328 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



development of the country makes or- 

 ganized extension possible into Peten 

 without the hardships and risks to health 

 and life to which sojourners in that beau- 

 tiful but treacherous country are now 

 subject. Quirigua is free from all these 

 drawbacks, and nothing could be easier 

 than its approach. 



The steamer that brings the traveler 

 from New Orleans is only one entire 

 day out of sight of land. The run down 

 the Mexican coast and along the cays 

 ind islets of British Honduras is beauti- 

 ful, with tiny villages white against the 

 forest line and the "Cockscomb" jagged 

 range stretching blue in the distance. 

 From Belize, the capital of the crown 

 colony, it is only a few hours to the 

 Guatemalan border and to the mouth of 

 the Rio Dulce. 



This historic waterway (Cortez' road 

 on his superhuman raid from Mexico 

 City to the Honduras coast) opens deep 

 between miles of high wood-hidden cliffs 

 into a vast tide lagoon stretching 30 miles 

 toward the mountains of Vera Paz, "The 

 Land of True Peace" of Las Casas, con- 

 quered by him and his Dominican friars 

 when years of fierce fighting had resulted 

 in unvarying disaster and defeat to the 

 Spanish troops at the hands of the war- 

 like Indians. 



WHAT the; coast towns are IvIKE 



Livingston, a Carib town, lies clean 

 and white on a low bluff at the entrance 

 bar, and just opposite, a few miles away 

 by sea,, is the real port (Puerto Barrios) 

 more important, but far less sightly, than 

 its neighbor. 



Livingston receives the coffee trade 

 from the German plantations of Vera 

 Paz, does a bit of "free trade" on its 

 own account, filibusters and fishes. The 

 soul of the Spanish Main still lives there, 

 and all the game fish of Tampico or 

 Catalina Island are to be found about 

 Puerto Cortez, the next little town, be- 

 yond the Motagua River in Honduras, 

 or in the great lagoon above the shady 

 stretches of the Rio Dulce. 



Puerto Barrios has a railroad termi- 

 nal, tank and turn-table, a customs shed, 

 a group of buildings belonging to the 

 United Fruit Company, a barrack for 



a half company of Carib infantry, and 

 a rotting wooden hotel, all set in a swamp, 

 bridged from house to house by board 

 walks, and made altogether unendurable 

 by mosquitoes. Fortunately one is not 

 obliged to remain in this singularly unat- 

 tractive place, for the daily train to the 

 capital starts as soon as the passengers 

 are through the customs, and, long before 

 the sun is high, has plunged into a jungle 

 so thick that a dozen paces from the rail- 

 road embankment the sun is invisible. 



This dense brush is filled with gameij 

 the small deer common to America and' 

 Asia, herds of peccary (the small wild 

 pig always cited as a model of fierceness 

 in all the good old books of travel and 

 adventure of our boyhood), tapir, an oc- 

 casional jaguar, and birds of all kinds 

 some related to our own game birds. 



Monkeys were common enough, bu1 

 the natives say that they died by the 

 hundred, not a great many years ago, oi 

 smallpox. I do not vouch for the diag- 

 nosis, but I always visit the jungle with 

 a receptive mind. 



A few miles beyond this forest prime- 

 val villages begin to line the track, which 

 now follows the Ad^otagua River ; groups 

 of huts built of four walls of split bam- 

 boo stems set upright in the earth, with 

 a floor of split bamboo laid cross-wise 

 and a roof of palm-leaf thatch ; some of 

 them are set on the damp and soggjij 

 ground and some slightly raised to allo'^ 

 for drainage. 



Among these appear others more tidily 

 and securely built of whitewashed plank* 

 inhabited by negroes who come here front 

 the West Indies, Belize, and our owil 

 Southern States, attracted by the good 

 pay ofifered by the fruit company and the 

 railroad. A fair sprinkling of escaped 

 criminals and "bad men" from New Or- 

 leans gives to all our American negroes 

 an undeservedly evil reputation on the 

 coast. 



the; gre;at banana plantations 



These villages cultivate a little corn, 

 a little fruit, and some gaudy flowers 

 about the huts; but in spite of any at- 

 tempt at neatness or decoration, they 

 convey only a strong impression of _im- 

 permanency. Along this part of the river 



