Mosquito Coast, and Mosquitia, are terms used to designate a portion of the eastern coast of Central America, on the Caribbean Sea. As geographical, and still more as political designations, they have been very vaguely applied to an extent of coast varying from 200 to 500 miles in length, and of indefinite breadth. It has at times been asserted that the Mosquito Shore embraced the entire coast of Central America between Cape Cameron or Honduras, near the port of Truxillo, in Lat. 16° N., Lon. 85° W., and Boca del Toro, in Chiriqui Lagoon, in Lat. 10° N., Lon. 82° W., a coast-line of not less than 800 statute miles. Amongst geographers generally, however, the Mosquito Shore was understood only as comprehending the coast lying between Cape Gracias á Dios and Bluefields Lagoon, including the latter; that is to say, between 12° and 15° N. Lat., a distance of about 250 miles.

This coast was discovered by Columbus in his fourth voyage, in 1502. He sailed along its entire length, stopping at various points to investigate the country, and ascertain the character of the inhabitants. He gave it the name of Cariby; and it was accurately characterized by one of his companions, Porras, as "una tierra muy baja," a very low land. His son, Fernando Columbus, described the inhabitants as "almost Negroes in colour, bestial, going naked; in all respects very rude, eating human flesh, and devouring their fish raw as they happened to catch them." The language of the chroniclers, however, warrants us in believing that this description applied only to the Indians of the immediate sea-coast, and that those of the interior were then, as they still remain, a different people, with a distinct language. A grant of the entire coast, from Cape Gracias to the Gulf of Darien, was made to Diego de Nicuesa, for purposes of colonization, within ten years after its discovery; but the expedition which he fitted out to carry his grant into effect was wrecked at the mouth of the Cape or Wanks River.

Although the attention of Spain was too much absorbed with the other parts of her immense empire in America to enable her to devote much care to this comparatively unattractive shore, nevertheless her missionaries, with the characteristic zeal of that early period, made various attempts to found establishments at Cape Gracias á Dios, and probably at other points on the coast. But the resources of the country were too few for their support, and the Indians too debased and savage to receive the teachings of Christianity.

In the year 1576 this coast was conveyed by royal cédula to the "illustrious Señor Licenciado Diego García de Palacio, Oidor of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala," and "Captain Diego Lopez, resident of the port of Truxillo," in Honduras, by them to be colonized and governed under certain explicit regulations.

It does not appear that Palacio took any action under his grant, and the coast remained in its primitive condition until the era of the bucaniers, who obtained practical control of the sea of the Antilles about the middle of the seventeenth century. The intricate bogs, creeks, and rivers of this coast furnished admirable places of concealment and refuge for the small and swift vessels in which these freebooters roved the seas. They had establishments at Cape Gracias and Bluefields, whence they darted out like hawks on the galleons that sailed from Nombre de Dios and Cartagena, laden with the riches of Peru. Indeed, Bluefields, the so-called capital of the Mosquito kingdom, derives its name from Bleecel, a noted Dutch pirate, who had his rendezvous in the bay of the same name. In like manner, it is alleged, was the name of Wallace, a Scotch sea-rover, transformed, by Spanish pronunciation, to Balice, and finally to Belize.

The piratical establishment at Cape Gracias seems to have been not only the principal one on the Mosquito Shore, but in the entire Caribbean Sea. It is oftenest mentioned in the narratives which the pirates have left us of their wild and bloody adventures. Here they met, by common consent, to divide their booty, and agree upon new expeditions. Their relations with the Indians seem to have been friendly; the pirates, nevertheless, from their superior intelligence and numbers, taking the position of masters.

The accounts of the inhabitants of the coast, as given by the bucaniers, coincide with those left to us by Columbus and his companions. They are described as extremely indolent, "wandering up and down, without knowing or caring so much as to keep their bodies from the rain, except by a few palm leaves," with "no other..."

Previously to the mission of Hodgson, on the 28th of October 1739, the Spanish ambassador in London had made complaints that the incursions of the Sambos and Indians of the Mosquito Shore, on the adjacent Spanish settlements, were "at the instigation, and under the protection, of the English of Jamaica, who have a commerce with them, and give them in exchange for the captive Indians, whom they purchase for slaves, fire-arms, powder, shot, and other goods, contrary to the natural rights of these people."

