the locality; thus, near San José, land is bought and sold at from $100 to $150 the manzana; if in cultivation of coffee, for instance, each tree is reckoned apart from the price of the soil-the old tree half a real (6 cents), and the young tree, just beginning to bear, one real and a half (18 cents)-while at eight or ten miles in a direction west of Barba, a manzana of land is not worth more than $18. In the forest, the basis of the price of government lands is $64 the caballeria of 120 acres. In the more favored districts, however, as, for instance, near the settlement of San Ramon, the government asks a higher price. GUATEMALA. CHAPTER XXII. PHYSICAL FEATURES-LIMITS-POLITICAL DIVISIONS-SCENERY-RIVERS-LAKES-VOLCANOES AND VOLCANIC FEATURES-CITIES AND PRINCIPAL TOWNS. G UATEMALA ranks first among the states of Central America in respect of population and wealth, and second only to Nicaragua in territorial extent. Its general aspect is mountainous, but a large part of the interior country consists of high plateaus, of unsurpassed beauty of scenery, of vast fertility, and unquestionable salubrity. Its greatest deficiency is the want of ports on either ocean, and the almost total absence of roads. Communication, whether by sea or land, is equally difficult and dangerous; and, from this cause, it seems probable that Guatemala will be the last to receive any great impulse or benefit from that contact with other nations which is gradually, but surely bringing the remaining Central American states within the circle of commercial and industrial activity. On the north, Guatemala is bounded by the Mexican states of Chiapa and Yucatan, but the line of separation has never been accurately laid down; on the east, by the Bay of Honduras, the State of Honduras, from which it is divided by the high mountain range of Merendon, and by the Rio Paza, which separates it from San Salvador. On the south and west it is bounded Нн by the Pacific. In common with all the other states of Central America, except San Salvador, Guatemala is involved in territorial disputes. At the period of the independence, and for some time thereafter, the rich district of Soconusco, extending for nearly a hundred miles along the Pacific, was attached to Guatemala. Mexico, however, soon set up claims of sovereignty over it, and in 1843 forcibly occupied it. The question between the governments was, however, finally settled in 1854, through means of a convention, wherein Guatemala surrenders all her pretensions over Soconusco and Chiapa for the sum $420,000, payable in four annual install ments. A large portion of the Atlantic coast, upward of two hundred miles in length, and of indefinite extent inland, has also been claimed by Great Britain as pertaining to the establishment of Belize. The nature and extent of this claim are fully explained in the chapters on Belize, and need not be presented here.* Considering Belize to comprise only the district defined by the treaty of 1786 with Spain, we may compute the area of Guatemala, approximatively, at 43,380 square miles. Estimating the total population at 890,000, this would give an average of 20 inhabitants to the square mile. About two thirds of the inhabitants are Indians, and the rest Ladinos and whites, the latter very insignificant in numbers. There are but few negroes. The whites are mostly proprietors of estates, where horned cattle, brought from the states of Honduras and Nicaragua, are grazed, The departments of Huehuetenango, Totonicapam, Quesaltenango, Chimaltenango, and one or two others, have never sympathized cordially with the capital and its dependencies. They were at one time erected by the Federal Congress as a separate state, under the name of "Los Altos," and they still retain a spirit of independence, which it requires considerable energy on the part of the central authority to repress. fattened, and sold at a large profit. These estates also produce sugar, and the usual produce of farms in other parts of the world. Many of the whites are also engaged in trade, and are shopkeepers, and among these traders are a number of European Spaniards. Every year fresh immigrants come from Spain to join their relations here, and follow the same calling. The Ladinos are generally mechanics and retail shopkeepers; the Indians are the cultivators of the soil, and, in general, the agricultural laborers.** The state is divided politically into sixteen departments, as follows: These departments, collectively, send forty-four deputies to the Assembly; Guatemala sending eight, Sacatepequez five, Quesaltenango and Chiquimula four each, and all the rest two deputies each, with the exception of Vera Paz, which sends three, and Solola, San Marcos, Izabal, which send one each. The Chapter of the Cathedral, the University, the High Court of Justice, the Economical Society, and the Tribunal of Commerce, are also represented in the Assembly. They send each two deputies. * The distinctions of race are so strongly marked that, in many of the towns and districts, there are two classes of magistrates, one for the Ladinos, and a second for the pure Indians. The latter are always of unmixed aboriginal blood, and are distinguished for their rigor and cruelty; so much so, indeed, that the Indians themselves have often to appeal to the Ladino magistrates for justice. Guatemala, Vera Paz, Chiquimula, Totonicapam, and Quesaltenango are much the largest, comprising together fully one half of the total population. Totonicapam had, in 1854, 117,768 inhabitants, of whom all except about 3000 were pure Indians. In respect of scenery and natural resources, Guatemala sustains a proud eminence. Its broad and fertile plains, its picturesque valleys, its romantic lakes, but especially its majestic mountains and numerous rivers, all vindicate its claim to be regarded as the most diversified and beautiful portion of the North American continent.* It is a country, furthermore, second neither to Peru or Mexico in its historical interest and associations. Here Alvarado found nations, not as widely diffused nor as powerful, perhaps, as the Incas or the Aztecs, but further advanced in the arts, and which had nearly attained, if they had not actually reached, that advanced point of human development, a written language. The Quichés, the Zutugils, and the Kachiquels, the three great affiliated aboriginal nations of Guatemala, may be taken as the types and best exponents of that race which sent its colonies into Yucatan, and, under the name of Tulhuatecas or Toltecs, carried the elements of civilization into Mexico. The evidences of their advancement in the arts remain to us in the ruins of Palenque, Olosingo, Utlatan, and in the numerous ruined cities and deserted temples which abound in the forests of Yucatan. * A recent traveler has drawn the following truthful contrast between the scenery of Mexico and Central America: "The mountains of Mexico are massive, grand, of wide-spreading base, endless plateaus, and long slopes of ascent and descent, whereas those of Central America, and particularly those of Guatemala, are marked by sudden chasms, fathomless rents, capricious peaks, a scattered, unconnected, and varied chaos of height and depth, bearing the unmistakable aspect of having been caused by the most violent and sudden paroxysms of volcanic action." |