1913-] HIGHEST NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 469 



people of Guatemala, its densest population, its greatest towns, its 

 center of wealth, learning and culture, so far as these things exist, 

 are all located in the relatively open, healthful, easily accessible and 

 easily tillable highlands; in the past these same things were located 

 in the most inaccessible, unhealthful, and untillable lowlands. Why 

 the change? 



Before we attempt to answer this question, it will he helpful 

 to discuss the geographical provinces of Guatemala as they exist 

 to-day, and as they were seen by the author during a recent visit, 

 and to compare them with one another. From the point of view of 

 present habitability Guatemala together with British Honduras, 

 which is physically part of the same country, may be divided into 

 three main belts dependent on vegetation, — (i) the Atlantic forest, 

 (2) the central dry land, and (3) the Pacific forest. Each of 

 these in turn may be divided into two parts. The plain of British 

 Honduras in the north to a width of fifty miles, and the mountains 

 of the southern part of that country and of eastern Guatemala to a 

 distance of perhaps thirty miles from the coast form the first division 

 of the Atlantic forest. Showers at all seasons either from the trade 

 winds in our winter, or from the subequatorial area of low pressure 

 in summer cause the land to be covered with a dense tropical forest, 

 and to be infested with malignant types of malarial fevers. Only 

 on the coast are there any real towns, and they exist chiefly by 

 grace of the trade winds, which blow freshly from the ocean and 

 drive away the mosquitoes. Strung along the beach under the 

 cocoanut palms the low whitewashed houses of these towns make 

 quite a show from the sea, but back of the first row there is often 

 nothing but deadly swamp and mosquitoes. In the interior a few 

 little villages sit in clearings by the brink of the somber rivers, and 

 wait in sun or rain for precious mahogany logs to be hauled or 

 floated out of the interior. Save for this, almost no one except an 

 occasional gatherer of gum inhabits the dense forests. If the coast 

 towns and the mahogany cutters be excluded the whole region can- 

 not boast a population of much more than one person to every ten 

 square miles, while even if the towns and woodcutters be included, 

 British Honduras with an area of 7,500 square miles has only 