And here it may be mentioned, that subsequent to the era of the buccaneers, during the whole of the eighteenth century, and even as late as 1820, it was the constant practice of the Mosquitos to make forays into the territories of the Woolwas, Cookras, Tonglas, and other pure Indian tribes lying between the coast and the Spanish settlements, for the capture of prisoners, to be sold as slaves to the traders from Jamaica. The scandal finally attracted the attention of Parliament, and was made the subject of a commission of inquiry, which reported, July 10, 1828, recommending the liberation, under certain conditions, of the Indians thus enslaved. From this cause has sprung that settled hostility which still exists between the Sambos-Mosquitos and their Indian neighbours of the interior, and which, until recently at least, led the latter to punish with death any intercourse between their people and the hated Mosquitos.

The "cession" of the Mosquito Shore, procured, as we have seen, by Hodgson, was followed up by occupation. Several Jamaica planters settled there; and Hodgson, in reward for his services, was placed in charge of the new establishment, with the title of "Superintendent of the Mosquito Shore," dependent on the governor of Jamaica.

In 1744 an order was issued in council, despatching a certain number of troops from Jamaica to the Mosquito Shore; and in 1748 another order for sending a supply of ordnance to the "new settlements" established there. At this time everything indicated the purpose of a permanent occupation of the country on behalf of the crown. The Spaniards, alarmed at these encroachments, as they regarded them, were loud in their remonstrances, and in 1750-51 threatened a forcible expulsion of the settlers; whereupon Governor Trelawney instructed Hodgson to represent to them, that "the object of keeping a superintendent amongst the Indians was to restrain them in their hostilities against the Spaniards." The latter were deceived, or from motives of policy accepted the explanation, and even went so far as to confer on Hodgson the title of Colonel for the services which he professed to have rendered them.

It was not long, however, before the settlers on the Shore discovered that the Spanish governors of the adjacent provinces of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, were making formidable preparations for their forcible destruction. In their alarm they applied to Governor Knowles, who had succeeded Trelawney in Jamaica, and who at once opened a correspondence with the captain-general of Guatemala, for a suspension of hostilities, until he could hear from England—whither he wrote, that the whole Mosquito affair was "a job," and that if Hodgson were not checked or recalled, "he would involve the nation in difficulties;" and that, between Spanish and English pretensions, "the Indians were so perplexed that they did not know what part to take."

In fact, a little later, a number of the Mosquito chiefs went to Guatemala, and there resolved to take up arms against the English; but it does not appear that any decided acts of hostility were committed by them.

These events did not escape the notice of Spain, and were among the causes which led to the rupture, terminated by the treaty of Paris in 1763, by which Great Britain agreed to demolish all the fortifications which she had erected, not only in the Bay of Honduras, but in "other..." It would seem that the Spanish crown was not satisfied with the conduct of Great Britain under these provisions, which were therefore revived, and made more explicit and stringent by the subsequent treaty of 1783, which stipulated that all the English settlers on the Spanish continent should retire within a district defined in the treaty. Nevertheless, relations were still kept up with the coast, and led to severe reclamations on the part of Spain. These were only settled by the supplementary treaty of 1786, which provided that his Britannic Majesty's subjects and other colonists, who have enjoyed the protection of England, shall evacuate the country of the Mosquitos, as well as the continent in general, and the islands adjacent, without exception, situated beyond the line described in the treaty.

By the 14th article of this treaty, "His Catholic Majesty, prompted solely by motives of humanity, promises to the King of England that he will not exercise any severity against the Mosquitos inhabiting in part the countries which are to be evacuated, in virtue of the present convention, on account of any connections which may have subsisted between the said Indians and the English; and his Britannic Majesty, on his part, will strictly prohibit all his subjects from furnishing arms or warlike stores to the Indians, &c."

These provisions met with serious opposition, and a motion was made in the House of Lords, "that the terms of the convention with Spain, signed in July 1786, did not meet the favourable opinion of this House." The motion was negatived; and, in the words of Macgregor, "with the most painful reluctance, and only in obedience to positive orders, the British settlers slowly and discontentedly left their plantations."

From 1786 forward, Great Britain ceased to hold any open relations with the Mosquito Indians, until the decline of the power of Spain and the loss of her American possessions. In the interval the governors of the provinces of Central America had attempted, but with poor success, to make permanent establishments on the Shore, at Cape Gracias and Bluefields. They, however, erected a fort at the mouth of the River San Juan, for the protection of the port of the same name, which was made a port of entry by royal cedula in 1796.

