GUATEMALA:
THE LAND OF THE QUETZAL.

That part of the North American continent usually known as Central America was included by the Spanish conquerors in the kingdom of Guatemala; and while my purpose is to describe the republic of Guatemala,—a portion only of the ancient kingdom,—I may be pardoned if I call the attention of my readers briefly to the geography and history of all that country which once bore the name and is still closely allied with the interests of Guatemala.

Central America should extend from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to that of Darien; from the Caribbean Sea on the northeast, to the Pacific Ocean on the southwest. Mexico, however, has taken Chiapas and Yucatan, on the west and north, Great Britain has seized the east coast of Guatemala (British Honduras), and the Isthmus of Panama is included in the territory of South America. The present independent republics of Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, constitute what is known as Central America,—a territory extending between 8° 10′ and 19° 20′ north latitude, and between 82° 25′ and 92° 30′ west longitude. In length it measures between eight and nine hundred miles, while its breadth varies from thirty to three hundred miles. No competent survey has ever been made of this country, and even the coast-line is not always correctly laid down on the best charts. Maps have been made at haphazard in most cases, and very few positions have been scientifically determined. Government surveys along the lines of proposed canals or railways have not extended beyond a narrow line, usually in low regions remote from important centres. Dr. Frantzius[1] has published a very excellent map of Costa Rica; but most of the so-called maps published by or under the authority of individual republics are of no scientific value, the course of the principal rivers and the direction of the main mountain-chains being unknown. To illustrate the uncertain geography of Central America, let me give the extent and population as published by three authorities,—(I.) Lippincott’s Gazetteer, (II.) Whittaker’s Almanac, and (III.) the “Geografía de Centro-América” of Dr. González.

Without surveys and without a proper census of the Indian tribes no scientific description of the country can be given. Humboldt’s theory of an Andean cordillera has been disputed, and his mountain-chain has proved to be a confusing (but not confused) series of mountain-ridges. Yet it well may prove that the great naturalist was right; and so far as we now know from maps and personal observation, the vast earth-wrinkle which extends along the western border of our continent is a mountain-range of definite direction (about E. 20° S. to W. 20° N.) in Central America, and there occupying nearly the whole width of the continent. If we can picture to ourselves the formation in those remote ages, that it is the geologist’s task to rehabilitate in thought, of a vast ridge, not sharp like the typical mountain range, but of broad dimensions like the swell of some vast ocean, we shall have the material then forming the earth’s crust bent upwards, and in unelastic places broken, and this partly or entirely beneath the ocean. The rising land as the ages passed would be acted upon not only by the ocean waves and currents, but by the torrential rains, which were of a force and frequency that even our water-spouts of the present age cannot equal. Cracks were widened, gorges were formed; and as the earth approached the present geological age, the gentler rains only supplied the rivers and lakes which now occupied the furrows ploughed deeply by primeval torrents. The rough work was done, the statue blocked out; and henceforth meteoric influences were merely to finish, add expression and polish to the work.

A traveller crossing this territory from ocean to ocean would sometimes follow the river valleys, then climb ridges, again traverse a plain, cross a valley, ride along another mountain-ridge, compassing a volcano, and finally descend abruptly to the Pacific. His direction had not changed, but the nature of his path had been wonderfully transformed.

Geologists know well that on one of these lines of disturbance, such as has been described, molten and disintegrated material is apt to come to the surface as lava and ashes; they expect also to find metallic veins, especially of the precious metals, and hot springs with various minerals in solution, and they infer earthquakes. All these phenomena are present in Central America in full force. Immense cones have arisen along the Pacific slope since the general features of the land were made, and not only have spread vast deposits around their base, but have blocked up valleys, forming lakes as Atitlan, built promontories as Coseguina, islands as Ometepec in the Lake of Nicaragua, and have turned rivers, changed prevailing winds, and otherwise altered the physical conditions of the country.

Gold sands from the disintegrated veins sparkle in every mountain-brook, and the deposits of silver are no doubt as rich as those of Mexico, Nevada, and Potosi. Aguas calientes, or hot springs, are found all over the country, and earthquakes, often severe, are common on the Pacific slopes.

