| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | Toltec Land | [1] |
| II. | From Ocean to Ocean | [16] |
| III. | The Capital | [54] |
| IV. | The Tropics and Their Development | [81] |
| V. | The People | [109] |
| VI. | Railways and Their Routes | [132] |
| VII. | The Ancients and Their Monuments | [149] |
| VIII. | The Story of the Republic | [165] |
| IX. | Religious Influences | [202] |
| X. | Present Conditions and Future Possibilities | [218] |
| XI. | British Honduras | [235] |
| XII. | Republic of Honduras | [245] |
| Appendices | [281] | |
| Index | [303] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
| President Cabrera | [Frontispiece] |
| Map of Guatemala | [iv] |
| Lake Amatitlan; with the Volcanoes of Agua and Fuego | [6] |
| Landing at Champerico | [19] |
| The Volcano Agua | [29] |
| Ox-cart and Native Driver | [30] |
| Journeying Across Country by Mule | [34] |
| Scene at El Rancho | [40] |
| A Village near the Coast | [45] |
| Plantation House on Lake Izabal | [47] |
| Lake Izabal | [48] |
| A Street of Antigua with the Volcano of Agua in the Background | [56] |
| The Old Church of El Carmen, Guatemala City | [58] |
| The Cathedral, Guatemala City | [60] |
| A Typical Street in Guatemala City | [62] |
| The President’s Guard of Honour | [64] |
| Teatro Colon, Guatemala City | [67] |
| A Bull-fight in Guatemala City | [68] |
| Guatemalan Market Women | [74] |
| Statue of Bull, Guatemala City | [77] |
| Gran Hotel, Guatemala City | [78] |
| Street Car in Guatemala City | [80] |
| An Indian with His Machete | [84] |
| A Tropical Jungle | [86] |
| A Native Hut | [93] |
| A Sugar Plantation | [97] |
| Drying Coffee | [105] |
| A Mill for Hulling Coffee | [106] |
| Indian Girl with Water Jar | [116] |
| A Cargador on the Road | [123] |
| Playing the Marimba | [125] |
| A Group of Caribs | [128] |
| A Scene along the Occidental Railway | [136] |
| A Waterfall near Escuintla | [138] |
| San Jose, the Port of Guatemala City | [140] |
| The Weekly Train on the Guatemala Northern | [142] |
| A Belle of Puerto Barrios | [146] |
| One of the Columns at Quirigua | [156] |
| Indian Girl | [166] |
| A Peon | [179] |
| J. Rufino Barrios | [190] |
| Dugout Canoe on the Montagua River | [230] |
| A Policeman of Belize | [236] |
| English Homes at Belize | [239] |
| A Street in Belize | [242] |
| The Honduras Navy, the Tatumbla | [249] |
| Puerto Cortez | [250] |
| A Typical Beggar | [269] |
| Soldiers of Honduras | [272] |
GUATEMALA
CHAPTER I
TOLTEC LAND
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.