The great annual holiday of the people is known as _El Paseo al Mar_, (the Excursion to the Sea), but is often alluded to as the festival of St. Venus, because of the excesses that are committed there by the people, who are most discreet when at home. But as nobody cares what occurs at the carnivals at Rome, so can a party of fashionable Nicaraguans be allowed liberties at their watering-places. In the latter part of March, when the dry season is far advanced and everything is buried in dust, after the harvests are gathered and the crops are sold and carried to Corinto, the seaport, everybody feels like taking a little relaxation. Preparations are made long in advance, but as soon as the March moon comes carts are packed with a little furniture and a good many trunks, and the exodus begins. It is only about fifteen miles to the beach, but the journey occasions as much planning and preparation, and is anticipated with as much pleasure, as a tour through Europe. Everybody goes, the peon as well as the hidalgo, and for two weeks during the full moon the city is deserted. There are no hotels, but each family takes a tent or builds a hut of bamboo, and lives _à négligé_ under the shade of the forest trees, which extend almost to the ocean. The Government sends down a battalion of troops, ostensibly to keep order and do police duty, but really as an excuse for giving the officers and soldiers a holiday. Social laws are very much relaxed during the _Paseo_, and it is really the only time when lovers can do their billing and cooing without the interfering presence of a duenna. Flirtations are the order of the day, and Cupid is king. [Illustration: IN THE UPPER ZONE.] There are no bathing-houses, and no bathing-dresses are worn. The people go into the surf as Nature equipped them--the women and the girls on one side of a long spit of land that reaches into the sea, and the men and boys on the other. This annual Paseo is the perpetuation of a semi-religious Indian custom.