as to have mountain ranges, broad valleys and secondary lakes of their own. Like all the higher ridges those island mountains culminate in volcanoes; the steep peak of Ometepec rises to a height of 5,200 feet, and gives its island the form of a pyramid. West, east, and north of both lakes volcanoes rise above the shore mountains in all directions, and northeast of Lake Managua not less than seven of them stand close together, like the peaks of the Sieben-gebirge, on the upper Rhine. The volcano of Chiltepec can be recognized by its cloven peak, the upper part of the cone having collapsed during one of its eruptions; Tellica and Santa Clara by the smoke trails of their ever-seething craters. The “Hell of Mesaya,” sixty miles further south, has the deepest crater of any known volcano, as Kilauea has the widest, and Stromboli the most obstreperous. The upper two thousand feet of the cone form a mere shell, and from the brink of the crater the spectator looks down into a dizzy abyss of trachite cliffs, rent by vertical fissures, and now and then veiled by the eruption of a smoke whirl. From the hills on the east shore of the lake the prospect toward the peaks of the island mountains affords views of marvelous and almost incomparable beauty. Yet all along the shores of that lake land, with the exception of the richest alluvial creek estuaries, can be bought for three dollars an acre, even on flat topped bluffs and near rock springs in sheltered dells, more inviting than the finest artificial parks. Thus far only camping British sportsmen have now and then availed themselves of such opportunities, though Nicaragua offers hunting grounds to the lovers of nearly every kind of outdoor pastime and science. Geologists can watch the active operations of the Titans that have transformed so large a portion of our planet. Antiquarians can here find treasures, from the tomb of a Toltec warrior to the monuments of a buried city; the neighborhood of San Carlos and Mayagalpa is covered with ruins, and on the island of Zapotera colossal idols rise like sphinxes from the ground and from the debris of fallen temples. Naturalists can watch the jaguar and the tapir in their native haunts, catch butterflies enough to stock a museum, study the habits of five different species of quadrumana, including the large Coaiti (_Lagothrix paniscus_), with his spider arms and strange, flute-like cries, can visit the bat caves of Dipilta or the bird islands of Bluefield’s Lagoon, that make Nicaragua a zoological epitome of the American tropics, and offer a winter asylum to legions of feathered refugees from the North.