All along the Atlantic side the rock material is limestone or dolomite, while as one goes westward he meets andesyte and other forms of trachytic lava, such as pumice and obsidian. Even among the limestone mountains of the northeast are occasional volcanic deposits, exactly as might be expected when so extensive an upheaval has taken place.

Whatever has been the exact process by which this essentially mountainous country has been formed, we have at present at its northern boundary the high plain of Anahuac, extending from Mexico (where it is interrupted by the Isthmus of Tehuantepec) through Guatemala; of somewhat lower level in Honduras and Salvador; sinking to almost sea-level in Nicaragua (154 feet); and rising again in the Altos of Veragua to about 3,250 feet. This main range has its axis much nearer the Pacific shore and almost parallel to it, being in San Salvador distant seventy-five miles, and in Guatemala (Totonicapan) only fifty. Towards the Pacific the slope is steep, interrupted by many volcanoes; while on the Atlantic side the gently terraced incline is broken into subsidiary ridges extending to the very shores. In the oceanic valleys and along the coast are the only lowlands of Central America; and these contain the wash of volcanoes, limestone mountains, and ages of vegetable growth and decay, forming the richest of soils for agricultural purposes.

In Guatemala the mean height of the cordillera is about seven thousand, and probably the mean height of this republic is not less than five thousand, feet. The Sierra Madre, or Cuchumatanes, in the Department of Huehuetenango, is the highest land (always excepting the volcanoes, which will be described later); and of the less important ridges are the Sierra de Chamá (of limestone, and full of caverns), which extends towards the northeast and ends in the Cockscomb Range of British Honduras; Sierra de Santa Cruz, also of limestone, extends nearly eastward, north of the Lago de Izabal and the Rio Polochic, and south of the Rio Sarstun; Sierra de las Minas, nearly parallel to the last, and separating the valley of the Rio Motagua from that of the Polochic. Of this range is the Montaña del Mico and the peak of San Gil, near Livingston: the material is no longer limestone, but metamorphic rock, containing mines of some importance. Last we have the Sierra del Merendon, which forms the boundary between Guatemala and Spanish Honduras; and with various names it finally ends in the Montaña de Omoa on the coast,—an important landmark several thousand feet high.

The mountains of Salvador are all volcanic and shoreward of the main chain; but in Honduras the lines again repeat the general arrangement of Guatemala, while the names are many, indicating a more broken system. Between the ranges are broad and fertile valleys, the Llano de Comayagua being forty miles in length, with a breadth of from five to fifteen miles. In Nicaragua the ridges slope towards the southwest, breaking abruptly to the Mosquito coast, and an important part of its territory is occupied by the lakes of Managua and Nicaragua. From the broad valley the land again rises towards Costa Rica, where it attains the height of forty-three hundred feet, and, owing to the narrowness of the continent, the lateral branches are insignificant. From the table-land of Veragua the cordillera dwindles to the basaltic ridge of Panama.

Rivers are, next to mountains, the most important factors in the physical aspect of the land; and in Central America they are abundant, though, from the broken nature of the country, not of great size. From the position of the backbone of the land, most of the watershed is towards the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea; even the great lakes of Nicaragua, which are really on the Pacific side, empty through the Rio San Juan into the Atlantic, the river taking advantage of a break in the cordillera. The lower or navigable portion of the Central American rivers is the only part known; the sources of even the largest streams are still unexplored. So tortuous are the courses that names are multiplied, and rivers that flow from inhabited valleys through wild forests again appear in the lowlands as unknown strangers; and the river that one traveller describes as important and navigable, because he sees it in the season of rain, the next visitor may cross knee-deep, and know only as a brook.

On the Pacific side may be mentioned the Rio Lempa, which rises near Esquipulas, receives the waters of the considerable Lago de Guija (on the boundary of Guatemala and Salvador), and even after the dry season is of large volume, thirty miles from its mouth attaining a breadth of more than six hundred feet and a depth of ten feet, which is nearly twenty-seven when the floods of the rainy season occur. If it were not for the bar, which has hardly a fathom of water, the navigation would develop rich lands on either bank. The Rio Paz, the Rio de los Esclavos, and the Rio Michatoya are not navigable, although formerly the latter stream at its mouth (Istapa) was large enough within the bar to admit the construction of vessels of moderate size; it was here that the Spaniards fitted out several fleets.