The stringent provisions of the convention of 1786 were revived and confirmed by an additional article to the treaty of Madrid of August 28, 1814. Meantime the continental war withdrew all attention from the Mosquito Shore, which passed entirely out of official view. A few of the old settlers nevertheless remained on the coast, and a commerce in tortoise-shells, deer-skins, and slaves, was kept up with Jamaica.

Roberts, who was on the coast in pursuit of his avocation as trader about the year 1820, has given a very faithful account of the Mosquitos and their political condition at that period. He speaks of a personage called "King," a young man who had been in Jamaica, "where he was semi-educated," and whose authority, if not openly disputed, was divided with sundry chiefs, among whom a "Governor Clementi" was most important. This "king" is described by Macgregor as having "combined the bad qualities of the European and Creole with the vicious propensities of the Sambo, and the capriciousness of the Indian." He was killed in a drunken brawl in 1824, and was succeeded by his half-brother Robert—who, however, was found to be too greatly in the Spanish interest to suit the trading Warwicks of Jamaica, and was accordingly deposed in favour of a Sambo of quite a different family, who received the name of George Frederick. What became of this potentate does not clearly appear from the Mosquito chronicles; he either died or was dropped for another Sambo, called Robert Charles Frederick.

Robert Charles Frederick was taken to the settlement of Belize or British Honduras, and was there duly crowned on the 23rd of April 1825. The king was dressed for the occasion in a British major's uniform, and so manifested his admiration for his finery as to impart a ludicrous character to the whole ceremony. Moved by liberal appliances of rum, in the exercise of royal liberality he made extensive grants of lands to his trading friends, which in some instances carried with them the rights of absolute sovereignty. When these proceedings came to the ears of the superintendent of Belize and of the governor of Jamaica, they excited considerable alarm, and an agent was sent to the shore, instructed to disallow the grants in question.

A vessel of war was sent down from Belize to carry Robert Charles Frederick away from the too powerful influences of rum and gay cottons; and he was accordingly taken to Belize, and placed beneath the eye of the superintendent of that establishment. His royal nature, however, rebelled against restraint; he gradually pined away and died; but not until he had affixed "his x mark" to a document styled "a will," in which it was provided that the affairs of his kingdom should be administered by Colonel Macdonald, superintendent of Belize, as regent, during the minority of his heir; that Macdonald should be guardian of his children; and that, in view of the spiritual wants of his subjects, "the United Church of England and Ireland shall be the established religion of the Mosquito nation for ever."

This will bears date February 1840, just one century after Hodgson had obtained the "cession" of the Shore to the British crown. One of the first acts of Macdonald was the appointment of Patrick Walker, his private secretary, to reside on the Mosquito Shore, and take charge and guardianship of the scions of the royal house. Walker at once took up his residence in Bluefields, and having organized a council of government, soon fell into a dispute with the neighbouring Central American states on the question of boundaries.

Aroused and alarmed by the proceedings of Walker, and ignorant as to whether the salic law was recognised in Mosquitia (the name now given to the country), they procured from the eldest child of Robert Charles Frederick, namely, the "Princess Ines Ann Frederick," on the 28th of October 1847, a distinct recognition of the authority of Nicaragua over the Shore, and a quenched command to all interloping foreigners to leave the country.

The restless mind of Walker, who imagined himself a second Hastings, soon forced the quarrel beyond the consular offices of the Crown into the cabinets of Downing Street; and in the same year (1847), when the recreant Mosquito princess passed over to the Nicaraguan interests, he had succeeded in obtaining from Lord Palmerston an instruction to all the diplomatic and other agents of the Crown in Central America and the adjacent countries, requiring them to report "what authentic information they could obtain as to the boundaries claimed by the King of Mosquito;" and also "what, in your opinion, is the line of boundary which Her Majesty's government should insist upon as essential for the security and wellbeing of the Mosquito state." This was soon followed up by a despatch to the same agents, instructing them to inform the states adjacent to the Mosquito Shore, that "Her Majesty's government could not view with indifference any encroachment on the rights or territories of the King of Mosquito, which is under the protection of the British crown." Mr Walker, and Mr Chatfield, Her Majesty's consul-general in Guatemala, both reported that the "well-being of the Mosquito state required an assertion of the rights of the Mosquito king over the entire eastern coast of Central America, from Cape Honduras to Chiriqui Lagoon, an extent of 600 miles; yet his lordship limited himself to the opinion, that the 'rights of the King of Mosquito should be maintained, as extending from Cape Honduras down to the mouth of the River San Juan.'" It may readily be pre- summed that the instruction to communicate the views of Her Majesty's government upon this point to the Central American States, was promptly complied with by Her Majesty's agents, and Mr Chatfield took the latitude of adding, that these limits were to be accepted "without prejudice to the right of the Mosquito king to any territory south of the River San Juan."

