Guatemala and Her People of To-day: Being an Account of the Land, Its History and Development

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There is a vast amount of ignorance and wrong conception prevalent concerning the republics of Central America. Mexico has been exploited a great deal in recent years and the whereabouts of Panama on the map is now pretty generally known, but the five republics lying between these two countries have been too much overlooked by recent writers. We are sometimes inclined to appropriate the term republic and the name American to ourselves as though we held a copyright on these words. And yet here at our very doors are five nations, each of which lays great stress on the term republic as applied to itself, and whose citizens proudly call themselves Americanos. The ideas of many concerning the Central American republics are drawn from the playlife of popular novels and the comic-opera stage. Although there may have been some foundation for their portrayal of political life along the shores of the Caribbean Sea, and there are some things approaching the burlesque to our eyes, yet there is a more serious side to life in these countries. There are thousands of Guatemalans, Honduraneans, Costa Ricans, Salvadoreans, and Nicaraguans, who are seriously trying to solve the problem of self-government, and they are improving each year. A whole country can not be plowed up and resown in a season as the corn-fields of last year were transformed by the farmers into the waving fields of golden grain this year. It is a long and hard task that is before these struggling Spanish-Americans, but they are now on the right road and will win. They deserve our sympathetic consideration rather than ridicule; and it behooves Americans to inform themselves concerning a people about whom they have thrown a protecting mantle in the shape of the Monroe Doctrine, and who lie at our very doors. Furthermore, the opportunities for commercial conquest invite the earnest thought and study of the great American public. Guatemala, the largest and most important of these republics, has been described as the privileged zone of Central America and is easily reached from both sides by steamers, and will soon be connected with the northern republics by rail. It is a country of mountains, tropical forests, lakes, rivers, coast and plains. No portion of the earth presents a greater diversity of level in an equal amount of surface, or a greater variety of climate. Humboldt, the great traveller, described it as an extremely fertile and well cultivated country more than a century ago. To this day, however, there are great tracts of fertile virgin lands open to cultivation. There are three minor mountain systems in the country. Of these the northern series is composed chiefly of denuded cones from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high with plains between; the central consists of ranges running from east to west and reaching a height of from seven to fourteen thousand feet; the southern branch comprises a number of volcanic peaks which culminate in several notable volcanoes. These ranges parallel the Pacific and are known as the Cordilleras. The Pacific side of Central America, from Guatemala to Nicaragua, is a highly volcanic region, and Guatemala has her full share. The many companion peaks and notched ranges as they are seen from the sea look like great fangs. In no country in the world can one find a greater number of perfect cones than in Guatemala where there are scores of these peaks ranging from Tajumulco (13,814 feet), and Tacana (13,334 feet), down to small cones only a few hundred feet above the sea level, yet maintaining the characteristic outline. Many of the peaks have never been ascended so that little is known about their formation.