3-082-592 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Corinto, Nicaragua, 1895. From a photograph taken in in 1893 by Mr. W. W. Williams. 'The telegram stating that British marines were to be landed at Corinto if the President of Nicaragua persisted in refusing to pay the indemnity of £15,000 demanded by the British Government has caused many people to inquire where that place is situated. On hearing that it was a Nicaraguan port on the Pacific, they have wondered why our ships should be sent there to insist on reparation for an offence committed at Bluefields on the Atlantic...The answer is that Corinto is the port from which the capital, Managua, is most accessible...there is no pier, only a small landing-stage...Corinto has six or eight hundred inhabitants...and there is usually a garrison of over a hundred soldiers, who do not seem able to prevent smuggling...Seen from the water it looks pretty, on account of the number of cocoanut-trees which surround it, but there are no streets, and bad smells abound. The two-storey building in the centre serves for Government offices, post and telegraph office, etc., and just behind it is the railway station, which is a very roughly constructed wooden shed, open at both ends. The line is fairly well laid, but the rolling stock is not in good condition'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.