Most small communities have in their midst one or two resident notabilities, who are regarded something in the light of oracles, and to whom general deference is acceded. San Juan is not an exception; and Captain Samuel Shepherd is at once, _per se_, a personage so characteristic and so associated and identified with the place, that no description of San Juan would be complete in which he failed to be a prominent feature. His residence is the most pretentious edifice in San Juan; it is, in fact, the architectural wonder of the place, inasmuch as it is not only a framed building, but has a shingled roof and glazed windows. It was built by Captain Shepherd, in his more prosperous days, when he was the principal trader on the coast from Boca del Toro to Yucatan, and before age had crippled his energies, and reverses dissipated his fortune. He is now old and nearly blind, but hale, cheerful, intelligent, and communicative, and capable of giving more information relative to the coast than any man living. He seldom leaves his hammock, which is swung in the principal room of his house, and in which he receives all his visitors. We called upon him, on the second day after our arrival, and were received with every demonstration of respect. The captain was never more eloquent, and although he had always been classed as an Englishman, yet he said he was born in the United States, and meant to claim its protection as a citizen. He had been appointed “Governor of the Port,” or some such nominal and trumpery office, by the British Consul, by way of conciliation, but he was not to be taken in so easily; and as for the orders which had been promulgated in his name, concerning the pigs and chickens, he protested it was altogether the consul’s doings; he had shut up neither the one nor the other, and regarded these animals quite as good citizens as the rest; the consul might shoot any of them, (pigs or citizens,) if he dared. And as for the pretended English protectorate, and the authority assumed under it, the one was a fraud and the other an imposition; for whatever title the Mosquito Indians ever possessed, had been formally transferred and secured to him. And the captain here produced, from a very closely locked and substantial case, a variety of parchment grants and conveyances, bearing the “his ＋ mark” of “Robert Charles Frederick,” father of the little Sambo boy now wearing the Mosquitian purple, in which it was duly set forth and attested that “upon the 24th of January, 1839, in consideration of the true and laudable services rendered to us by Samuel Shepherd, etc., we, Robert Charles Frederick, King of the Mosquito nation, of our special grace, and of our certain knowledge and free motion, have given and granted, and by these presents, sealed with our seal, do give and grant unto the said Samuel Shepherd, etc., all that tract of land lying between Blewfields River on the north, and San