In the meantime, influenced by Walker's representations, Macdonald, who was a man of action rather than of words, paid a visit to the Shore in a vessel of war, entered the port of San Juan, and, after some mild proceedings, seized the collector, Quijano, carried him off, and finally landed him alone at a desolate point on the coast several hundred miles from the port. The only immediate consequences of this proceeding were vehement reclamations on the part of the Central American States, who now asserted their rights over San Juan in the most positive terms.

Macdonald's conduct in this, as in some other matters, does not seem to have been approved by the home government; but in the month of January 1848 two British vessels of war appeared in the harbour of San Juan, and occupied it without resistance, replacing the Nicaraguan officials by Englishmen, acting as servants of the King of Mosquito. This done, they sailed away; but no sooner did the intelligence of the event reach the interior, than the Nicaraguan government embarked a small force and reoccupied the port, sending the new officials as prisoners to the capital. The British forces, considerably strengthened, thereupon returned, and the Nicaraguans, unable to oppose them, retired up the River San Juan, and erected some rude fortifications on its banks. They were followed by an English detachment, and finally, March 12, 1848, routed with great loss. Walker, who accompanied the expedition, was either killed or drowned during the engagement. Hostilities were further prosecuted, until the Nicaraguans, powerless against the strength of Great Britain, consented to an armistice, which provided that they should not disturb San Juan, or attempt to re-occupy the port, pending the negotiations which it was foreseen would follow on these events. All efforts, however, to induce them to relinquish their claims of sovereignty over the port, or, even by implication, to recognise the Mosquito king, were unsuccessful.

A consul-general of Great Britain was at once appointed to the Mosquito Shore, who took up his residence at San Juan, where, with the support of a number of policemen from Jamaica, and the almost constant presence of a vessel of war in the harbour, he assumed and exercised all the functions of government, judicial and executive.

The government of Nicaragua now addressed an exposition and appeal to the nations of Europe, and a particular and fervent one to the United States, for their friendly interference in behalf of what they claimed as their clear territorial rights and violated sovereignty. The American people and government were not slow to believe that the seizure of San Juan was an act of violence on the rights of a weak power, directed to obtaining control of the transit between the seas; as the line through Nicaragua, by way of the River San Juan and the Nicaraguan lakes, had long been regarded as affording the best, if not the only, route for a ship canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. The recent acquisition of California also, and the sudden tide of emigration that took place to that country, rendered of importance to them every point where the isthmus could be traversed. The very first act of General Taylor, flushed from the fields of his Mexican victories, and carried almost by acclamation into the presidential chair, was the appointment of a diplomatic agent in Central America, invested with extensive powers, and instructed to look closely after the interests of the United States. Hardly had this agent reached his post, when a detachment of the British squadron in the Pacific, having on board Her Majesty's consul-general at Guatemala, made its appearance in the magnificent Bay of Fonseca, and forcibly took possession of the fine islands commanding it in the name and on behalf of the British crown, by way of enforcing some claims for indemnity to British subjects against the states of Honduras and San Salvador. And as, in the speculations on the questions of an inter-oceanic canal, this bay had come to be regarded as offering the best conditions for the western terminus of such a work, precisely as San Juan was assumed to offer the same for its eastern terminus, this seizure was construed to be only an additional step in the settled policy of Great Britain to obtain control, if not absolute possession, of the highway between the seas.

