Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/180

166 Executive Council being elected by a General Council, and the latter in turn being appointed by the chief from among the "head men" of the tribe and representative inhabitants of the various districts of the country. The present chief, his Excellency Robert Henry Clarence, who, as above stated, is a fullblooded Mosquito Indian, is a handsome, intelligent, and welleducated young man of twenty or thereabouts, with a magnificent head of glossy black hair. The other government officials are nearly all descendants of Jamaica negroes, and perform their duties with becoming gravity and ease, Hon. Charles Patterson, the vice president, whose features betray some admixture of European blood, is also the guardian of the chief during his minority. The law of the land, by the Mosquito Constitution, is declared to be the common and statutory law of England, so far as the same can be made applicable and not inconsistent with local customs and the enactments of the chief and Council. Many of the young men who desire educational advantages better than the local schools afford are sent to Jamaica or even to England. The land laws are very liberal. Each head of a family is permitted to take six hundred and forty acres on a ninety-nine years' lease, for which he pays an annual rental of three cents an acre to the Government, equal to about fifteen dollars American gold. He is expected to pay, besides, the cost of surveying his "section" but beyond this there is no tax of whatever kind imposed, no matter how valuable the improvements he may make. Altogether the Mosquito people have made a considerable advance toward civilized life. The missionaries have not succeeded entirely in uprooting the superstitious practices among the lowest walks of the population, and the obeah or obeaism, a system of necromancy, by which ill luck can be averted and injuries done to your enemies, has still a powerful hold. The periodic "big drunk" of former times, when whole villages used to engage in wild orgies, is no longer a popular institution, although it is possible that individuals do not disdain to indulge in a periodic spree. The Mosquitos proudly and justly boast that for many years they have lived and maintained their institutions in peace, whereas the sovereign Republic of Nicaragua is constantly riven and torn by revolutions and strife. The state of culture described is found, however, only in the "cities" and mission stations. Away from these and in the jungles the people are still pure savages.

The chapter on roads in Mosquito is as brief and of the same tenor as the chapter on snakes in Iceland. The only means of communication are the rivers and lagoons; beyond these all is dense, impenetrable forest and jungle, interspersed here and there in the more northerly portions by grassy plains called savannas. The principal article of commerce, besides the banana, is