244 MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



The republic is divided into 23 administrative departments, all of which are 

 less than 3,000 square miles in extent, except the three great divisions of Huehue- 

 tenango (6,000), Alta Vera Paz (7,000), and Peten (10,000). The chief towns, 

 mostly bearing the same names as the departments, have all populations of less 

 than 20,000, except Totonicapam (20,000), Quezaltenango (24,000), and the state 

 capital, Guatemala (66,000). 



III. — San Salvador. 



San Salvador, or simply Salvador, smallest of the Central American states, is 

 the richest and relatively the most densely peopled. Its area is estimated at 

 about 7,250 square miles, or less than that of British Honduras, though its popula- 

 tion is at least twenty times greater than that colony. It forms a narrow zone of 

 quadrilateral shape on the Pacific slope, ISO miles long and with a mean breadth of 

 not more than 50 miles. The landward frontiers are mostly conventional lines, or 

 else indicated by streams both banks of which are inhabited by peoples of the same 

 oriffin. Towards Guatemala the line follows the course of the little river Paza to 

 the Chingo volcano, beyoDd which it intersects Lake Guija and trends roimd east- 

 wards to Honduras, where it traverses mountains and valleys with equal disregard 

 of the physical and ethnical relations. Northwards the frontier is not indicated by 

 the crest of the sierra, but by the river Sumpul, a tributary of the Lempa, then by 

 the Lempa itself below the confluence, and lastly by another stream belonging 

 to the same basin. On the east it follows the course of the Goascoran, which 

 leaves to Salvador only a small part of the margin of Fonseca Bay. 



The main range and the volcanic chain, which had already ramified in Guate- 

 mala, continue to diverge to a considerable distance eastwards, so that the former 

 belongs entirely to Honduras, the latter to S ilvador. Here the prevailing rocks 

 are undoubtedly of eruptive origin, although many volcanic cones are no longer 

 easily recognised, their craters having been obliterated, and their slopes covered 

 with the same grey, white or yellowish clay which also overlay the Mexican and 

 Guatemalan mountains. The plains encircling the volcanoes consist to a great 

 depth of ashes and pumice, the upper crust of which, when decomposed, yields a 

 soil of extraordinary fertility. 



East of Guatemala the chief range is that of the steep Matapan Mountains 

 (5,000 feet), which rise to the north-east of Lake Guija, and which from a distance 

 seem quite inaccessible. But no igneous cones are here visible, and most of the 

 active craters lie nearer to the Pacific coast, between Ahuuchapam and the village 

 of San Juan de Dies, where is developed a line of the so-called ausoies disposed 

 transversely to the volcanic axis. At many points along this line gases are emitted 

 in abundance, but all the most remarkable ausoles, presenting every transition 

 from the mud volcano and gas jet to the hot spring, are concentrated close to 

 Ahuachapam, on the main route between the cities of Guatemala and San Salvador. 

 Over the plain are scattered large mud lakes, kept in a state of ebullition by the 

 underground vapours, and the clays deposited by the ausoles present every shade 

 of colour — blue, green, yellow or red, evidently due to the disintegration of ferra- 



