other of the party shot an alligator, who turned over, exposing his yellow belly as he died. Altogether, the voyage down was more agreeable than the hard run up. Trees that were bare a few days before were now covered with white feathery flowers, and others presented masses of greenish flowers on their flat tops. We sailed and floated down the Rio Dulce by moonlight, and at early dawn anchored at Livingston.

Opposite the town are lands fertile and capable of producing fine crops to an enterprising owner. Frank and I rowed over several times, once exploring a neglected finca, where cane, sapotes, cassava, bananas, plantains, rose-apples, and coconuts were all jumbled together; at another time visiting a cacao-plantation farther up the stream. There is certainly room for a wise invest

ment of capital on these lands on the eastern slope of San Gil as far as Santo Tomas. And here let me write of this port, Puerto Barrios, and the Northern Railroad, although I did not visit them until the spring of 1885.

Santo Tomas is beautifully situated; but since the sad failure of the Belgian colony established there by a legislative decree of April, 1843, it has borne a bad reputation, and its inhabitants diminished to the insignificant number of a hundred and twenty-nine by the last census. Its harbor, into which no large river empties, is an exceedingly good one, and a wharf might be constructed on deep water; but the authorities, in selecting a terminus for the projected railway which is to connect Guatemala City with the Atlantic coast, and so unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, chose a place some three miles eastward from Santo Tomas, where they must construct a wharf some three hundred feet in length to reach twenty feet of water, and where often ships cannot lie, but must run for Santo Tomas in bad weather. Add to this that the site of the fine city of Puerto Barrios is a swamp at present uninhabitable, although laid out (on paper) in a very attractive way, with castle, theatre, hippodrome, and all the elements of a Centro-American city of the first rank. The splendid mango-trees, with their dark, dense foliage, are abundant in the old village, while here even the palms are dwarfed.

Arriving at Puerto Barrios late in the afternoon, we were kindly received by the contractors, and after an exceedingly good supper allotted comfortable beds in the large storehouse. We had heard of the cruelty practised

towards the workmen on the railroad, and wished to know the truth. I of course understood the circumstances under which men were induced to go there to work, and knew that agents in New Orleans and elsewhere might and did make unauthorized promises to the shiftless adventurers who sought to better their

fortunes in a new land. Men from the North cannot do hard manual work in this climate unless they are very careful in regard to diet, clothing, and general sanitary conditions. If they get wet, and sleep in their wet clothes, they will have a malarial fever in a newly cleared country. If they eat improper food, or proper food at improper times, their bowels will certainly protest. Now, I was convinced that the contractors did not take these precautions with their men, that in consequence of this

negligence a large amount of sickness resulted, and that complaints printed in the newspapers of the United States from the sick men were justified. I have seen the men who left the railroad and took service on plantations, and have talked with them, although I have never mentioned the subject to the several contractors and overseers I met; my opinion is therefore formed from what these unfortunate men told me.

In the morning we were provided with the only handcar the road owns, and began our explorations. I will not mention the builders of that car, for it was a worthless article, and had it belonged to me I should have run it off the track and down a steep place into the sea. The road, of thirty-six inch gauge, was graded (in March, 1885) some six miles, and rails were laid four miles; but the thirty-ton locomotive, which had to do the work one of half the size could do, could run only over three miles, the track was so uneven. Men were cutting sleepers in the adjoining forest, and we saw many of mahogany. The grade is also being pushed from Tenedores, on the Motagua River, to meet this end. No great engineering is here visible, and the main difficulty seems to have been in getting suitable foundations for the bridges over the numerous small creeks. Along the track we saw two large snakes of the boa family which had been killed by the workmen. Some five miles from Puerto Barrios we came to the hot sulphur-spring. It is a pool, fifteen feet in diameter, close by the track, and pours out a considerable volume of clear, hot water, pleasant to drink when cooled, but while in the pool too hot to put one's finger in. Bubbles, probably of hydrosulphuric acid, escaped freely; but vegetation extended to the very borders of the

pool, and all around the forest was dense. A cool brook ran near at hand and gave a fine bathing-place as the hot water mingled with it. We were assured that the men who drank the sulphurous hot water never had fever.

From Tenedores the surveyed line of railroad extends up the valley of the Motagua to Gualan, thence up the ascent to the high plateau on which stands Chiquimula, and thence to Guatemala City, where it will connect with the road now in operation from that city to San José, on the Pacific, five thousand feet below.

Before leaving the Atlantic coast we must again mention the numerous steamship lines from Livingston to New Orleans, New York, Belize, Puerto Cortez, Jamaica,