y selected by the Indians for the sites of
their villages. These tombs are of different heights and sizes. Some
are about twenty feet long by twelve feet wide, and eight feet above the
ground. In one which was opened was found a round pillar seven feet
high and eighteen inches across, which was standing upright in the
centre of the tomb. There was a hand-mill for grinding corn--in shape
like those still in use in the country--a knife ten inches long, a
hatchet like a reaping-hook, and a tiger's head of natural size,--all of
stone. In some instances gold ornaments have been found, but not in
sufficient numbers to induce the people to destroy the relics.

The Indians inhabiting Nicaragua in ancient days did not apparently
construct any large temples or stone buildings, as some other natives of
Central America have done. They, however, formed stone figures of
considerable size, which remind us greatly of those which exist in
Easter Island in the Pacific. These stone figures, often of colossal
dimensions, are of two different descriptions--the one having a mild,
inoffensive expression of countenance; while the others, presenting a
combination of both human and animal, have invariably a wild, savage
look, apparently for the purpose of terrifying the beholders. The
first, it is supposed, are the idols which the ancient Nicaraguans
worshipped before the Aztec conquest of their country; while the latter
were introduced when the people had been taught to engage in the bloody
rites practised by the Mexicans.

These stone monuments, though similar, as has been remarked, to those of
Easter Island, and to others found far-away across the Pacific, are
strong corroborative proofs that America was first peopled by tribes who
made their way by various stages from the continent of Asia, though, at
the same time, that long ages have passed away since they first left
that far-distant region--the cradle of the human race. The Indian
priests, like the Druids of old, appear to have chosen the hill-tops and
mountainsides, shady groves and dark ravines, for the sites of their
temples or places of worship.

From the midst of Lake Managua, in Nicaragua, rises the volcanic island
of Momotombita, towering in a perfect cone towards the blue sky. In the
midst of a natural amphitheatre on the slope of the mountain were
discovered a large number of statues (fifty or more), arranged in the
form of a square, their faces looking inwards. Many