefly upon Pedro Arias de Avila, Governor of Darien, who sent Cordova to subdue the country, and who himself afterwards became its governor. “The Indians of this province,” he says, “were naturally of a mild and peaceable temper; yet notwithstanding this, the Governor, or rather Tyrant, with the ministers of his cruelty, treated them in the same manner as they did those of the other kingdoms. They committed murders and robberies, more than it is possible for pen to relate. Upon the slightest pretexts, the soldiers massacred the inhabitants without regard to age, sex, or condition. They exacted from them certain measures of corn, and certain numbers of slaves, and if these were not rendered, hesitated not to kill the delinquents. And the country being plain, the people were unable to escape to the mountains as they did elsewhere, and were consequently at the mercy of the Spanish horse. They carried off many thousands as slaves, slaying those who fainted or wearied on the march.