CHAPTER XVIII

ANTIQUITIES, products, POPULATION

PROFOUND interest has been excited by the accounts given by travellers at various times of the remarkable remains of ancient buildings, carved idols, and hieroglyphics, discovered in the more northern portions of Central America. The most interesting of these were visited in 1839-40 by the travellers, John L. Stephens and F. Catherwood, who have left us accurate drawings of both idols and buildings. Many of the relics have been carried off to museums in various parts of the world, but some still remain at Palenque in Chiapas, at Uxmal and Chichen-Itza in Yucatan, and at Copan in Honduras. These towns belong to the districts in which the Maya stock of languages was spoken. In Costa Rica, also, thousands of small gold images have been taken from mounds, which are thought to have been fashioned by tribes. of comparatively highly civilized Indians.

At Copan Stephens found a temple six hundred and twenty-four feet long and sixty feet in height, made of cut stones three to six feet in length and one and a half feet in breadth. There were also idols and altars carved so beautifully, that the traveller declared that they equalled the remains of the best Egyptian art. Scholars have been much exercised over the hieroglyphic writing found upon these relics, but as yet it has not been deciphered. The stone used by these old artists was a soft grit stone, which they successfully carved with chisels of flint. Many of the buildings were used for religious ceremonies; others were communal dwellings.

The natives knew nothing of the origin of these ruins, when Mr. Stephens visited them, and some scholars once believed that they belonged to a prehistoric age. But an old document recently found declares that Chichen-Itza was an inhabited town at the time of the Conquest. It is now held that Copan and Palenque are two or three centuries older, the former being perhaps the oldest city in America. Colossal mahogany trees growing in the ruins of Palenque were thought to be two thousand years old; but later it was discovered that in Central America such trees may get a new ring every month instead of once a year. Hence the trees of Palenque may be only two hundred years old.

Mr. Andrew Lang, after seeing pictures of the ruins of Central America, said that "they throw Mycena in the shade and rival the remains of Cambodia," in Indo-China; but Mr. John Fiske thinks this to be an exaggerated view of their value. They represent the work of the ancestors of the tribes who were conquered by the Spaniards. These tribes had not advanced beyond "the middle status of barbarism."

During the early years of the twentieth century, with the exception of the bloodless revolt of Panama, in 1903, the Central American republics have enjoyed peaceful relations with one another and with the rest of the world. Opportunities have thus been gained for the development of the industries of these countries, so long racked by internal commotion. The natural products, accordingly, have shown a great increase, and an era of general prosperity seems to have opened.

From the damp, insalubrious lowlands of the east coast to the cool, healthful highlands of the west coast, there is a wide range of climate and a corresponding diversity of prod

ucts.

Guatemala, in its uplands, ranging from one thousand to six thousand feet, produces coffee and has exported in one

year more than eighty-five million pounds. Most important, also, are the annual exports of sugar, cacao, tobacco, and bananas. In order to encourage the production of rubber the government, a few years ago, offered a premium of over a hundred acres of public land for every twenty thousand rubber plants, four years old, planted after 1899. Such precious metals as gold and silver are, also, found in the republic.

Honduras is the richest of all the republics in minerals. While only a small proportion of the valuable mines are now worked, the yield of gold and silver is considerable. The forests are rich in mahogany, ebony, and dyewoods. The chief cereal is the native maize, but wheat and rice are also raised. Among fruits, lemons, oranges, and cocoanuts are exported in important quantities; and there is a considerable production of tobacco and coffee.

Salvador is a small, but extremely fertile state. Its chief occupation is agriculture. The staple products are tobacco, indigo, rubber, cacao, tobacco, and coffee. In one year the country has exported more than fifty million pounds of coffee.

Nicaragua is next to Honduras in the value of its mineral deposits, but, in 1903, only the gold mines were worked. In the forests are found rubber, mahogany, balsam, cedar, rosewood, and many other valuable trees. The soil is so well fitted for agriculture that on some lands two crops of sugar cane, and on others four crops of maize can be grown in one year. Cotton, indigo, coffee, tobacco, and bananas are largely exported.

Costa Rica has drawn its principal wealth from the cultivation of tobacco, though of late years the growing of bananas has been undertaken on a very large scale. Such cereals as rice and Indian corn are well adapted to the soil.

In Panama agriculture has not prospered. The climate. is hot, damp, and unhealthy. On account of the great mortality during the French attempts to build a canal, there has arisen a mistaken notion that the turning up of the soil brings on sickness, "the creeping Johnny." The recent

experiments of the American government there seem to prove that proper sanitary precautions will largely prevent the occurrence of the diseases that once prevailed.

The total population of Central America, excluding Panama, is (1906) about four millions, distributed as follows: Guatemala has one million seven hundred thousand. Of these, the full-blood Indians, more numerous here than elsewhere in Central America, number more than seven hundred and fifty thousand, and, with the ladinos and mestizos or mixed breeds, form the great majority of the population.

Honduras, exclusive of the uncounted forest tribes, has only five hundred and forty-three thousand seven hundred and fifty-one. Very few, if any, are of pure Spanish descent, the population being composed of Indians, mestizos, and some foreigners.

Salvador, the most densely populated of all the republics, had (1901) one million six thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. The pure-blood Indians number two hundred and thirty-four thousand six hundred and forty, the rest being mestizos, ladinos, and whites.

Nicaragua's population is estimated at five hundred thousand, which includes the Indians of Mosquitia and the uncivilized natives of the interior. In the east there is a proportion of African blood, but the majority of the population are descended directly or indirectly from the Indians.

Costa Rica (1903) had three hundred and ten thousand. There are a few thousand Indians and, near the coast, some negroes; but the great majority of the people are whites.

Panama, not included in the above census, has about three hundred thousand inhabitants, in which there is an inextricable mixture of different race elements.

In Central America the most numerous class of the population, next to the pure-blood Indians, are the ladinos, who are properly the descendants of Indian and Spanish parentage. The term mestizo (literally, person of mixed blood, not defined) seems to be used as the equivalent of ladino (Latinus), though it might include the numerous mulattoes