Start on journey to Segovia.--Rocky mountain road.--A poor lodging. --The rock of Cuapo.--The use of large beaks in some birds. --Comoapa.--A native doctor.--Vultures.--Flight of birds that soar. --Natives live from generation to generation on the same spot.--Do not give distinctive names to the rivers.--Caribs barter guns and iron pots for dogs.--The hairless dogs of tropical America. --Difference between artificial and natural selection.--The cause of sterility between allied species considered.--The disadvantages of a covering of hair to a domesticated animal in a tropical country. CHAPTER 12. Olama.--The "Sanate."--Muy-muy.--Idleness of the people.--Mountain road.--The "Bull Rock."--The bull's-horn thorn.--Ants kept as standing armies by some plants.--Use of honey-secreting glands. --Plant-lice, scale-insects, and leaf-hoppers furnish ants with honey, and in return are protected by the latter.--Contest between wasps and ants.--Waxy secretions of the homopterous hemiptera. CHAPTER 13. Matagalpa.--Aguardiente.--Fermented liquors of the Indians.--The wine-palm.--Idleness of the Nicaraguans.--Pine and oak forests. --Mountain gorge.--Jinotega.--Native plough.--Descendants of the buccaneers.--San Rafael.--A mountain hut. CHAPTER 14. Great range composed of boulder clay.--Daraily.--Lost on the savannahs.--Jamaily.--A deer-hunter's family.--Totagalpa.--Walls covered with cement and whitewashed.--Ocotal.--The valley of Depilto.--Silver mine.--Geology of the valley.--Glacial drift.--The glacial period in Central America.--Evidence that the ice extended to the tropics.--Scarcity of gold in the valley gravels. --Difference of the Mollusca on the east and west coast of the Isthmus of Darien.--The refuge of the tropical American animals and plants during the glacial period.--The lowering of the sea-level. --The land shells of the West Indian Islands.--The Malay Archipelago.--Easter Island.--Atlantis.--Traditions of the deluge. CHAPTER 15. A Nicaraguan criminal.--Geology between Ocotal and Totagalpa. --Preparations at Totagalpa for their annual festival. --Chicha-drinking.--Piety of the Indians.--Ancient civilisation of tropical America.--Palacaguina.--Hospitality of the Mestizos. --Curious custom at the festival at Condego.--Cross range between Segovia and Matagalpa.--Sontuli.--Birds' nests. CHAPTER 16. Concordia.--Jinotega.--Indian habits retained by the people. --Indian names of towns.--Security of travellers in Nicaragua. --Native flour-mill.--Uncomfortable lodgings.--Tierrabona.--Dust whirlwind.--Initial form of a cyclone.--The origin of cyclones. CHAPTER 17. Cattle-raising.--Don Filiberto Trano's new house.--Horse-flies and wasps.--Teustepe.--Spider imitating ants.--Mimetic species. --Animals with special means of defence are conspicuously marked, or in other ways attract attention.--Accident to horse.--The "Mygale."--Illness.--Conclusion of journey. CHAPTER 18.