MOUNTAINS. 



greatly diversified, especially in the south, where hilly or undu- 

 lating country runs almost close to the sea-coast. 



The general impressions of Europeans respecting British 

 Honduras being derived from the town of Belize, they are apt 

 to conclude that the whole country is nothing but a swamp, 

 and that the climate " is only second to that of the pestilential 

 coast of Western Africa." This estimate is as fair to British 

 Honduras as if the Plaistow Marshes were taken as typical 

 of England, or the Gulf Coast as typical of the United States. 

 Being a continental element, and lying between 16 and 18 

 north latitude, the mean annual temperature is much lower 

 than is usually supposed. Again, the trade-winds sweeping 

 uninterruptedly over it, clear away all miasmic influences, and 

 keep the air pure and comparatively cool. 



The chief highlands of the colony are situated towards the 

 western frontier, being composed of spurs and ridges connected 

 with the chief mountain zone of Central America. In the 

 northern part of the colony there are only isolated ridges and 

 domes, seldom more than about 200 feet or 300 feet high. To 

 the south of the Belize Eiver, the spurs and ridges from the 

 central range strike obliquely across the colony, being very 

 abundant in bold, craggy hills at the head- waters of the Sibun, 

 Manattee, and Mullin's Eivers, until they culminate in the 

 extensive slopes and high peaks of the Cockscomb Mountains. 

 These mountains, rising to a height of 4,000 feet, are only about 

 40 miles in a direct line from the coast : and from the extent 

 of country covered by them, as well as from their picturesque 

 outline, especially as seen at sunset from the sea, they fully 

 redeem the colony from the imputation of flatness so often 

 brought against it. This country to the south of the Belize 

 Eiver, comprising fully one-half, of the colony, has until lately 

 been marked in most maps as " unexplored territory : query in- 



