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. 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 (Casalpinia 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, 1 This business is declining, owing to the inferior cattle produced in Florida and shipped at a cheaper rate. 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: Departments. Yoro. Olancho. Paraíso. Tegucigalpa. Choluteca. La Paz. Comayagua. Santa Bárbara. Gracias. Chief Cities. Coxen Hole (Roatan). Juticalpa. Yuscaran. Tegucigalpa (12,000). Choluteca. La Paz. Comayagua (10,000). Santa Bárbara. Gracias. 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 landingplace 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 |