We passed through another weedy, dilapidated town, called Condego, where they have a singular custom at their annual festival held on the 15th of May. For some weeks before this date, they catch all the wild beasts and birds they can, and keep them alive. During the night preceding the feast-day they plant the plaza in front of the church with full-grown plants of maize, rice, beans, and all the other vegetables that they cultivate; and amongst them they fasten the wild beasts and birds that have been collected; so that the sun that set on a bare, weedy plaza rises on one full of vegetable and animal life. The year before, a young jaguar that had been caught was the great attraction. It has now grown so large, that they are afraid of it, and do not know what to do with it. It is kept in an empty house at Pueblo Nuevo, along with a dog, to which it is greatly attached, although it is the one that caught it when young. The custom of planting the square with vegetables, and bringing together all the wild animals that can be collected, is doubtless an Indian one. The ancient Nicaraguans are said to have worshipped maize and beans, but the service may not have had more significance than our own harvest feasts. We reached the edge of the savannahs of the plain of Segovia and began to ascend the high ranges that divide it from the province of Matagalpa, and soon entered a mountainous country. Our course at first lay up the banks of a torrent that had cut deeply into beds of boulder clay filled with great stones. The lower part of the range was covered with trees of various kinds, but none of them growing to a great height; higher up we reached the sighing pine trees, and higher still, the hills were covered with grass, and supported herds of cattle. About noon, we arrived at a poor-looking hacienda near the top of the range. The proprietor owned about two hundred cattle, and lived in a house, mud-walled and grass-thatched, consisting of one room and a kitchen. Round the sides of the room were crowded eight rude bedsteads, and hammocks were slung across the centre. A mob of twenty-one men, women, and children lived at the house, and must have herded together like cattle at night. There were a great number of half-clothed and naked children running about. The women, of whom there were six, made us some chocolate and tortillas ready, and we rested awhile. Before we left, the men came in with the milking cows and calves. There were two men on horseback, but as the country was too rough for riding fast, they were accompanied by three boys on foot, who were sweating profusely with running after the cattle. The calves were separated from the cows and fastened up. The cows would keep near the corral until the next morning, when they would be milked, and the calves turned out with them again.