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. All of these volcanoes are now extinct, or at least quiescent, except Santa Maria (10,535 ft.), from which smoke and steam constantly issue out of a fissure, or crater, on the side several hundred feet from the top of the cone or crater proper. This volcano had been quiet so long that it was looked upon as extinct until early in April, 1902, rumblings were heard, and suddenly it belched forth mud and sand, throwing the latter fifty miles or more. By this eruption Quezaltenango, hitherto an enterprising town and second city in the republic, was almost ruined, and several thousand of its inhabitants destroyed. A number of villages near the base of the mountain were almost completely demolished and a part of Ocos, the most northerly Pacific port, sank into the sea during one of the earthquakes which accompanied the eruption.
Since the settlement of the country in 1522 there are recorded some fifty eruptions and more than three hundred earthquakes, the last of which was in 1903. Nearly half of these eruptions were by Fuego, which has been quiescent for a number of years. This list does not include many little earthquakes of mild quality which frequently occur, thus showing that the cooling and wrinkling process of the earth is still proceeding. Innumerable hot springs are found in nearly every part of the country, while beds of scoriae, lava and great quantities of volcanic sand present in so many places testify to the numerous upheavals that have taken place in centuries now past.
In former times the natives are said to have cast living maidens into the craters of the volcanoes to appease the spirits or gods who were supposed to be angry. Later, after Christianity was introduced, the priests held masses and the people formed processions to calm the angry mountains, until finally the happy thought struck the priests of baptizing the volcanoes and formally receiving them into the church in order to make them good. This was finally done, but the “goodness” did not last, for even Santa Maria, supposed to be one of the “saintliest,” went back to her old tricks, and her fall from grace was more disastrous than any of the other recorded instances of her uncertain disposition.
In the hollows of the mountains lie a number of beautiful lakes. Lakes Atitlan and Amatitlan are beautiful bodies of water almost as blue as the famous Swiss lakes and reposing in nearly as beautiful locations. The former is at an elevation of more than a mile, has no visible outlet and its depth is unknown. To replace the effect of the glacier-topped Alps there are the graceful conical peaks of the volcanoes. Lake Peten is another large lake about twenty-seven miles in length, but it is less beautiful and less accessible than those first mentioned. The town of Flores, capital of that province, is situated on an island in the lake. Lake Izabal, so called, but really an arm of the ocean, is the largest lake, being about forty miles long and from twelve to twenty miles in width. A few of the streams are navigable a short distance from the ocean for light craft, but none of them are very much aid to commerce except, perhaps, the Polochic, which pours itself into Lake Izabal.
From the Bulletin of the International Bureau of American Republics.
LAKE AMATITLAN; WITH THE VOLCANOES OF AGUA AND FUEGO.
There are about one hundred and sixty miles of coast line on the Atlantic, or Gulf, side of the republic. Puerto Barrios is the chief port now because of the railway terminal having been established at that place and it has been in existence less than twenty-five years. The Spaniards established no large settlement on this coast and the nearest city was Coban, at an altitude of four thousand feet, and about one hundred miles from the coast. To the English, who were always seeking to establish coast towns for the benefit of commerce, and with whom there were few inland cities, the location of the principal cities inland seems strange. Yet south of us in Central America, where the continent grows narrow and wrinkled, scowling as it were, a territory larger than all New England, this was the universal practice.
A commercial nation would long ago have established a harbour at Livingston, about twenty-five miles north of Puerto Barrios. It is situated on a bluff where a large city should be located, and has a far better climate than Vera Cruz, Mexico. Although several hundred years old it is still nothing but a crude wall and palm-thatched village. Lowell has said “What is so rare as a day in June?” Here it is a perpetual June where the thermometer seldom exceeds 86 degrees, and it is generally considerably below that. Yellow fever has never become epidemic here, and the deaths from it, and other tropical fevers, are fewer than the victims of tuberculosis in northern climates. Livingston is at the mouth of the Rio Dulce (Sweet River), which, after a few miles inland from the coast, broadens out into Lake Izabal, and this lake would make a beautiful and commodious harbour, large enough to hold all the navies of the world. At the present time some sand bars impede the passage of vessels, but a few dredges would soon make a fine channel into the lake, where vessels would be perfectly protected from the severe “northers” which sometimes sweep over the Gulf.
The Pacific coast line with its indentations is almost three hundred miles long. The commerce in the early days was nearly all carried on through the small ports on this coast and transported to the cities in the interior. Guatemala City, Quezaltenango, Totonicapan and all the other principal cities on this slope, except Retalhuleu and Mazatenango, are located at a distance of from sixty to one hundred miles from the sea, which meant a journey of from two to five days by the old means of conveyance which are still necessary to reach many of those centres of population.