It is a strange sight. All around is heavy darkness except in the cleared space among the trees where the torch-lights show patient oxen plodding along with their heavy loads, and their half-naked drivers snapping their whips and calling in loud voices to the animals and each other. Through it all comes the sound of the whip and axe, and the snapping of the big trunks as they fall to the ground.
Logwood, from which a valuable dye is obtained, is the name of another valuable tree found in the forests of Central America, as also is the lignum vitæ, or wood of life. From both logwood and lignum vitæ are extracted medicines which physicians often use.
In Central America people need to be careful when they are wandering through the thick grass or along the edge of a forest, for poisonous snakes lurk about and the bites of some of them may cause much pain and suffering.
Sometimes the boys bring home winged squirrels which they have caught while flying from tree to tree, but these little creatures do not enjoy being made captive. They love their wild life in the woods, where they are free to scamper over the ground; or spreading their legs, to fly about among the branches of the trees as they will.
Along the southern coast of Central America the children find beautiful mother-of-pearl shells on the water’s edge. As the sunlight falls upon these shells the loveliest colors are seen on the clear surface,—delicate pinks and blues and violets. After the children are tired of playing with the shells they can easily sell them, for travelers are ever ready to buy them as remembrances of their stay in the country.
In the forests of Central America there are many rubber trees, where Indian boys help their fathers gather the sap which will afterwards be made into storm coats and shoes to protect the children of the United States from rain and snow.
In the lowlands and on the slopes there are many banana orchards, which furnish all the fruit the little folks and their parents wish for, as well as many a shipload for the people of other lands.
Some of the white children of the country live on coffee plantations where Negro and Indian workmen care for the trees and pick the berries for market.
There are also places in Central America where the indigo plant is raised on account of the blue dye that is obtained from it. This, too, is sent away from the country in ships, as well as coffee and mahogany, bananas and rubber.
Central America is divided into several republics, each one of which is quite independent of the others. As you travel through them southwards, the country becomes more and more narrow till you come at last to the Isthmus of Panama, which joins North and South America.