here, but it is not improbable that the colony has by this time been abandoned.*

Unfortunately for the success of colonization in Costa Rica, it is encouraged impulsively, and not steadily and consistently supported. The government and people could have good roads and buildings with some sort of architectural pretensions, but, like children, they rebel against the patient exertion which is necessary to secure them. They would be glad to have the vast forests which cover the country cleared off, and the land made to bloom under the systematic and intelligent culture of foreign colonists, but they become jealous of the stranger when he arrives; his success vexes them, and, so far from binding him to the country of his adoption by agreeable associations and a friendly policy, they thwart his enterprises and embarrass his movements, and by a system of petty annoyances soon drive him in disgust from their shores. They have also yet to learn that colonization by companies under grants, which from necessity can only be made in remote districts, away from roads, and without available resources near at hand, have but little chance of suc

cess.

To insure a useful emigration, encouragement

* "In the fall of the year 1850, a vessel with 51 persons sailed from Bremen for Costa Rica. They all left their homes with the hope and almost the certainty of bettering their condition in the New World, all looking forward with delight to the happy life which awaited them in the land of eternal spring in Costa Rica. They arrived, after two months' sail, at the port of San Juan, and continued their journey, surrounded by great difficulties and privations, to San José. Three years have passed since these 51 emigrants paddled in their frail bongo up the Serapiqui River, and what was their fate? Out of 51 persons only three families are alive, all the rest having succumbed to circumstances for which they were not prepared. Nineteen died at San José soon after their arrival ; nine are interred at the landing on the Serapiqui; nine died at Miravalles; four at Alajuela; and the bones of a carpenter from Saxony, who, from certain indications, had probably been torn in pieces by a voracious tiger, while he was sleeping at night in the forest, on his journey to San José, lie buried, together with his wife and child, under the evergreen tombs at San Miguel."-Carl Scherzer.

should rather be given to individuals to settle among the people themselves, and by example and instruction elevate their tastes and habits, and diffuse the useful arts, in respect of which the country is deplorably behind the age.

*

Foreigners are authorized to hold real estate in their own name, and transmit it after their death, by testament, to their offspring or next of kin; but it is important, when they become possessors of real property by private purchase, to see that the right of pre-emption has been attended to, as an omission in this respect would invalidate their title-deeds. The law requires that the vender shall successively inform his immediate neighbors of the sale (beginning with the proprietor whose estate has the greater extent of border on his land), and give them the option of taking it at the offered price. The usual way of avoiding this law is by adding to the price of the purchase the value

course.

* "To develop the resources, vegetable, mineral, and commercial of Costa Rica, a large immigration from Europe or from the United States is absolutely necessary; and it would be the well-understood interest of the government and people of Costa Rica to further, by every means in their power, such an immigration; but their jealousy of foreigners does not allow them to continue this It is important that the emigrants from Europe who wish to settle in Costa Rica should consider seriously before they undertake such a task, under circumstances so different to those they have been accustomed to, not only the advantages that the country offers, but also the manifold obstacles they will have to conquer, the opposition they will have to contend with, and the influence of the climate against which they will have to struggle.

"One of the great difficulties, the most important, perhaps, against which the immigrants have to guard, is the extreme dampness of the atmosphere, which, under the hot, tropical sun, very soon enervates them, and renders them an easy prey to fever. If they escape this danger, they have to battle with the climate in other respects; they have to make the best of the short intervals of time when the rain does not pour from the heavens, and to adapt skillfully their knowledge of agriculture to the novel circumstances in which they find themselves, by repeated experiments on a small scale, the rules they followed in Europe being not always the best they can follow in Costa Rica, where the very fatness of the soil will not unfrequently cause them trouble."-Letters from · Costa Rica, by a British Consul.

of some article which it is in the purchaser's sole power to give. In regard to the "valdios," the immigrant will find it next to impossible to obtain information concerning their position from the government; he must inquire of the inhabitants of the country, more especially in the districts bordering on the wilds where he wishes to purchase. When he has obtained the requisite information, he must have the lands measured and land-marks established. His application to the government must inclose a full description of the section he has chosen. This application is called "denouncing the land," the price of which is then fixed. The applicant takes possession, paying a certain amount thereon and a yearly interest of four per cent. on the remainder. There have been cases remaining to the present day in statu quo-where the purchaser (a native of influence) has been allowed to take possession, retain, and cultivate, without paying any thing more than the yearly interest of four per

cent.

cases-some

As already said, the soil of the state generally is of great fertility; but the immigrant must remember that while this fertility is an earnest of the wealth he may attain, it is also one of the great obstacles against which he will have to contend, for it is produced by the extreme dampness of the air and by the continuous rains, which last seven months in the settled parts of the country, and may be said to last the whole of the year in the districts which he would have to redeem from the wilderness. The natives estimate the cost of clearing and preparing the soil of a manzana of land (about two acres) at $20, but an American backwoodsman would doubtless do it for one half that sum. In the upper valleys the value of land varies greatly, according to

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.

GUATEMALA ranks first among the states of Cen

tral 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