The Mosquito coast cuts from Nicaragua a large portion of her shore-line, precisely as British Honduras robs Guatemala of hers; and this has been a cause of serious trouble. This territory, which is about forty miles wide, had been under the protection of Great Britain from 1655 to 1850, when that very un-American document the Clayton-Bulwer treaty gave England certain rights in her colony of Belize in exchange for such claims as she had to this coast, and by the treaty of Managua, in 1860, she formally ceded her protectorate to Nicaragua; but there are still several disputed points.
Costa Rica.—The fifth and most southern republic of Central America has an area of only twenty-one thousand square miles. The Atlantic coast is low, and the country is covered with a dense forest, while the Pacific slope is characterized by wide savannas, or llanuras. Between these borders are high volcanoes and an elevated table-land three to four thousand feet above the sea,—the latter almost the only cultivated land in the State. The forests are largely composed of very valuable trees,—mahogany, ebony, brazil-wood, and oak; and the usual tropical fruits grow well. Coffee, however, is the staple export, being grown extensively in the neighborhood of San José and Cartago; the soil most favorable being dark volcanic ash, from three to eighteen feet deep. The amount exported in 1874 was valued at $4,464,000; in 1885 the amount is placed at $4,219,617.
On the Atlantic side Puerto Limon is the chief commercial town, and on the Pacific, Punta Arenas. In 1871 the Government negotiated a loan in London of $5,000,000, and the next year another of $12,000,000,—but from both of them never received more than $5,058,059.60,—with the avowed intention of building an inter-oceanic railway between the two principal ports; but only detached portions have been built,—twenty-four miles from Alajuela to Cartago, sixty from Limon to Carrillo, and six from Punta Arenas to Esparta. The country is bankrupt, and makes no attempt to pay any part of its liabilities; indeed, its revenues, derived from intolerable duties (even on the export of coffee), monopolies of spirits and tobacco, national bank, sales of land, and internal taxes, do not balance the expenditures.
The legislature is composed of a Congress of Deputies,—one for each electoral district,—holding office six years, half being renewed every three years. The members of the Corte de Justicia are elected by Congress. The present constitution (from 1871) is the seventh that has been in force. The departments are,—
| Departments. | Chief Cities. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| San José | 45,000 | San José | 15,000 |
| Cartago | 36,000 | Cartago | 10,000 |
| Heredia | 30,000 | Heredia | 9,000 |
| Alajuela | 29,000 | Alajuela | 6,000 |
| Guanacaste | 8,000 | Liberia | 2,000 |
| Punta Arenas | 6,000 | Punta Arenas | 1,800 |
The population is estimated by M. Belly.
Both the northern boundary on Nicaragua, and the southern one on Columbia, are in dispute.[3]
I have endeavored to give most briefly the chief matters of importance relating to the four republics that, with Guatemala, constitute Central America. I am well aware that I have turned, that I can turn but little light on the darkness; too little is known of the country, beyond its trade and political relations to the rest of the world. Volcanoes, earthquakes, and revolutions have popularly been associated with the whole region, and public taste has been turned away from such unpleasant outbreaks of subterranean fires or human passions. The time will come when these regions, far more fertile and accessible than those African wilds that for a score of years have interested, strangely enough, both explorer and capitalist, will claim the attention due their natural merits; and the fertile plains will be the garden and orchard of the United States,—not necessarily by political annexation, but by commercial intercourse. All our sugar, all our coffee, all our rice, all our chocolate, all our india-rubber ought to come from Central America, where these products can be raised better and cheaper than in any other country; and next to these staples, the subsidiary fruits, as oranges, plantains, bananas, pines, limes, granadillas, aguacates, and dozens of others now unknown to commerce, ought to come to us from Limon, Puerto Cortez, and Livingston. These are to be obtained in Guatemala of better quality and in better order than in the West Indies. Louisiana would then perhaps give up the unnatural cultivation of sugar, and Florida cease her useless striving to raise really good oranges, and both States turn to the products they are better fitted for raising.