Answer.—After much civil strife the people are becoming accustomed to republican forms of government, and educational and commercial advantages are increasing; though it must be said that the progress is not rapid. At present the country is quiet. 2. Until 1839 the republics of Central America were united into a confederation; but now each is an independent republic, governed by a president and at least one legislative body, chosen by universal suffrage. As a rule the president is elected for four years, but few have held this office for an entire term. These States consist of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, San Salvador, and Honduras.
EXPLORERS OE THE SOUTHWEST.
Wichita, Kan.
Our Curiosity Shop has told us of the first American explorers who crossed the Northern part of the United States, now please tell us who were the first Americans to cross the continent on or about the line of the Union Pacific Railroad, or south of that? Name some work on the explorers of the Southwest that is instructive and reliable, but not expensive.
A Subscriber.
Answer.—It was long believed, and is still generally supposed, that, after Lewis and Clarke, General John C. Fremont, then a Captain of Engineers in the United States Army, with a small force, guided by the famous Kit Carson, was the first explorer who crossed the continent within the present boundaries of the United States. This he did in 1843, following much of the way the route afterward adopted by the Union and Central Pacific Railroads. However, Mr. William E. Curtis, in his intensely interesting little book entitled “A Summer Scamper Along the Old Santa Fe Trail, and Through the Gorges to Zion,” shows conclusively that, while the world is indebted to Fremont for the first maps and published descriptions of the country between Central Colorado and the California coast, hunters and trappers had wound their way through these savage wilds years before him, and that as early as Jan. 20, 1824, a bold adventurer by the name of Sylvester Pattie, a Virginian, and his son, with a party of five other men, left the Missouri River in company with a trading party for Santa Fe, and some three years later groped his way down the Gila River into California; where he visited San Francisco, then an insignificant Mexican trading post and Jesuit mission station. Arrested as spies by the jealous Mexicans, and imprisoned, it was some time before these daring adventurers obtained their release and secured a passage from San Diego to Vera Cruz, whence they got back to the United States. “The Summer Scamper” and another book by the same author, “Children of the Sun,” both by The Inter Ocean Publishing Company, are full of spirited sketches of the early explorers of the Southwest, graphic descriptions of the scenery of this wonderful region, and observations on its natural resources and the progress of the civilization which is invading it from all directions.
LIVINGSTONE, THE EXPLORER.
Albia, Iowa.