CENTRAL AMERICA 125 



their prolongation eastward, may be regarded as forming 

 a natural region of tropical mountains. 



Varied as its landscape, climate, and vegetation are in 

 detail, this region presents a fairly uniform character : 

 mountain ranges or sierras stretch parallel to the Pacific 

 coast-line, with occasional branches running east and 

 west and an eastern spur forming the coast-ranges of 

 northern Venezuela. Between the steep sierras, deep 

 and sometimes broad valleys open into low sweltering 

 plains. The coast-line on the Atlantic presents a flat 

 and marshy tract of lowland as in Honduras, Cam- 

 peachy, or Maracaibo ; or a narrow belt leading to 

 rapidly rising slopes, as in Venezuela ; or, again, a broad, 

 flat, rocky shelf as in Yucatan. Many of the mountain- 

 tops expand into plateaus at 10,000 to 14,000 feet of 

 elevation, and are known in Colombia as 'paramos'. 

 The climate is naturally varied owing to differences in 

 altitude, and falls into a western or Pacific drier portion, 

 depending chiefly for its moisture on local monsoons, 

 and an eastern more rainy portion, largely under the 

 control of the Atlantic trade-winds. The year is divided 

 into a rainy season, which lasts, according to locality, 

 from six to nine months or more, and a dry and burning 

 hot weather. In the south, there are two dry and two 

 wet periods. 



On the Atlantic side the coastal plains are covered 

 with a succession of savanas, where light clumps of 

 acacias and other short, fine-leaf trees, or isolated tall 

 ceibas and groves of palms stand conspicuous. They are 

 fringed seaward by arid dunes, either bare or covered 

 with dense, low evergreen scrub, and are inter- 

 rupted by alluvial tracts of heavy tropical rain-forests, 

 chiefly known for their mahogany, rubber, cacao, 

 vanilla, dyewoods, and palms. The wealth in palms, 



