392 



HONDURAS. 



London and Paris for the purpose of building 

 an interoceanic railroad, which has never been 

 completed. The capital amounts to about $27.- 

 000,000, and the arrears of interest to nearly 

 $40,000,000. 



Commerce and Production. The chief 

 products are cattle, mahogany and other woods, 

 India rubber, bananas, cocoanuts, indigo, sarsa- 

 parilla, gold, and silver. The exports in 1891 

 were valued at $2,667,008. The exports of vege- 

 table products were $1,491,316 ; of minerals, 

 $593,087; of cattle, $451,116; of manufactured 

 products, $41,489. The bulk of the exports goes 

 to the United States. The principal imports are 

 cotton and silk fabrics, and hardware, Gold and 

 silver are mined in larger quantities than for- 

 merly, owing to the introduction of modern 

 methods. 



Communications. The projected interoce- 

 anic railroad, starting at Puerto Cortez, was 

 built as far as San Pedro Sula, 69 miles, but a 

 part was afterward abandoned, when a bridge 

 over the Chamelicon river was carried away, 

 and at present only 37 miles are open to traffic. 

 There are 1,717 miles of telegraph lines, over 

 which 93,000 messages are sent annually on the 

 average. 



Civil War. In the presidential election at 

 the close of 1891, when Ponciano Leiva, the 

 Minister of War and appointed successor of 

 President Luis Bogran, was elected by an over- 

 whelming majority over Policarpo Bonilla, the 

 young leader of the Liberal party, official and 

 military coercion was employed to bring about 

 this result more flagrantly than usual because 

 Liberals were more numerous than Conserva- 

 tives, at any rate in the urban and progressive 

 districts, and they had nerved themselves for a 

 vigorous effort to overthrow Bogran's party, 

 whose candidate was deemed to be only a figure- 

 head and a stepping stone for Bogran's return 

 to power. When the election was over Bonilla 

 announced that he would wait till the next one 

 to demonstrate the strength of his party, while 

 Bogran said that he would keep aloof from 

 politics, and Leiva's election was ratified by the 

 votes of Liberal as well as Conservative members 

 of Congress. As a pledge of peace and recon- 

 ciliation, Gen. Domingo Vasquez, a Liberal 

 leader, was called from exile and made Minister 

 of War and commander of the army. Political 

 prisoners were treated with leniency, and the 

 Government even went so far as to prosecute a 

 police official of Yuscaran for shooting and kill- 

 ing a voter who protested against the exclusion 

 of Liberals from the polls. The wealthy and in- 

 fluential exiles in Nicaragua, however, were not 

 appeased, and in the mountain district border- 

 ing on Salvador Gen. Terencio Sierra, an influ- 

 ential young revolutionary, still kept up the 

 guerilla warfare that he had waged since Bo- 

 gran decreed his exile and burned his hacienda. 

 Bogran and Leiva, becoming frightened, changed 

 all at once their policy of conciliation. When 

 the Court of Appeals confirmed the sentence of 

 eight years' imprisonment passed upon the 

 official homicide of Yuscaran, a squad of soldiers 

 marched into the court-room and liberated the 

 prisoner, who was afterward promoted in rank 

 by the President. While the Liberals were still 

 angry over this act, and over the renewal of ar- 



rests and of the flogging of political prisoners, a 

 decree of banishment was issued against Poli- 

 carpo Bonilla, who did not immediately join the 

 exiles in Nicaragua, but went to Guatemala. A 

 rising on the north coast, headed by his cousin, 

 Manuel Bonilla, and one Nuilla, was easily put 

 down by the Government troops, who shot 

 Nuilla, but released Manuel Bonilla on parole. 

 A more formidable movement in the south was 

 checked by Gen. Vasquez, who recaptured the 

 village of Danli after it was taken by exiles from 

 Nicaragua, and the village of Corpus that had 

 been seized by Sierra, and, driving the invaders 

 back across the frontier, burned a village 12 

 miles beyond. Then Policarpo Bonilla went 

 to Nicaragua, and, raising his standard, gathered 

 before the end of 1892 a force of from 1,000 

 to 1,500 men, exiles and citizens who joined them 

 from Honduras, armed nearly all with Rem- 

 ington army rifles and the rest with shotguns 

 and machetes. When Bonilla proclaimed him- 

 self Provisional President, the valetudinarian 

 Leiva resigned the presidency into the hands of 

 Rosinda Aguerra, who, in behalf of the fright- 

 ened Conservatives, offered to make peace with 

 Bonilla and take him into his Cabinet. But Bo- 

 nilla marched to the mining town of Tatumbla, 

 24 miles from Tegucigalpa, and fortified the 

 place. While waiting there for the Government 

 forces to attack, he was joined before the end of 

 January, 1893, by Manuel Bonilla with 200 in- 

 surgents from Olaucho, who had surprised the 

 garrison at Juticalpa and armed themselves in 

 the arsenal there. Gen. Vasquez marched oiit 

 with a force not much superior to Bonilla's, 

 composed mainly of Indians, who never fight in 

 close order, and were not to be depended upon to 

 carry the works by storm. Vasquez sat down 

 before the rebel camp, and, while a little band of 

 foreign mercenaries, nearly all Americans, who 

 were able to hit at 1,000 or 1,500 yards, annoyed 

 the enemy by picking off the officers and men who 

 showed themselves, and occasional shots from 

 two Krupp howitzers spread alarm among the 

 Indians who had joined Bonilla' s army, a large 

 detachment stole around to the rear of the posi- 

 tion and cut off Bonilla's communications with 

 his base of supplies in Nicaragua, Vasquez led 

 the attack on the rear of the rebels, and carried 

 one after another the three lines of stone ram- 

 parts that they had erected on the mountain tops. 

 The operations lasted from Feb. 2 till March 27. 

 Vasquez planned to attack the enemy, whom he 

 had so successfully hemmed in on both sides, 

 but when morning came he found the camp 

 deserted. Sending the main body of the army 

 toward Nicaragua, to which he supposed the 

 rebels had fled, he destroyed the town of Ta- 

 tumbla, and set out on a leisurely march to the 

 capital. Sierra, commander of Bonilla's troops, 

 by a brilliant march over the mountain trails 

 had reached Tegucigalpa, and on March 29. he 

 sent 200 of his bravest troops to attack the town. 

 The 400 Government troops fled before them, but 

 rallied and checked them in the principal plaza. 

 Sierra's men, fearing that they would be sur- 

 rounded, withdrew to a bench on the mountain 

 side, and when attacked there were recalled by 

 Sierra, who saw the army of Vasquez approach- 

 ing in the distance. Vasquez, when he arrived, 

 sent troops around to attack the rebels in the 



