Far different are some of the rivers that find their way into the Atlantic. Chief among them all is the noble Usumacinta, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico through the Lago de Terminos, and is navigable many miles through a singularly fertile and interesting country, as beautiful as fancy pictures the cradle of the human race,—a land seldom visited by white men, and the home of the unconquered and unbaptized (La Candones) Indios. The swift Chixoy, the Rio de la Pasion, and the almost unknown San Pedro unite to form this “Child of many Waters.”
The Belize River, rising in the Montaña de Dolores near Peten and crossing the British colony, is the principal highway for the commerce of Peten, the pitpans bringing down huge mahogany bowls, paddles, baskets, and other Indian goods. The Sarstun forms the southern boundary of the British possessions, and is navigable for small canoes as far as the rapids of Gracias á Dios. None but timber-cutters disturb its solitudes. The Polochic is at present the most useful river of Guatemala. It rises near Tactic, and is a foaming torrent for much of its course in Alta Verapaz. At Pansos the waters are navigable for light-draft steamers, except in very dry seasons; and not far below, its volume is materially increased by the Cahabon. It flows through the Lake of Izabal, and, as the Rio Dulce, empties into the Gulf of Amatique over a bar of sand. The Motagua is nearly parallel to the Polochic, and rises near Santa Cruz del Quiché. From Gualan it is navigable in canoes. Smaller streams are the Ulúa, Aguan, and Segovia in Spanish Honduras, which are navigable for pitpans. Finally we have the San Juan, known as one of the elements of the “Nicaragua Canal” route, but not at present navigable for boats of any size.
All the rivers of Central America that can be used for commerce require a special river service; for wherever the depth of water is sufficient, the always-present bar cuts off access to vessels drawing more than six feet. Should the development of the country warrant it, the bar of the Rio Dulce could be deepened sufficiently to admit vessels drawing ten or fifteen feet.
Small lakes are common enough in the northern part of Central America. The Laguna del Peten is about five hundred feet above the sea, nine leagues long and five broad. The Lago de Atitlan, in the Department of Sololà, is sixteen and a half miles long from San Lucas Toliman to San Juan, and eight miles wide from San Buenaventura to Canajpú, and soundings show a depth of a thousand feet. With the Laguna de Amatitlan, this will be described in the Itinerary. Of Honduras, the chief lakes are the Laguna de Caratasca, or Cartago, close on the Atlantic coast, thirty-six miles long by twelve wide; the Lago de Yojoa, between the Departments of Comayagua and Santa Bárbara, twenty-five miles long and from five to eight wide; the Lago de Cartina, eighteen miles by eight, and the Laguna de la Criba, fifteen by seven miles. Of all the lakes of Central America, none is so interesting commercially as the Lake of Nicaragua. It is large (ninety miles by forty), and the largest south of Lake Michigan. Of a depth sufficient for all vessels (forty-five fathoms in places), and connected with the Atlantic by the Rio San Juan, with the Lago de Managua (thirty-five miles by sixteen), by the Tipitapa, it has the serious disadvantage of being a volcanic basin, whose bottom may at any time be elevated above the surface,—as in the case of the volcano of Ometepec. Whether the channel between these two lakes is permanent, is a matter of some doubt, as travellers have lately found no water flowing from Managua. The Lago de Guija, between Guatemala and Salvador, is seventeen miles long from east to west, and its mean width is six. Fishes and alligators abound, and its waters—which are not of the best quality—discharge through the Lempa to the Pacific. Another lake in Salvador has attracted attention in late years by a curious volcanic disturbance in its midst; Ilopango will be described with the volcanoes.
With this bare list of some of the prominent features of the country, we may join a brief account of those other natural and political characteristics of what was once Spain’s stronghold on this continent that have most immediate relation to the present inhabitants. Leaving Guatemala for a separate chapter, the other four republics may be described as follows:—
Salvador.—The smallest in extent, but by far the most populous, having no less than sixty-three inhabitants to the square mile. The central part is an upland of a mean elevation of two thousand feet above the sea, bounded on the Pacific side by a chain of volcanic peaks; beyond these a strip of lowland from ten to twenty miles wide. Eastward and westward are two great depressions, San Miguel and Sonsonate, “the place of a hundred springs” (centsonatl). The Gulf of Fonseca, fifty miles long and nearly thirty wide, is said to be the most beautiful harbor on the Pacific coast. On the southwest side is the principal port of La Union, a town of little more than two thousand inhabitants, and unhealthful, as are all the Pacific ports. The mean temperature is 80° Fahr.; and were it not for the capital commercial facilities of the town, its inhabitants would be few. Libertad has an open roadstead, and a population only half that of La Union. Acajutla lies between the headlands of Remedios and Santiago, and has but five hundred inhabitants; as the port of Sonsonate (distant five leagues), however, it is much frequented, and is provided with an iron pier, as is Libertad. In 1882 the first railway in the republic was opened, from Acajutla to Sonsonate, a distance of fifteen miles; and work has since been slowly progressing in the direction of Santa Ana.
Mines of gold, silver, copper, lead, iron, and anthracite coal are found within the borders of Salvador, the principal being those of Loma-Larga, Corozal, Devisadero, Encuentros, and Tabanco.
The capital was founded April 1, 1528, by Jorge de Alvarado, brother of the conqueror of Guatemala; but ten or twelve years afterwards it was removed to its present site in the valley De los Hamacas, where it has been many times ruined by the terrible earthquakes to which this region is especially subject.
The republic is divided into fourteen departments, twenty-nine districts, and two hundred and twenty-eight towns.