Excerpt from The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1867: A Journal of Papers on Subjects Connected With Maritime Affairs In all gigantic enterprises, it should not be forgotten that the words of the enthusiast must be received with extreme caution; for historical records prove that the greatest commercial failures which have ever fallen on the people of this country may be traced to the singular influence which a daring speculative mind, on certain occasions, is enabled to establish over his fellow-men. Do we turn to the great South Sea or the Mississippi schemes of the last century, or that of the end of the previous century called New Caledonia', or the railway mania of our own times i - we see at once how blindly the wisest rush into ruinous speculation without a thought of their possible failure. If a stranger to Nicaragua and its deadly swamps were to form his idea of the country from Capt. Pim's glowing description, he would imagine it to be one of the healthiest climates of the globe. Would that I could echo the words of his report. But a long experience of the particular locality which he mentions compels me to state that I have ever found it to be one of the most trying to which a white man can be exposed. How can it be otherwise when the great accessories to disease 1n the tropics are present, in the shape of swamp, heat, and rank decaying vegetation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.