The government of Honduras having obtained an intimation of the contemplated occupation of the Bay of Fonseca, resorted to the expedient of making a cession to the United States of the islands commanding it belonging to that state. Mr Squier, the American representative, accepted the cession on behalf of his government, which thus was made a party to the disputes between Great Britain and the Central American States. The seizure having taken place, regardless of the previous cession, an independent question was raised between the British and American cabinets, which seemed to threaten an open rupture, but which had the really beneficial effect of directing the serious attention of both governments to the necessity of settling the principles which should govern the policy of both as regarded the isthmus states, and especially as regarded that inter-oceanic highway to which circumstances had given a new importance. As soon as a knowledge of the seizure reached the United States, Mr Clayton, secretary of state, sent a despatch to Mr Lawrence, American minister in London (dated December 29, 1849), which the latter was desired to place before the British government. This despatch set forth that "the United States had no political designs in Central America," and that its interest in that country was confined to securing through it a free route of transit between the seas, which route it was declared to be the purpose of the United States "to protect, with the consent of the states through which it might pass." In conclusion, Mr Clayton directed Mr Lawrence to urge on the British government to disavow the seizure of the Bay of Fonseca, and to represent that if the act were not disavowed, the treaty of cession by which Honduras conveyed the only important positions in the bay to the United States, "would be submitted to the Senate for ratification without delay."

As already said, the serious attention of both governments, as well as of the people of both countries, having been thus arrested, public opinion, equally with common sense, dictated that an understanding should be reached, which should not only avert the possibility of a collision on these questions, but which should best subserve the wants of trade and commerce across the isthmus. It is not necessary to trace the progress of the negotiations which were now opened, and which, in the month of April, subsequent to the date of the despatch above alluded to, resulted in the signature of a special convention between the United States and Great Britain, known as the "Clayton-Bulwer Treaty," defining the policy of both regarding Central America, and giving a joint guarantee to such routes of inter-oceanic communication as might be opened "by canal or railway" through its territories.

A radical defect with this convention was its ambiguity on the subject of the Mosquito protectorate, and disputes arose as to its intent and meaning before the signatures were fairly dry on the parchment. On the one hand, it was claimed that the convention recognised and confirmed the protectorate of Great Britain; on the other, that it deprived it of all vitality, and reduced it to a shadow, and that the ambiguity of the convention was studied and While this new dispute was increasing in warmth, circumstances were fast working out a practical solution. An American company, acting under a charter from Nicaragua, had opened a route of transit for passengers through that state, commencing at San Juan, which rapidly filled up with emigrants from the United States. They soon became numerically predominant; and after some ungraceful attempts to proceed with reference to the alleged Mosquito authority, finally met in a primary capacity, and organised an independent local government, composed chiefly of Americans. The British protectorate, so far as San Juan was concerned, expired with an attempt on the part of the commander of one of Her Majesty's vessels of war, more zealous than discreet, to compel one of the transit steamers to pay certain port charges to his Mosquito majesty. The act was disavowed by the government, and San Juan remained, under the direct government of its own people, practically a free city; and as such, looking to its position, it should continue. Its prosperity was much retarded by a dispute with the adventurers into whose hands the transit had fallen, producing an irritation of feeling which resulted in certain alleged insults on the part of the town to an American diplomatic agent, whose bellicose tendencies led him to interfere in matters quite beyond the sphere of his duties. An American vessel of war was sent to inquire into the circumstances of the case. Her commander, acting under improper influences, assumed a most offensive and hostile attitude towards the town, and made various arrogant demands which were not complied with; whereupon he bombarded the place, and, landing a force of marines, burned it to the ground. The annals of this century furnish no parallel to this wanton and cruel procedure, and it stands a lasting disgrace and infamy to all concerned. It is certain that no such act was contemplated by the American government; but as it retained the delinquent officer in its service, and did not formally disavow the deed, it must be held to share the odium consequent upon it. Previously to this event, an effort had been made to adjust the Mosquito question, on the part of Mr Webster, secretary of state, and Mr Crompton, British representative in Washington. A project was agreed upon, assigning a defined territory to the Mosquito Indians, and surrendering the port of San Juan (then called Greytown) to Nicaragua, on condition of certain annual payments to the Mosquito King. A joint English and American commission was sent to Central America to procure the assent of the adjacent states to the arrangement. Costa Rica, after some hesitation, acceded to the plan, but Nicaragua refused her assent; and the terms of the project becoming known in England and the United States, they were found to be distasteful to the people of both countries. In America it was contended that no rights beyond those of occupancy could be accorded to any of the aboriginal tribes of the continent without violation of the leading principle on which the settlement of the continent had been effected, nor without danger to existing territorial rights. Some of the provisions of the Webster-Crompton project were revived, in a convention signed by Lord Clarendon and Mr Dallas, American minister in London, in the autumn of 1856. The limits of the district assigned to the Mosquito Indians, however, were much more circumscribed; the port of San Juan was constituted a free port; and provisions recognising a Mosquito sovereignty, in a political sense, carefully excluded. This convention was ratified, with some slight modifications, by the United States Senate, but failed, in consequence of the non-exchange of ratifications within the time specified in the convention itself. The principles of this convention are no doubt those which will ultimately prevail, and offer the only rational solution of the vexed Mosquito question. A better understanding of the mutual rights and duties of Great Britain and the United States on the American continent is fast removing every obstacle to an amicable adjustment of this and analogous differences.

