Santo Tomas, Omoa, Puerto Caballos, and San Juan del Norte; on the Pacific, Realejo, the free port of Amapala (Island of Tigre), and La Union.

The area of Central America may be calculated, in round numbers, at 165,000 square miles-very nearly equal to that of the New England and the Middle States combined. The population may be estimated at not far from 2,000,000, of which Guatemala has 850,000; San Salvador, 433,000; Honduras, 350,000; Nicaragua, 300,000; and Costa Rica, 135,000.

The geographical and topographical features of all countries have had, and always must have, an important and often a controlling influence upon the character and destiny of their populations. The nature and extent of this influence receives a striking illustration both in the past and the present condition of Central America. At the period of the discovery, it was found in the occupation of two families of men, presenting in respect to each other the strongest points of contrast. Upon the high plateaus of the interior of the country, and upon the Pacific declivity of the continent, where the rains are comparatively light, the country open, and the climate relatively cool and salubrious, were found great and populous communities, far advanced in civilization, and maintaining a systematized religious and civil organization. Upon the Atlantic declivity, on the other hand, among dense forests, nourished by constant rains into rank vigor, on low coasts, where marshes and lagoons, sweltering under a fierce sun, generated deadly miasmatic damps, were found savage tribes of men, without fixed abodes, living upon the natural fruits of the earth, and the precarious supplies of fishing and the chase, without religion, and with scarcely a semblance of social or political establishments.

It is impossible to resist the conviction that the contrasting conditions of these two great families were principally due to the equally contrasting physical conditions of their respective countries. With the primitive dwellers on the Atlantic declivity of Central America, no considerable advance, beyond the rudest habits of life, was possible. He was powerless against the exuberant vitality of savage nature, which even the civilized man, with all the appliances that intelligence has gradually called to his aid, is unable to subdue, and which still retains its ancient dominion over the broad alluvions, both of Central and South America. His means of sustenance were too few and too precarious to admit of his making permanent establishments, which, in turn, would involve an adjustment of the relations of men and the organization of society. He was therefore a hunter from necessity, nomadic in his habits, and obliged to dispute his life with men who, like himself, were scarcely less savage than the beasts of the forests.

Civilization could never have been developed under such adverse conditions. It can only originate where favorable physical circumstances afford to man some relief from the pressure of immediate and ever-recurring wants-where a genial climate, and an easily-cultivated soil, bountiful in indigenous fruits, enables him not only to make his permanent abode, but to devote a portion of his time to the improvement of his superior

nature.

Such were the circumstances which surrounded the dweller on the high plains of Honduras and Guatemala. There, wide and fertile savannas invited to agriculture, and yielded to the rudest implements of cultivation an ample harvest. The maize, that great

support of aboriginal civilization in America, was probably indigenous there, and was thence carried northward over Mexico and the Floridas by the various families who established themselves in those regions, and whose languages and traditions point to the pla teaus of Guatemala as their original seat.

The natural conditions which favored the development of mankind in one portion of Central America, and rigidly suppressed it in another, are still active and potential. The Spaniards stopped not to maintain an unequal struggle against savage nature on the Atlantic slope of the continent, but established themselves upon the dryer, more salubrious, and more genial Pa cific declivity. The Mosquito Shore still remains the haunt of savages, whom three hundred years of contact with civilization have failed to improve; while the State of San Salvador sustains a population twice as great in proportion to its area as any other equal extent of Spanish America, and relatively as great as that of New England itself.

These natural conditions will continue to foster settlement and population on the one hand, and discourage and oppose it on the other; and not until those portions of Central and South America which are most favored in respect of position and climate are filled to overflowing, and the progress of discovery, both in science and in art, has endowed men with increased ability to combat successfully the diseases and physical difficulties which exist in the valleys of the Amazon and Orinoco, and on the Mosquito Shore, will those regions be subjected to the influences of civilization, or become the seats of any considerable populations.

The natural relations of Central America, as indicated by the physical facts already pointed out, are

clearly with the Pacific and the states which now exist or may spring into existence upon that coast. To California and the greater part of Mexico, as also to some of the states of South America, it must come, sooner or later, to sustain a position corresponding with that which the West Indies have held toward the United States and Europe, with the important addition of being an established route of travel, and perhaps ultimately of commerce, between the eastern and western hemispheres. Its destiny is plainly written in the outlines of its coast, and is printed on its surface, not less than demonstrated by its geographical position.

CHAPTER II

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CLIMATE OF CENTRAL AMERICA IN GENERAL.

THE

'HE peculiarities of Central America, in respect of configuration of surface, will explain the almost endless variety of climate to which I have alluded, and which is nowhere more remarkable than in that country. Situated between 8° and 17° north latitude, were it not for these features, the general temperature would be somewhat higher than that of the West Indies. As it is, the climate of the coast is nearly the same with that of the islands alluded to, and exceedingly uniform. It is modified somewhat by the shape and position of the shore, and by the proximity of the mountains, as well as by the prevailing winds. The heat on the Pacific coast is not, however, so oppressive as on the Atlantic; less, perhaps, because of any considerable dif ference of temperature than on account of the greater dryness and purity of the atmosphere.

In the northern part of the State of Guatemala, in what is called "Los Altos," the Highlands, the average temperature is lower than in any other part of the country. Snow sometimes falls in the vicinity of Quezaltenango, the capital of this department, as well as on the high plains of Intibucat in Honduras, but soon disappears, as the thermometer seldom remains at the freezing point for any considerable length of time. In the vicinity of the city of Guatemala, the range of the thermometer is from 55° to 80°, averaging about 72° of Fahrenheit. Vera Paz, the northeastern department