informed us that the rebel chief had once been imprisoned in Granada, and owed it a special spite. He had sworn to burn the city, and the doctor was of opinion that he would keep his word. He thought we might, any night, have an attack; but felt confident that foreigners, keeping out of the way, would sustain no injury. At any rate, if the worst came to the worst, we could all collect together, under the American flag, and between revolvers, rifles, and what not new invention, make a respectable fight against the poorly armed assailants. And by way of encouragement, the doctor gave us an animated account of a party of foreigners, but five or six in number, who some years before had sustained a siege of three days, in this very city, and kept their assailants at bay, until they were dispersed by the troops of the government. I had arranged that afternoon to ride to the cacao estates called the “Malaccas,” distant about five miles from Granada; and although the city was full of stories about the “facciosos” who infested the country, I persisted in my determination to go. My companions thought they could entertain themselves very well in the city; so I armed Ben, and with an English creole merchant resident here, who kindly furnished horses, started for the Malaccas. We had already discovered that the horses of Nicaragua were of the Arabian stock; and although like the Arab horses small, they were compact, fleet, good tempered, spirited, and of excellent bottom. As all travelling here is performed on horseback or on mules, great care is used in breaking and training saddle beasts, while their price depends less upon their beauty than upon their training. They are all taught a rapid but exceedingly easy gait, between trotting and pacing, called the _paso-trote_. A well-trained horse strikes at once into this gait, and keeps it steadily from morning to night. I have ridden them from twenty to forty miles at a heat, without once breaking the pace, and with less fatigue than would be occasioned in riding the best saddle-horses in the United States for a distance of five miles. At this gait the horse gets over the level roads of Nicaragua, at from six to eight miles the hour. The same animal is frequently taught several gaits, and may be forced into one or the other by a peculiar pressure on the bit, which is very different from those used in the United States, and gives the most perfect control of the animal to the rider. Besides the _paso-trote_, which may be called the ordinary gait, the horses are taught an easy amble, the _paso-llano_, which is very rapid, and yet so gentle that, as observed by a recent Peruvian traveller, the rider may carry a cup of water in his hand without spilling a drop, while going at the rate of six miles an hour. There are also other gaits taught to different horses, which have each their advocates; among them the _paso-portante_, in which the horse raises the fore and hind foot of