In the meantime, causes at work outside of Nicaragua were destined to influence very materially the fate of the Provisional Government. President Carrera, of Guatemala, being friendly to the principles of the party led by his countryman Chamorro, had determined to act against the Government of Cabañas, in Honduras. In view of this fact, Alvarez and the Honduras contingent received orders to return from Nicaragua, and this dampened the spirit of the Democratic leaders. Honduras, threatened by the much greater power of Guatemala on the north, not only had need of all the resources she could control, but she could hardly hope, without foreign assistance, to resist the strength of Carrera and his Indians. Not even the Nicaraguans themselves could blame Cabañas for the course he took, and the friendship between Castellon and the President of Honduras remained unaffected by the policy the latter was forced to pursue. The alliance between the Governments at Leon and at Comayagua continued, and they seemed to be linked together for a common fate. But closely as the cause of Castellon was bound to that of Cabañas, it was not in Honduras, nor yet in Guatemala, that its destiny was being determined. The very day which witnessed the most signal triumph of the Nicaraguan Democrats was destined to behold the overthrow of the Cabaña administration; and to ascertain the cause of such a strange result we must leave Central America and consider events in California. Three days after Jerez and his comrades landed at Realejo—that is on the 8th of May, 1854—a novel scene was enacted on the boundary between Upper and Lower California. On that day a small band of Americans marched from the Tia Juana country-house to the monument marking the boundary between the United States and Mexico, and there yielded their arms to a military officer of the former power. These men were poorly clad, but even at the moment of their surrender they—I speak not of their leader—bore themselves with a certain courage and dignity not unworthy of men who had aspired to found a new State. They were the last of what has been called the expedition to Lower California; and some among them had seen the flag of Mexico lowered at La Paz to give place to another made for the occasion. They had passed through much toil and danger; and most of them being altogether new to war had taken their first lesson in that difficult art by long fasts, and vigils, and marches across one of the most inhospitable regions of the American continent. The natural obstacles of Lower California, the scarce subsistence, the long intervals between watering-places, the rugged sides of the mountains, and the wide wastes of sandy desert, would make war in that territory not a pastime even to a well-appointed force. And when you add to these natural difficulties an enemy who knows the country well, and who is always able to muster larger numbers than your own, some idea may be formed of