CENTRAL AMERICA—THE ISTHMUS.
In the State of Nicaragua, the elections have taken place and Don José Sacasa has been chosen Director, from the 1st of May, on which the term of Director Raminez expires. The National Convention of Delegates from the States of Nicaragua, Honduras and San Salvador, met at Chinandega on the 21st of December, and organized by choosing as President Don José Barrundia, the author of the Central-American Constitution of 1820. The little steamer Director, belonging to the Nicaraguan Company, passed the rapids of Machuca, on San Juan River, and entered Lake Nicaragua on the 1st of January. She is now running between Granada and San Carlos, a distance of 95 miles, at $20 a passenger. The engineers employed to survey the route of the proposed ship canal, were at work between Granada and San Juan del Sur, on the Pacific. By the 1st of January, upwards of four thousand returning Californians had passed through Nicaragua, on their way to the United States.
Disturbances have broken out in some of the mountain provinces of Guatemala, growing out of the refusal of the inhabitants to concur in the policy adopted by the Government at the instance of the English consul, Mr. Chatfield. The insurgents declared in favor of a Federal Union of all the Central-American States. The Government troops, under Gen. Carrera, in attempting to put down this opposition, were defeated at Chiquimula. A blockade of the ports of San Salvador has been ordered by Mr. Chatfield, who threatens Honduras and Nicaragua with a similar blow, unless they accede to certain demands. In a letter to the Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Affairs, he arbitrarily lays down the boundary line between Honduras, Nicaragua and Musquitia—an assumed kingdom, under cover of which the British authorities have taken possession of the port of San Juan. Mr. Chatfield states that unless these boundaries are accepted, no canal or other improved method of transit across the Isthmus can be established. There is much excitement in Central America, on account of his arbitrary course.
The winter rains are at an end on the Isthmus of Panama, and the roads are in good condition. Upwards of 800 workmen are employed on the Panama Railroad, and the track is already prepared for the rails from Navy Bay, the Atlantic terminus, to Gatun, on the Chagres River, a distance of three and a half miles.