Far different are some of the rivers that find their way into the Atlantic. Chief among them all is the noble Usumacinta, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico through the Lago de Terminos, and is navigable many miles through a singularly fertile and interesting country, as beautiful as fancy pictures the cradle of the human race,—a land seldom visited by white men, and the home of the unconquered and unbaptized (La Candones) Indios. The swift Chixoy, the Rio de la Pasion, and the almost unknown San Pedro unite to form this “Child of many Waters.”

The Belize River, rising in the Montaña de Dolores near Peten and crossing the British colony, is the principal highway for the commerce of Peten, the pitpans bringing down huge mahogany bowls, paddles, baskets, and other Indian goods. The Sarstun forms the southern boundary of the British possessions, and is navigable for small canoes as far as the rapids of Gracias á Dios. None but timber-cutters disturb its solitudes. The Polochic is at present the most useful river of Guatemala. It rises near Tactic, and is a foaming torrent for much of its course in Alta Verapaz. At Pansos the waters are navigable for light-draft steamers, except in very dry seasons; and not far below, its volume is materially increased by the Cahabon. It flows through the Lake of Izabal, and, as the Rio Dulce, empties into the Gulf of Amatique over a bar of sand. The Motagua is nearly parallel to the Polochic, and rises near Santa Cruz del Quiché. From Gualan it is navigable in canoes. Smaller streams are the Ulúa, Aguan, and Segovia in Spanish Honduras, which are navigable for pitpans. Finally we have the San Juan, known as one of the elements of the “Nicaragua Canal” route, but not at present navigable for boats of any size.

All the rivers of Central America that can be used for commerce require a special river service; for wherever the depth of water is sufficient, the always-present bar cuts off access to vessels drawing more than six feet. Should the development of the country warrant it, the bar of the Rio Dulce could be deepened sufficiently to admit vessels drawing ten or fifteen feet.

Small lakes are common enough in the northern part of Central America. The Laguna del Peten is about five hundred feet above the sea, nine leagues long and five broad. The Lago de Atitlan, in the Department of Sololà, is sixteen and a half miles long from San Lucas Toliman to San Juan, and eight miles wide from San Buenaventura to Canajpú, and soundings show a depth of a thousand feet. With the Laguna de Amatitlan, this will be described in the Itinerary. Of Honduras, the chief lakes are the Laguna de Caratasca, or Cartago, close on the Atlantic coast, thirty-six miles long by twelve wide; the Lago de Yojoa, between the Departments of Comayagua and Santa Bárbara, twenty-five miles long and from five to eight wide; the Lago de Cartina, eighteen miles by eight, and the Laguna de la Criba, fifteen by seven miles. Of all the lakes of Central America, none is so interesting commercially as the Lake of Nicaragua. It is large (ninety miles by forty), and the largest south of Lake Michigan. Of a depth sufficient for all vessels (forty-five fathoms in places), and connected with the Atlantic by the Rio San Juan, with the Lago de Managua (thirty-five miles by sixteen), by the Tipitapa, it has the serious disadvantage of being a volcanic basin, whose bottom may at any time be elevated above the surface,—as in the case of the volcano of Ometepec. Whether the channel between these two lakes is permanent, is a matter of some doubt, as travellers have lately found no water flowing from Managua. The Lago de Guija, between Guatemala and Salvador, is seventeen miles long from east to west, and its mean width is six. Fishes and alligators abound, and its waters—which are not of the best quality—discharge through the Lempa to the Pacific. Another lake in Salvador has attracted attention in late years by a curious volcanic disturbance in its midst; Ilopango will be described with the volcanoes.