The final solution of the question will no doubt be hastened and facilitated by the convention of August 27, 1856, between Great Britain and Honduras, wherein the territorial rights of the latter state are recognised over the coast between Cape Gracias and Cape Honduras, with the reservation of the right of occupancy to the Indians within a district of reasonable extent, to be fixed by a joint commission of the two governments. Such is the present political state of the Mosquito Shore.

As regards the Mosquitos themselves, little need be said, except that they are a hybrid race, coming rather under the denomination of Sambo than Indians. The Valiente, Rama, Cookra, Woolwa, Tongla, and Paya or Poyas Indians, who are sometimes claimed as Mosquitos, are quite independent of them, and generally hold a hostile attitude towards them. Some of these tribes, in whole or in part, recognise the rule of the adjacent Central American States, and many of their villages profess the Roman Catholic religion. Exclusive of these Indian tribes, the population of the Mosquito Shore is exceedingly small, certainly not exceeding 2000 souls. Colonel Hodgson (son of the Robert Hodgson elsewhere referred to), who wrote in 1757, estimates the population at "not above 7000;" and a MS. Spanish map of the date of 1777, purporting to be copied from an English original, gives "houses of whites, 17; of Mestizos, 13; number of whites, 28; Mestizos, 27; slaves, 252; Mosquito Indians, 182; Mosquito Sambo, 230;—total, 719." George Chalmers, secretary of the Board of Trade, in 1787, drew up a series of notes on the Mosquito Shore for the use of the Board, in which he observes—"The present number of the Mosquito Indians is unknown. It happened among them probably, as among the North American Indians, that they declined in numbers and degenerated in spirit as the white people settled among them. Like the Caribs of San Domingo, they consist of three distinct races—the aborigines, the descendants of certain African Negroes wrecked on the coast, and a generation containing the blood of both. If the Spaniards earnestly desired to destroy them, they could not, I think, make a very vigorous resistance."

The "Commissioners of Legal Inquiry in the case of the Indians of Honduras, 1828," describe the Mosquito Indians as "a barbarous and cruel people, in the lowest state of civilization—hostile to the other Indian nations, who are a mild, timid, and peaceful race." When Colonel Hodgson wrote, it appears that the inhabitants of the coast were not more homogeneous politically than in blood. He says of them, that then (1757) they were "not so properly a single state as three united, each independent of the others."

"1. Those who inhabit the southern extremity till Bragman's, and are mostly the original Indians; their head man is called Governor.

"2. Those who extend to about Little Black River, and are mostly Sambos; their chief is called King.

"3. Those westward, who are Indians and Sambos mixed; their head man is called General. The power of these three head men is nearly equal, with a small difference in favour of the king, who is a little supported by the whites for the sake of his name. The king has his commission or patent for being called so from the governor of Jamaica."

Whatever may have been the former numbers of the Mosquitos, there can be no doubt of the fact, that they are every day becoming fewer under the combined effects of drunkenness and disease. Upon the north, the Caribs, originally from St Vincent, are gradually encroaching on the Sambo Mosquitos, and crowding them down the coast, where their principal establishments are confined to Cape Mosquito Gracias, Sandy Bay, Rio Grande, Prinzapulka, Pearl Key, and Bluefields. In character and habits they remain much the same as when described by the pirates, living chiefly by fishing, and having little trade except in tortoise-shells and sarsaparilla. They are without any form of religion, but believe in a certain spirit of the water called Levire, and an evil spirit named Wulasha, who consumes the bodies of the dead. They have great faith in a class of sorcerers, who combine the characters of the medicine-men of the North American Indians, and the obi-men of Africa, called Sukias, whose authority is often greater than that of the most powerful chief. These pretend to cure diseases by incantations and rude jugglery, directed chiefly to appeasing Wulasha, who shares in the reward of the Sukias.

