474 HUNTINGTON— GUATEMALA AND THE [April i8, 



stones which one sees, for example, at Guarda Vie jo near Guate- 

 mala City are small, crudely executed, and inartistic, utterly different 

 from the clean-cut, highly complex and truly artistic stelae of enorm- 

 ous size at Ouirigua. The plain, almost unadorned structures at 

 Quiche, the greatest ruins on the plateau, bear to the highly de- 

 veloped groups of buildings and monuments at Copan about the same 

 relation that modern Guatemalan churches bear to St. Peter's at 

 Rome. In the days of the Mayas the highlands may have been as 

 densely populated as to-day, although we have no positive proof 

 of this, but instead of being the center of the life and activity of 

 the country they were a provincial outpost. 



The southwestern side of the high plateau of Guatemala is 

 bordered by a line of splendid volcanoes at the foot of which towards 

 the Pacific Ocean there lies a narrow plain. This plain, together 

 with the lower slopes of the mountains, forms the third of our 

 three divisions of Guatemala from the point of view of habitability. 

 From a height of 4,000 feet down to about 500 the slopes of the 

 mountains and the inner edge of the plain are covered with dense 

 vegetation. At an altitude of approximately 2,000 to 3,000 feet, the 

 vegetation attains the dignity of real tropical forest with mahogany 

 trees, tree ferns and the like, while on either side it assumes the 

 form of forest-like jungle merging gradually into pine forest toward 

 the uplands and low jungle and bush toward the coast. All except 

 the upper mountainous part of the region is malarial and unhealth- 

 ful ; although not so bad as the Atlantic forest because the drainage 

 is better. The strip of real forest would to-day be practically unin- 

 habited were it not that the demands of the modern civilized world 

 have led to the cultivation of coffee, chiefly by German companies 

 with Indian labor brought from the highlands. Lower down, on 

 the edge of the plain, there would be a small population even without 

 the impetus of coffee. A few little towns like Retalhuleu, Santa 

 Lucia, and Escuintla date back many centuries. They are notori- 

 ously unhealthful, however; their inhabitants are universally pro- 

 nounced inefficient and apathetic; and their population of from 2,000 

 to 10,000 people is only 10-20 per cent, as large as that of corre- 

 sponding towns on the plateau. Yet, here, curiously enough, we 