With this bare list of some of the prominent features of the country, we may join a brief account of those other natural and political characteristics of what was once Spain’s stronghold on this continent that have most immediate relation to the present inhabitants. Leaving Guatemala for a separate chapter, the other four republics may be described as follows:—

Salvador.—The smallest in extent, but by far the most populous, having no less than sixty-three inhabitants to the square mile. The central part is an upland of a mean elevation of two thousand feet above the sea, bounded on the Pacific side by a chain of volcanic peaks; beyond these a strip of lowland from ten to twenty miles wide. Eastward and westward are two great depressions, San Miguel and Sonsonate, “the place of a hundred springs” (centsonatl). The Gulf of Fonseca, fifty miles long and nearly thirty wide, is said to be the most beautiful harbor on the Pacific coast. On the southwest side is the principal port of La Union, a town of little more than two thousand inhabitants, and unhealthful, as are all the Pacific ports. The mean temperature is 80° Fahr.; and were it not for the capital commercial facilities of the town, its inhabitants would be few. Libertad has an open roadstead, and a population only half that of La Union. Acajutla lies between the headlands of Remedios and Santiago, and has but five hundred inhabitants; as the port of Sonsonate (distant five leagues), however, it is much frequented, and is provided with an iron pier, as is Libertad. In 1882 the first railway in the republic was opened, from Acajutla to Sonsonate, a distance of fifteen miles; and work has since been slowly progressing in the direction of Santa Ana.

Mines of gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and anthracite coal are found within the borders of Salvador, the principal being those of Loma-Larga, Corozal, Devisadero, Encuentros, and Tabanco.

The capital was founded April 1, 1528, by Jorge de Alvarado, brother of the conqueror of Guatemala; but ten or twelve years afterwards it was removed to its present site in the valley De los Hamacas, where it has been many times ruined by the terrible earthquakes to which this region is especially subject.

The republic is divided into fourteen departments, twenty-nine districts, and two hundred and twenty-eight towns.

The legislative power is exercised by two chambers,—one of Deputies, the other of Senators; each Department elects a senator and a substitute, each District a representative and his substitute. The executive power is in the hands of a citizen elected as President by the people directly; should there be no election by an absolute majority of votes, the General Assembly elects from the three citizens who have obtained the greatest number of votes. Three senators are designated as heirs-apparent. The term of office is four years, without immediate re-election. The judiciary is similar in order and functions in all these republics, and will be described as in Guatemala. The organized militia numbers about thirteen thousand men; and in case of invasion, war lawfully declared, and internal rebellion, all Salvadoreños between the ages of eighteen and fifty are liable to military duty.

In 1879 the number of primary schools was 624 (465 boys’, and the rest girls’); and these were attended by 20,400 boys and 4,038 girls, at a probable cost of $150,000. There is a central university, with faculties of Law, Medicine, Theology, and Civil Engineering, and it has branches at Santa Ana and San Miguel.

There are six hundred and ninety-three miles of telegraph, with forty offices; and the service is reasonably well performed by the Government officials. A railroad between Santa Tecla and the capital, and five hundred and nine leagues of cart-roads, afford communication; and there are lines of stages subsidized by the Government.

In 1879 the imports were $2,549,160.19, and the exports $4,122,888.05; the income $2,914,236.29, and the expenditures $2,785,068. The funded debt was $1,945,201, the floating debt $392,777.11, and there is no foreign debt.

Salvador is essentially an agricultural state, and coffee, indigo, balsam, tobacco, rice, cacao, sugar, rubber, and other less important products are produced abundantly from her fertile fields.

