A LAND OF UNREST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 81, 7 April 1931, Page 6

A LAND OF UNREST.

Nicaragua, whose capital Managua was recently rocked by earthquake and gutted by fire, has ever been a distressful 'country. Its record of unreot includes many severe volcanic eruptions, frequent earthquakes, revolutions beyond count and unique distinction in Spanish. America, a war with Great Britain. In addition, it has had a scuffle with the United States, several with each of its neighbours, and also staged an invasion by a few hundred American adventurers under William Walker, who were defeated and disbanded.by the neighbouring State of Costa Pica. Nicaragua has an area about a fifth more than our North Island and a population of some 600,000, mostly Indians of Aztec and Maya strains,- plus a considerable variety of negro and mixed breeds. Population has been decreasing for some years owing to the country's unsettled state. Financial troubles have been frequent, and on several occasions the State has performed the Lang feat of Repudiating interest payments. Most of its official revenue is obtained from State monopolies, spirits, tobacco, etc., which those in power farmed out—to their own profit. Ex-President Zelaya, known by many of his own people as "the unspeakable Zelaya"— though in his time they' not say this out loud —was one of the few political "farmers" who amassed a fortune and retired to Europe before assassination came. He missed the bullet, the bomb or the. knife by -the narrowest margin on numerous occasions. He had, it used to be said, some difficulty in securing a coachman. The horses of the State coach were killed by a bomb while the President was out driving. The coachman was imprisoned for taking his master into danger. Since Zelaya left, in 1909, there have been several picturesque revolutions, a minor war with the United. States, and a revival of hope that the Nicaragua Canal scheme might supplement the Panama Canal —a hope that the recent 'quake has possibly wrecked along with the city of Managua. The war with Britain, which occurred in arose over the ownership of the Mosquito Coast, portion of Nicaragua's Atlantic seaboard. This adjoined British Honduras, and since 1655 Britain had claimed a protectorate over it. It wasn't really worth fighting .for, and after winning the "war" Britain handed the disputed territory back to Nicaragua in the sixties of last century. Th 3 Mosquito Coast, formerly a haunt of the buccaneers of the Spanish Main, was explored for oil in 1926, found worthless, and is now more or less abandoned to the insects after which it is named and a few Indians, who to this day maintain that they are British subjects. So numerous and hungry are the mosquitoes in this series of tropical swamps that to be unprotected at night is certain death. In fact one local punishment for wifely faithlessness is to leave the lady without shelter for a night. In the past Nicaragua and its northern neighbour /Guatemala have suffered more from volcanic than seismic fury. Seveial Nicaraguan mountains have been responsible for volcanic disasters, while the capital of Guatemala has thrice been devastated by volcanoes This portion of Central America is certainly a land of violence, natural and human. —F. H. BODLE.