While we were occupied with the novel and beautiful scenery of the lake, our men, collected around the foot of the mast, were engaged in a low but earnest discussion, which we soon discovered related to politics, and especially to the attempted revolution of which we had heard so much. They made frequent use of the terms “Timbucos” and “Calandracas,” which were about as significant to us as “Coons” and “Locofocos” probably were to strangers on our own shores, during certain presidential elections. We had abstained from asking questions about politics, not from want of interest, but from motives of policy; but took occasion to hear all that might be said upon the subject. We had thus contrived to get some imperfect notions of the partisan divisions of the country; the bases of which, though very trivial to the impartial traveller, were probably quite as important in fact as those which we had seen sustained with so much vehemence and virulence at home. It was easy to discover that our crew were unanimously “Timbucos,” or of the government party, while the “Calandracas” were the disaffected portion of the people. They, however, appeared to have but a sectional importance, and were far from numerous, except in the southern departments of the Republic. The robber-chief, Somoza, had turned this partisan feeling to some account by professing to be its champion, and having collected a few hundred reckless and ignorant men around him, made a sudden and successful attack on Rivas, or Nicaragua, which was defended by a small garrison of only forty soldiers. In the attack he burned a number of houses, and committed some cruel murders, besides pillaging and robbing on every hand. According to the accounts which had reached us, however, the entire city had been burned, and the inhabitants slaughtered indiscriminately and without mercy. These stories, as well as those relating to the number of his forces, proved, in the end, to be gross exaggerations,—as the reader will discover in due course.