To the buccaneers of the Spanish Main the colony largely owes its origin, and to the logwood cutters. The coloured folk here are some of the most expert woodmen in the world, and we see the results of their labour in the rafts of timber—pine, cedar and dyewood—being piloted down the flood of the Belize River. These people are descendants of the buccaneers, people of European blood forming part of the population, the majority of which is composed of a mixture, the descendants of negro slaves, Indian and white settlers. There is, of course, a small purely white class, official, colonial and commercial, under colony government from Britain.
The natural products here most in evidence are the timbers, together with bananas and other characteristic fruits, and coconuts, rubber, coffee, cotton and fibre-producing plants; and gold and other minerals are found and worked in small degree.
It might perhaps be said that a description of British Honduras is out of place in a book such as the present, treating of Spanish America. But geographical considerations would not thus be denied. Further, this little outpost of the British Empire, if it should always remain such, cannot fail to influence, and to be influenced by, the Spanish American civilization around it. It might under better development accomplish much good in this respect, if the policy of drift were abandoned. A North American traveller who had journeyed across the Central American Republics and had been badgered unceasingly by revolutionary strife there, and by customs-house officers and others of the bureaucracy of those States, once exclaimed that the only peaceful moment of his journey was when he at length entered the confines of a portion of "that hated British monarchy"—British Honduras! This may have been an exaggeration, but held something of truth.
The little Republic of Salvador, as already remarked, lies upon the Pacific side of this interesting isthmian region of Central America, but, small in size, it is the most thickly populated and perhaps the most prosperous and advanced of all this group of States. Its capital, San Salvador, may be regarded as a fine example of Spanish American culture, and, with its buildings and institutions, would compare more than favourably with a European or North American town. The climate and general character of the uplands upon which it is situated, and the social atmosphere of the place, are pleasing.
But the Pacific littoral is of that low and monotonous character characteristic of the western slope of much of Central America, and as a consequence the ports are often difficult of access through shoal water and heavy surf. The interior is gained either from La Libertad or Acajutla, by railway to the capital, ascending to 2,000 feet above the sea.
The Republic shares with Honduras and Nicaragua the beautiful Bay of Fonseca, but this beauty is characteristically associated with natural terrors, for not far inland arises the dreaded San Miguel volcano, one of the worst burning mountains of Central America, ever threatening the life of the capital. Upon this bay lies La Union, the chief port of Salvador.
The Republic prides itself, and not unjustly, upon the freedom of its life politically. But it is by no means immune from the inevitable factional strife of Central America, the ambition of dictators and the evils brought about by such corruption of self-government. However, many foreigners carry on successful businesses in the capital.
The population tends to increase with some rapidity, and we shall remark the much smaller proportion of Indians found here; the bulk of the people, the Ladinos, being a mixture of white and Indian, distributed throughout a number of pleasing secondary towns, and, in the country districts, are engaged in the production of coffee, sugar, tobacco and other characteristic resources; whilst the hills afford them those minerals with which the region in general is dowered, with some mining establishments, which, as usual, are controlled by foreigners.
The economic life of Salvador is too greatly dependent upon European markets and financial centres; upon the export of coffee thereto; upon the elevation or depression of such markets—a condition, of course, common to many Spanish American States, but which a better-ordered regimen will seek to rectify.
We might wander long through the beautiful scenery of Salvador, enjoying the grand and imposing aspect of its volcanoes, the beauty of its valleys and streams, for this part of Central America is famed, or rather should be famed, for the beauty of the landscape. Quaint towns and curious products, the quiet and in some respects pleasant life of its folk, the budding industries, and a certain promise for the future leave a pleasant impression upon the mind of the traveller in this little State facing the broad Pacific.
Of the Republic of Nicaragua, which we may approach either from the Atlantic or the Pacific, and which is the largest of this group of States, many dismal descriptions have been given. It is described as economically and in civic conditions the most backward. Yet some of its towns are fine places. Leon was described as a splendid city by travellers in 1665, and about that period the very active buccaneer Dampier gathered rich booty from it. Granada, founded by Cordova in 1523, was also one of the richest cities in Central America, and it, too, gave up its toll of booty to the corsairs. The Cathedral of Leon is one of the most noteworthy, massive and ornate of the great stone temples with which the Spaniards endowed the New World, typical of the colonial architecture which redeems these centres of life from the prosaic vulgarity of some other lands.
THE CITY OF GUATEMALA.
Vol. I. To face p. 80.
We may visit these towns from the line of railway which runs from Corinto, the chief seaport on the Pacific coast.
The capital of the Republic, the city of Managua, is of less interesting character, and was, in a measure, raised to that position in order to put an end to the rivalry between Leon and Granada, both of which claimed metropolitan predominance. It is situated upon the great lake of Nicaragua, the most prominent topographical feature of this part of Central America, and which, it will be recollected, was at one time destined to form part of the waterway of a proposed trans-isthmian canal in place of that of Panama.
This great lake valley and its adjacent highlands form the most plentifully inhabited part of Nicaragua, as the Spanish colonial development seized first upon its more fertile soil, watered by the lake and streams. This civilization entered the country from the Pacific side, from which we remark the grim and distant ramparts of the Central American Cordillera, with its volcanoes intervening between the western versant and littoral, and the low, monotonous and swampy region of the east, and the Mosquito Coast bordering upon the Atlantic. The Pacific coast here is bold and rocky, with a headland enclosing the Bay of Fonseca in Nicaraguan territory.
Through the Cordillera flows the San Juan River, draining this low eastern slope, and here lay the route of the projected Nicaraguan Canal, whose abandonment caused bitter disappointment to the people of the Republic.
In places in this wild land we remark the remains of the pre-Colombian folk, who have left vestiges of their temples and other structures, and thus we realize once more how a chain of temple and palace-building folk in ancient times was carried down the length of the continents from Mexico to Peru.
If too gloomy a description of the eastern side of Nicaragua has been given, this must be tempered by noting that it possesses certain natural advantages which may render it one of the most valuable districts, from an economic point of view, in the whole of Central America. Its rivers may be navigated by ocean-going steamers, and in the Bluefields district the industry of banana production and shipment has risen to very considerable importance.
The name of Nicaragua comes from that powerful native chief, Nicoya, who, when the Spaniards first arrived, received Davila, their leader, in a friendly spirit, and accepted Christian baptism at the hands of the Roman Catholic priests. But the Spaniards overran the country; those who invaded it from the east clashing with their own countrymen who came in from the west, and Nicaragua's fine Indian chief—pathetic page of native history—could not conserve here anything of independence for the rightful owners of the soil.
The Spanish rulers of this unhappy land were a dreadful band, of which it has been recorded that "the first had been a murderer, the second a murderer and a rebel, the third murdered the second, the fourth was a forger, the fifth a murderer and a rebel!"
In