its neck; leaps up into the tree again and waits there until the
herd depart, when he comes down and feeds on the slaughtered Wari
in quietness. We shortly afterwards passed one of the large boats
called bungos, that carry down to Greytown the produce of the
country and take up merchandise and flour. This one was laden with
cattle and india-rubber. The bungos are flat-bottomed boats, about
forty feet long and nine feet wide. There is generally a little
cabin, roofed over at the stern, in which the wife of the captain
lives. The bungo is poled along by twelve bungo-men, who have
usually only one suit of clothes each, which they do not wear
during the day, but keep stowed away under the cargo that it may be
dry to put on at night. Their bronzed, glistening, naked bodies, as
they ply their long poles together in unison, and chant some
Spanish boat-song, is one of the things that linger in the memory
of the traveller up the San Juan. Our boatmen paddled and poled
until eleven at night, when we reached Machuca, a settlement
consisting of a single house, just below the rapids of the same
name, seventy-miles above Greytown.

We breakfasted at Machuca before starting next morning, and I
walked up round the rapids and met the canoe above them. About five
o'clock, after paddling all day, we came in sight of Castillo,
where there is an old ruined Spanish fort perched on the top of a
hill overlooking the little town, which lies along the foot of the
steep hill; hemmed in between it and the river, so that there is
only room for one narrow street. It was near Castillo that Nelson
lost his eye. He took the fort by landing about half a mile lower
down the river, and dragging his guns round to a hill behind it by
which it was commanded. This hill is now cleared of timber and
covered with grass, supporting a few cows and a great many goats.