HONDURAS. 11 



sky sunny and the ground watered just enough to force a luxu- 

 riant growth of crops. In Sept ember and October heavier rains 

 fall, but even then work can be carried on with little or no more 

 interruption than usually occurs in the Northern States in Octo- 

 ber and November. In what is called the wet season there are 

 often days and sometimes even weeks when no rain falls. As a 

 whole the worst of the rainy season resembles late autumn weather 

 in the northeastern States, except that in Mosquitia the tempera- 

 ture never sinks as low as it does in the fall in those States. The 

 dry season is almost perfect, every day being clear, bright, breezy 

 and even in temperature. As a winter resort for invalids and 

 pleasure seekers this coast is unequalled by the best resort known 

 in the United States, so far as natural advantages are concerned; 

 and as a summer resort for those who en joy sea baths, safe yacht- 

 ing, steady, regular and cooling breezes, fresh fish, terrapin, 

 green and other turtle steaks, and eggs, a profusion of tropical 

 fruits and flowers, or deer, boar, jaguar, andante and manatee 

 hunting, this grant can not be surpassed by any place within 

 easy disance from the great cities of the United States. 



SOIL. 



While the soil of this grant is varied in character there is little 

 if any of it that can not be cultivated much more profitably than 

 any considerable number of farms in the United States are 

 worked. Along the ocean is a strip of sandy land from one to 

 ten miles wide. On this cocoanuts, oranges, mangoes, papayas, 

 bread fruit, limes and lemons, corn, cane, rice, yams, sweet pota- 

 toes, arrowroot, and a great variety of other fruits and vegetables 

 yield abundantly. There are on the grant fully 120 square miles 

 of such land, every acre of which can be made, by a minimum 

 of labor, to give an average yearly profit of $50 to $200, by 

 planting to cocoanuts alone. 



Around the lagoons on this grant is an area of land of moder- 

 ate size which is admirably suited for growing rice, sugarcane, 

 bananas, plantains, roots and vegetables of many kinds, cotton, 

 breadfruit, and cocoanuts. At the water's edge these lands are 