Honduras.—The third republic of Central America covers an area of about forty thousand square miles. Its boundaries are seen on the map, and its surface is diversified with high mountain-ranges, broad and fertile valleys, vast forests, and plentiful streams. Its climate is extremely hot on the coast; but in the mountain region, as at Intibucá, the temperature is low. Never so hot as a summer in New England cities, and not so cold as to check a most luxuriant vegetable growth, the traveller has an alternation of spring and summer as he changes his level, irrespective of the astronomical year. Four hundred miles of Atlantic coast-line, dotted with river-mouths, bays, and ports; sixty miles on the Pacific side, in the secure Gulf of Fonseca,—seem to provide ample commercial advantages; and to make these of use are the following resources: vast plains in Comayagua and Olancho, covered with excellent grass, pasture large herds of cattle, thousands of which are shipped each year to Cuba.[2] The forests, which occupy much of the Atlantic coast-region and the lower mountain-slopes abound in mahogany, rosewood, cedar (Bursera), logwood (Hæmatoxylon campecheanum) brazil-wood (Cæsalpinia Braziliensis), sarsaparilla (Smilax), and other marketable products; the principal timber regions being on the rivers Ulúa, Aguan, Negro, and Patuca,—all on the Atlantic side. In mineral wealth Honduras easily outranks all her sister republics. Silver ores are exceedingly abundant, chiefly on the Pacific slopes; and among them are chlorides of remarkable richness. Gold washings occur in Olancho, and are now worked by several foreign companies. Copper deposits are often mingled with silver; iron exists as magnetite,—sometimes so pure that it may be worked without smelting; antimony, tin, and zinc also have been reported. Beds of lignite are found in the Department of Gracias; and here too are the Hondureñan opals. Fruits of many kinds are now grown in the neighborhood of Puerto Cortez, such as bananas, plantains, coconuts, pines, for which there is a constant demand from the steamers which come here from New Orleans. Of indigo little is now exported; but the production of tobacco is increasing. Especially fine is the leaf grown near Copan, rivalling, when properly cured, the best product of the Cuban valleys; but the common cigars, which are sold for eight dollars per thousand, are dear even at that price. In 1879 the importations were valued at about one million dollars, and the exports twice that amount. In later years these exports have largely increased. A railroad of narrow gauge extends from Puerto Cortez to San Pedro,—thirty-seven miles; and while the republic is sadly deficient in cart-roads, it is only fair to say that the authorities are doing something to improve these very necessary means, in the expectation that the country is to develop as it deserves.

The government is very like that of Salvador, and the administrative departments are:—

Public lands are abundant, and are granted to actual settlers of any nationality at low rates, provided they will cultivate them. The towns are all small, although some of them were flourishing sixty years before the settlement of Jamestown in Virginia. Of the more important are Tegucigalpa, the capital, in the midst of a plain some three thousand feet above the sea, and surrounded by a mining region. It possesses a Universidad Central, founded in 1849 by Don Juan Lindo, then President. Comayagua was founded in 1540 by Alonzo de Cáceres, also in the midst of a plain, where still are visible the monuments of antiquity,—the less perishable works of a people more energetic than their successors; for with the exception of some few churches, little of the work of the present inhabitants would survive three centuries of occupation by a foreign invader. Amapala, on the Island of Tigre, in the Gulf of Fonseca, was formerly a favorite rendezvous of the buccaneers, Drake making it his base of operations in the South Sea. Now it is no less desirable as a port, having deep water close to shore. Puerto Cortez, or Puerto Caballos,—as Cortez called it, from the death of some of his horses here,—on the north coast, in latitude 15° 49′ N., and longitude 87° 57′ W., was selected by Cortez as the entrepôt of New Spain, under the name of Navedad. For more than two hundred years it was the principal port on the coast; but dread of the buccaneers caused the removal to Omoa. The bay is nine miles in circumference, with a depth of from four to twelve fathoms over its principal area; and on the northern side, where the water is deepest, large ocean steamers may come to the wharves. Omoa, in latitude 15° 47′ N. and longitude 88° 5′ W., has a smaller harbor, defended by the Castillo de San Fernando. Trujillo, an ancient port on the western shore of a noble bay, is now growing in importance with the development of Olancho, of which it is the natural seaport; but it has no wharf or any sufficient landing-place for merchandise.

The Bay Islands are small, but of considerable importance. Roatan, the largest, is about thirty miles long by nine broad, and in its highest part nearly a thousand feet above the sea. Guanaja, or Bonaca, the first land of Central America discovered by Columbus on his fourth voyage, is fifteen miles from Roatan, and of an extent of five by nine miles. This group is fertile, and with a fine climate should prove very attractive to settlers from the North who appreciate the waste of life in an arctic climate of eight months each year, when all vegetation ceases to grow, and man himself can be kept alive only by artificial heat, where the farmer must toil wearily four months for the poor produce that is to sustain him all the “famine months,” and the laborer live poorly all the twelvemonth, whatever be his work.

