[46] “Lectura, nociones practicas de la lengua patria, conocimientos de objectos, escritura y dibujo lineal, geografía e historia, moral y urbanidad.”
[47] A new series of stamps was issued in 1886; and it is reported that they were furnished to the Government free of cost by a private individual, who asked as his only compensation the entire lot of stamps of the old issue then on hand. Evidently the rage for old postage-stamps has a money basis, and this contractor expects to get a corner on old Guatemaltecan stamps; and no doubt he will make profit on his venture.
[48] These are not the edible figs, but many varieties of the fig family that form an important food for monkeys and birds. In the latter part of this book I have given a list of the more important trees of this forest region.
[49] Professor Sereno Watson, of the Harvard College Herbarium, collected, during two winter months in the Department of Izabal, five hundred species of plants, many of them new to science (Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. xxi. pp. 456 et seq.). Notes of some of these will be found in the [Appendix]. He collected no less than twenty-five species of palms.
[50] In the [Appendix] will be found a list of the woods under their local names; but as these vary in the different provinces, it will be of little use in determining the trees from which they are obtained. Rosewood is said to be furnished by at least three trees not connected botanically, and the application of the name “cedar” is as puzzling.
[51] Mr. Coffin, the hospitable magistrate at Punta Gorda, gave me some of the best oil; and in the limited experiments I have tried with it, its properties much resemble those of coconut-oil.
[52] Lahaina, Salangore, Elephant, Ribbon.
[53] Even at nine cents per pound it pays as well as the best Jamaica at fourteen cents.
[54] Cacao: How to grow and how to cure it. London: Prepared by the Jamaica Government.
[55] Compendio de la Historia de la Ciudad de Guatemala, t. 2, p. 95, ed. 1818.