The oracion, which never fails to impress the most careless traveller with a feeling of reverential awe, was but one element in this grand combination of the solemn and the sublime. We rode through Chichigalpa without stopping, and pressed rapidly forward, with the design of reaching the estate of San Antonio, belonging to the family of my companion, before the storm should overtake us. Darkness, however, closed speedily around our path, and in ten minutes we were unable to discover our position, except as it was revealed to us by the lightning, which occasionally poured in lurid, blinding sheets, from the summits of the volcanoes, where the storm seemed to pause as if to concentrate its gloomy squadrons, before moving down upon the silent plain, and forth upon the dark Pacific. Fortunately the road was wide, and permitted us to ride rapidly, without any great danger from the projecting branches. We reached San Antonio, eight miles from Chichigalpa, in an hour. The resident on the estate was an uncle of my companion, an amiable and gentlemanly person, who apologized for not coming to the door to receive us. His apology was a valid one. He had led the hunt after the ladrones who had infested the road to Leon, and had received a ball in his hip, in the final encounter with them. We were at once offered a cup of chocolate, which we accepted, in deference not less to our own tastes than to a sensible practice of the country, which is always to take whatever is tendered to you. Thus a caballero is offered a cigar; he at once accepts it with a bow, or “mil gracias,” a thousand thanks, and if he does not care to smoke, puts it in his pocket. This will occur during the same sitting as often as the cigars are passed. With chocolate the case is a little different; it is not easily put in one’s pocket, and is therefore otherwise disposed of. The house at San Antonio, I observed as soon as I entered it, was superior to any of the hacienda residences which had yet fallen under my notice. It was not only well constructed, but conveniently arranged, and painted in the interior. It had been built by a Mr. Bridge, an Englishman, who had established here one of the finest sugar plantations in the country. In common with most of the English residents, he had married a woman of the country, and what with trade, his hacienda, and an English vessel-of-war, always conveniently at hand to enforce any claim which he and his English brethren might find it profitable to set up against the government, had contrived to amass a considerable fortune. Upon his death, however, the estate had been sold to its present proprietors, and although it had fallen somewhat out of repair, it still showed what might be accomplished in this favored land, with a very moderate share of enterprise and industry.