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72 and that the authorities had no power sufficient to prevent it. At the same time, he added that he had no doubt that, as soon as the government was settled, the receipts of the customs would be more than doubled.

The town of Sonsonate is large and straggling; but it contains many good houses, all built in the usual Spanish fashion. They are only one story high, forming three or four sides of a square, with a court-yard in the centre. The most respectable families think it no degradation to be engaged in trade: as there is no bank and no interest for money, this is the only way in which they can employ their capitals. Most of the richer classes of inhabitants derive their incomes from the cattle bred upon their estates and their crops of indigo, cochineal, and tobacco, which they barter with the European merchants for dry goods; retailing the latter for the consumption of the natives.

The chief kind of manufacture peculiar to this town is that of fancy shell-work, of