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archipelago, where the often angry lake of Nicaragua has checked the development of the verdant cover, the black, gloomy basalt is still open to the view, lashed by white-foaming waves. In several of the islets statues were measured and delineated, but unfortunately the photographic apparatus could not be used on this occasion. After a stay of some days among Las Isletas and a short visit to Granada for the purpose of completing my photographic outfit, I set sail for Zapatera. On my arrival I encamped for a long time on the playa of Bahia de Chiquero. Along "the playa of the semicircular bay there are now five houses, the homes of as many families, being the only inhabitants at the present time of this large and fertile island, which was, no doubt, formerly populated by many thousands of Niquirans, possessing rich towns and splendid temples. The islet of Ceiba is situated off Bahia de Chiquero (see map 2). According to my opinion, Zapatera is certainly a volcanic island, but in this manner, that its north-western part is the summit of a sunken volcanic cone, Bahia de Chiquero being the crater itself, the narrow, elevated mountain-ridge which surrounds the bay, forming the edge of the crater and the islet of Ceiba the continuation of this edge. Laguna de Apoyo, situated scarcely one kilometer from the shore, may then be regarded as a side-crater.
Zapatera exhibits an abundant variety of beautiful scenery, delightful valleys, watered by streams and rivulets, fertile elevated plains, magnificent mountain-cones, clothed in verdure to the very summits, and bays and lagoons offering excellent harbours. Unfortunately I had not an opportunity of examining, in an archaeologic point of view, more than a part of the north side of the island and the islet of Ceiba. My kind hosts of the settlement in the island, Don José Lobo, Donna Julia Solorzano, Srita Virginia Mora, Don Jacinto Mora and others, zealously assisted me in my
