IN A CENTRAL AMERICAN FOREST.
"So do I," answered his cousin, "but I'm afraid Doctor Bronson would not consent. His plans do not include a journey farther south than Yucatan, and besides, I don't think he would relish the idea of making a trip through a region where the comforts of travel are as limited as they are between here and Panama."
They sounded the Doctor on the subject, but did not receive any encouragement. His arrangements were such that he was to be in New York by a date that would make it impossible to accomplish the proposed journey.
The youths cheerfully assented to the situation, and consoled themselves by collecting a fair stock of information about Central America and entering it in their note-books; Frank said this was the next best thing to seeing the country for themselves.
GOVERNMENT PALACE, SAN JOSÉ.
"Central America," wrote Frank, "is about 900 miles long, and varies from 30 to 300 miles in width. It extends south about eleven degrees from the eighteenth parallel of north latitude, and is therefore entirely in the tropics. The geographers give it an area of 175,000 square miles, and a population of something less than three millions, the greater portion being native-born Indians. The whites and creoles are nearly all of Spanish descent, as the country was conquered and occupied by the Spaniards soon after the Conquest of Mexico."
Fred suggested that a census of the snakes, lizards, birds, and beasts of Central America would give a large population, as it was known to abound in those things to a very liberal extent. He declared in advance that he would not accept the office of animal census-taker, as he had understood that the serpents were numerous and dangerous, as is the case in tropical countries generally.