Natural history -- Nicaragua; Nicaragua -- Description and travel
cartridges, but in the night it had rained heavily, so that I could
not even find the jaguar's tracks, and although afterwards I was
always prepared, I never met with another. From the accounts of the
natives, I believe that in Central America he never attacks man
unless first interfered with, but when wounded is very savage and
dangerous. Velasquez told me that his father had mortally wounded
one, which, however, sprang after him, and had got hold of him by
the leg, when it fortunately fell down dead.
The path up Pena Blanca hill gets steeper and steeper, until about
fifty yards from the rock it is too precipitous and rugged to ride
with safety, so that the rest of the ascent must be made on foot.
Tying my mule to a sapling, I scrambled up the path, and soon
emerging from the dark forest, stood under the grey face of the
rock towering up above me. It has two peaks, of which the highest
is accessible, footholds having been cut into the face of it, and
the most difficult part being surmounted by a rude ladder made by
cutting notches in a pole. Above it the rock is shelving, and the
top is easily reached. I found a strong north-east wind blowing,
which made it rather uncomfortable on the top, but the view was
very fine and varied. To the south-east and east the eye roams over
range beyond range all covered with dark forest, that partly hides
the inequalities of the ground, the trees in the hollows growing
higher than those on the hills. On this side the rock is a sheer
precipice, going down perpendicularly for more than three hundred
feet; the face of the cliff all weathered white. The tops of the
trees are far below, and as one looking down upon them hears the
various cries and whistles of the birds come up, and marks the
vultures wheeling round in aerial circles over the trees far below
one's feet, then it is that you realise that at last the forest,
with its world of foliage, has been surmounted. Looking down on the
trees, every shade of green meets the eye, here light as grass,
there dark as holly, whilst the fleecy clouds above cast lines of
dark shadows over hill and dale.
Directly south-east is a high rock, about three miles distant, and
beyond it the Carca and the Artigua rivers must meet, judging from
the fall of the country. The course of the Carca is marked by some
patches of light green, that look like grass, and are probably
clearings made by the Indians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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