470 HUNTINGTON— GUATEMALA AND THE [April i8. 



42,000 people, or less than 6 to the square mile. The forests and 

 fevers now keep mankind away, and apparently much the same was 

 true in the past, for we find here only a few widely scattered ruins. 

 Inland from the coast strip there lies another section of the 

 Atlantic forest, occupying most of the almost unexplored and semi- 

 independent Guatemalan province of Peten, and extending south 

 past the ruins of Ouirigua towards those of Copan. In the north 

 this Peten strip consists of a plain from which rise a few low ridges 

 running east and west, and having a height of a thousand feet more 

 or less. In the south it becomes mountainous. The vegetation is 

 almost as dense as that of the coast strip except that in Peten consider- 

 able areas of grassy savanna prevail, thin pine forests grow in the 

 sandy tracts known as " pine ridges," and on the westward edge and 

 in other favored spots, among which Flores on L. Peten is the chief, 

 the forest breaks down into jungle. The savannas appear to be due 

 either to an excess of water often held near the surface by clayey 

 hardpan, or to sand. The pine ridges, which are not ridges but 

 merely slight swellings in the plain, are due to accumulations of 

 sand. Neither in the past nor at present does it ever appear to have 

 been possible to cultivate either the savanna or the pine ridges, but 

 since the introduction of cattle by the Spaniards they have been 

 utilized somewhat for pasturage. They possess not only the ad- 

 vantage of being fit for cattle-raising, but of being relatively health- 

 ful, and of being bordered by narrow strips of jungle wherein 

 primitive agriculture is possible. The jungle regions on the im- 

 mediate borders of the Peten strip contain a few villages, among 

 which Copan is most worthy of mention. Aside from the limited 

 areas of savannas, pine ridges, and jungle, the country is covered 

 with forest, and is so feverish and so difficult to cultivate that its 

 only inhabitants are mahogany cutters, gatherers of chicli gum, or 

 raisers of bananas for export. All of these occupations, together 

 with cattle-raising, are due entirely to the influence of modern 

 European civilization, and had no place in the pre-Columbian period. 

 The banana plantations have grown up within a few years and are 

 practically all the work of the United Fruit Company, which employs 

 four or five thousand people in the valley of the Alotagua river. 