The history of Honduras has not been a happy one, even since its revolt from the Spanish yoke in 1821, and revolutions have been the rule; but in 1865 a new Constitution was adopted, with some prospect of internal quiet. The four hundred thousand inhabitants include perhaps seven thousand whites, the Spanish population being mainly on the Pacific side, Caribs along the Atlantic coast, and several thousand of the mixed races, the great majority being Indios, known as Xicaques and Poyas. Perhaps the most adverse influence to the progress of this naturally rich republic, next to the revolutions, was the scandalous loan for building the “Honduras Inter-oceanic Railway” from Puerto Cortez to the Gulf of Fonseca, a hundred and forty-eight miles. This loan, amounting in 1876 to $27,000,000, was as complete a swindle as has ever disgraced American finances; but the people of Honduras, although responsible for the debt, had little to do with its origin, and cannot rightly be blamed for not paying interest on what they never had any advantage from. The internal debt is about $2,000,000.

Nicaragua.—Of nearly the same area as Honduras, Nicaragua is chiefly distinguished by its lower level and the great lake which offers so inviting a route for an inter-oceanic canal. The same fertility and genial climate extend from the Hondureñan uplands into Chontales and Segovia, where Northerners can enjoy life; but it is hot and unwholesome near the sea, especially throughout the Mosquito Reservation, where the frequent river-floods and the miasmatic marshes breed an endemic fever very fatal to Europeans. The mean annual temperature (excepting the highlands) is about 80° F., falling to 70° at night, and rising to 90° in the hottest weather. The seasons, as elsewhere in Central America, are two,—the wet from May to November, the dry including the winter months. At Rivas, on the isthmus between the Lago de Nicaragua and the Pacific, the annual rainfall is about a hundred and two inches; elsewhere the summer rainfall is about ninety, and the winter less than ten.

Geologically, Nicaragua is no less rich than Honduras in variety of structure and mineral possibilities. The volcanic formations on the extreme West are rich in pumice and sulphur, while across the lake are andesyte, trachyte, greenstone, and metalliferous porphyries, succeeded by crystallized schists, dolerites, and metamorphic beds, extending, so far as is known, beneath the alluvial deposits of the coast-region. The Chontales gold mines have been worked for some time near Libertad, and so have the silver mines of Matagalpa and Dipilto; but the total annual yield of precious metals seldom exceeds $200,000.

The chief articles of export are cacao, hides, coffee, and gums, as well as gold and silver bullion; and in 1880 the exports amounted to $2,057,500, and the imports to $1,475,000. The revenue for this year was $2,435,000, while the expenditures slightly exceeded it. All Nicaraguans between the age of eighteen and thirty-five are in the army.

For more than half a century Nicaragua has been darkly distinguished above all other countries of the world by war and bloodshed. Military pronunciamientos, civil war, and popular revolts have so exhausted all the resources of this rich country that it is quiet at last from utter exhaustion. Could these fermenting republics be induced to give up their absurd and expensive military establishments, and expend the money, now worse than wasted, in opening roads and teaching the people something besides military drill, the prosperity of this wonderfully fertile and agreeable region would be assured. Only their revolutionary habits now stand in the way of the introduction of foreign capital; and are not these habits fostered by the constant military display which guards the President and judges alike? It is certainly foreign to all Northern ideas to have a court of justice guarded by military sentinels. Would that this Eden might be reclaimed, the swords beaten into ploughshares, and the generals and other officers turn their wasted energies to agriculture and commerce!

Nicaragua is divided into the following departments, according to the census of 1882:—

These figures cannot, however, be relied upon for the population. With a coast-line of two hundred and eighty miles on the Caribbean Sea, the only port is San Juan del Norte (Greytown), formed by the northern branch of the delta of the San Juan; and this is now nearly choked with sand. The Pacific coast is bold and rocky, extending nearly two hundred miles from Coseguina Point to Salinas Bay, and has several convenient harbors, as San Juan del Sur, Brito, and, best of all, Realejo. Among the chief cities is Leon, founded by Francisco Fernandez de Córdoba in 1523 in Imbita, near the northwest shore of Lago de Managua, whence it was moved in 1610 to the present site at the Indian town of Subtiaba. Managua, the capital of the republic, was nearly destroyed in 1876 by a land-slide, but is now rebuilt. Granada is the collegiate town of the republic, and is on the shores of the great lake. A railway has long been in process of construction to connect the capital with the ocean. In 1882 the telegraphic system of eight hundred miles was completed, and eighty-one thousand despatches were forwarded the preceding year through twenty-six offices. In 1882 the total attendance at the national schools was only five thousand, or less than eight per cent of the whole population. The annual grant for the purposes of education was $50,000.