The huts of the Mosquitos are mere thatched sheds of palmetto or caocho leaves, about 6 feet high to the caves, and projecting 3 or 4 feet beyond the line of posts. Some of the better ones are inclosed with a stockade or fence of palmetto stalks, having the entrance in the gable. The men sleep on the sand floor, or in hammocks, and the women on a rude frame-work of canes, raised a few feet above the ground. Their arts are confined to making pit-pans, long, flat-bottomed canoes for use in the rivers and lagoons; and dories, or large canoes for coasting on the sea. They also make harpoons and implements for fishing, and manufacture a kind of cloth, or tappa, from the inner bark of the ule or caoutchouc tree. In language they differ wholly from the neighbouring Indians, so that they are unable to communicate with them except through interpreters. From their long intercourse with the English, they have adopted many English words, which, however, are pronounced in a very broken manner, constituting a kind of jargon. Their own language is not deficient in euphony, although defective in its grammar. It has no article, definite or indefinite, but the numeral adjective kumi (one) is used whenever the idea of number is prominent. The adjective follows the noun, as do also the numerals. All nouns are understood to be masculine, unless qualified by the word maitea, woman or female. The pronouns are twelve in number, but have neither gender nor number, both of which must be inferred from the connections in which they are used. The verbs have mood, tense, and person, but are wanting in number.

The geography of the Mosquito territory is very little known. Upon the coast, however, there are several harbours of fair capacity, and some positions capable of easy settlement. Bluefields Lagoon is a considerable body of water, between 30 and 40 miles in length, and almost completely land-locked. It has a bar at its entrance, but within the bar it has from 4 to 6 fathoms. The great river Escondido, and several small streams, flow into it. On the south bank of this river is situated the town of Bluefields, the residence of the King and his English guardian. It contains nearly 500 inhabitants, including about 50 whites, 30 miles to the northward of Bluefields is Pearl Key Lagoon, affording a tolerable harbour for small vessels. A considerable river, the Wawashan, falls into this lagoon. Still 30 miles to the northward, a large stream, the Rio Grande, flows into the sea. Its mouth is obstructed by a dangerous bar; but when this is passed, it is said that the river may be navigated for the distance of a 100 miles inland. Further to the northward are the Prinzapulka, Tongla, Brackman, Wava, Duckwara, and other considerable streams. Next in order is the Rio Wanks, the longest, if not the largest river in Central America, which reaches the sea at Cape Gracias a Dios. Towards their sources, amongst the mountains of Honduras and Nicaragua, all these streams are rough and rapid; but as they approach the ocean they lose their turbulent character, and flow majestically into the sea. During the seasons of the rains they usually overflow their banks, and, with the numerous creeks and lagoons, constitute a net-work of lakes parallel to the sea-coast, which permit interior navigation all the way from Bluefields Lagoon to Cape Gracias. The climate of the coast is moist, hotter than the interior, and not so salubrious, although in the latter respect entitled to rank equally high with the West Indian Islands generally. The greater part of the soil is fertile, and capable of producing in abundance cotton, sugar, rice, indigo, and the other tropical staples. There are some extensive tracts of open or savanna land, covered with grass, well adapted for the raising of cattle. There are also certain broad, sandy plains, not fitted for cultivation, but covered with fine pines, some of them large enough for the masts of ships; and the banks of the rivers generally are covered with forests of mahogany, rosewood, India-rubber, and other valuable trees. Altogether the coast has many natural elements of wealth; but it may be doubted if its settlement by a civilized race will be effected until the equally fertile, but more elevated, cooler, and more salubrious regions of the interior and on the Pacific coast, have become filled by an active and enterprising population. Their greater advantages will claim for them the first attention of emigrants, and to these alone can we look for the political and social regeneration of Central America, and for the ultimate rescue of the Mosquito Shore from its present condition of desolation and barbarism. (E. G. S.)