322 SELLING LATIN AMERICA 
voice, his idea being to save money, in the 
many incidental charges made by consuls and 
those handling his freight. The beer came 
from Milwaukee and the mineral water from 
the warehouse in New York City. The ship 
ping instructions read as follows: 
“Ship via Isthmus of Tehuantepec, to Sa- 
lina Cruz then via first opportunity to Leon, 
Nicaragua.” 
The intellectual shipping clerk could see no 
valid reason for sending goods intended for 
Nicaragua through Mexico, so he took upon 
himself their routing, and as a result the goods 
were sent direct from New York to Bluefields, 
Nicaragua, on the east coast of that country, 
with instructions to a forwarding agent there 
to dispatch them to their destination on the 
west coast. That was three years ago and the 
last I heard of them was that they had been 
sold by the customs authorities to pay storage 
and other accumulated charges. Of course 
the forwarding agent in Bluefields realized