The Mosquito coast cuts from Nicaragua a large portion of her shore-line, precisely as British Honduras robs Guatemala of hers; and this has been a cause of serious trouble. This territory, which is about forty miles wide, had been under the protection of Great Britain from 1655 to 1850, when that very un-American document the Clayton-Bulwer treaty gave England certain rights in her colony of Belize in exchange for such claims as she had to this coast, and by the treaty of Managua, in 1860, she formally ceded her protectorate to Nicaragua; but there are still several disputed points.

Costa Rica.—The fifth and most southern republic of Central America has an area of only twenty-one thousand square miles. The Atlantic coast is low, and the country is covered with a dense forest, while the Pacific slope is characterized by wide savannas, or llanuras. Between these borders are high volcanoes and an elevated table-land three to four thousand feet above the sea,—the latter almost the only cultivated land in the State. The forests are largely composed of very valuable trees,—mahogany, ebony, brazil-wood, and oak; and the usual tropical fruits grow well. Coffee, however, is the staple export, being grown extensively in the neighborhood of San José and Cartago; the soil most favorable being dark volcanic ash, from three to eighteen feet deep. The amount exported in 1874 was valued at $4,464,000; in 1885 the amount is placed at $4,219,617.

On the Atlantic side Puerto Limon is the chief commercial town, and on the Pacific, Punta Arenas. In 1871 the Government negotiated a loan in London of $5,000,000, and the next year another of $12,000,000,—but from both of them never received more than $5,058,059.60,—with the avowed intention of building an inter-oceanic railway between the two principal ports; but only detached portions have been built,—twenty-four miles from Alajuela to Cartago, sixty from Limon to Carrillo, and six from Punta Arenas to Esparta. The country is bankrupt, and makes no attempt to pay any part of its liabilities; indeed, its revenues, derived from intolerable duties (even on the export of coffee), monopolies of spirits and tobacco, national bank, sales of land, and internal taxes, do not balance the expenditures.

The legislature is composed of a Congress of Deputies,—one for each electoral district,—holding office six years, half being renewed every three years. The members of the Corte de Justicia are elected by Congress. The present constitution (from 1871) is the seventh that has been in force. The departments are,—

The population is estimated by M. Belly.

Both the northern boundary on Nicaragua, and the southern one on Columbia, are in dispute.[3]

I have endeavored to give most briefly the chief matters of importance relating to the four republics that, with Guatemala, constitute Central America. I am well aware that I have turned, that I can turn but little light on the darkness; too little is known of the country, beyond its trade and political relations to the rest of the world. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and revolutions have popularly been associated with the whole region, and public taste has been turned away from such unpleasant outbreaks of subterranean fires or human passions. The time will come when these regions, far more fertile and accessible than those African wilds that for a score of years have interested, strangely enough, both explorer and capitalist, will claim the attention due their natural merits; and the fertile plains will be the garden and orchard of the United States,—not necessarily by political annexation, but by commercial intercourse. All our sugar, all our coffee, all our rice, all our chocolate, all our india-rubber ought to come from Central America, where these products can be raised better and cheaper than in any other country; and next to these staples, the subsidiary fruits, as oranges, plantains, bananas, pines, limes, granadillas, aguacates, and dozens of others now unknown to commerce, ought to come to us from Limon, Puerto Cortez, and Livingston. These are to be obtained in Guatemala of better quality and in better order than in the West Indies. Louisiana would then perhaps give up the unnatural cultivation of sugar, and Florida cease her useless striving to raise really good oranges, and both States turn to the products they are better fitted for raising.

I will ask you to go with me through the republic of Guatemala, and to see it, so far as you can, with my eyes; and until that journey is ended, we will leave the story of the old times, the present system of government, the ethnology, the volcanoes, the flora and fauna, to chapters by themselves, even if the unsystematic arrangement should savor strongly of the irregularity of the land we journey through.