392 Guatemala Forests. 
have lived in peace. The many languages surviving to this day in 
mere fragments of tribes, in isolated patches, and often mixed, 
would seem to show that many different peoples came here and. 
took possession of the fruit of previous occupants, and were in 
their turn subdued or driven away from their mountain fields. 
Thus the cupidity and necessity of races or classes is ever making 
turmoil and changing the established order. These people seem 
fixed to their soil, like the very trees. Sometimes a village seems 
all that remains of a race, surrounded by other languages, unintel- 
ligible to it.. The languages, traditions, and racial characters of 
the various tribes of Guatemala Indians area rich field for the 
study of anthropologists, and is almost unknown, save what the 
German, Dr. Behrendt, did in his short life, and whose manu- 
scripts fortunately fell into the hands of our own accomplished 
anthropologist, Dr. Brinton, of Philadelphia, who is giving the 
results to the world. 
As we descend below 8000 feet the oak becomes an important 
element in the forests. There are several species of the scrub, 
black and willow, or chestnut kinds, and none like our white or 
red oaks, as far as I have seen. 
As the pine characterizes the lava, ash and sandstone soils, so 
the oak does the limestone and schist, as well as ash soils. The oak 
forests are generally more sparse than others, and seem secondary ; 
that is, have overgrown ground cleared one time by the ancient 
inhabitants. On lava and ash soils, especially on rocky slopes and in 
barrancos, the pine and oak are often mingled. Along the ancient 
Indian roads are rows of oaks, with curiously gnarled and curved 
trunks, looking very ancient. This oak often divides near the 
ground into two horizontal arms, and from these several vertical 
trunks rise up into low trees. There are also other common trees 
along the ancient paths, an elderberry of tree-like size and form, 
and a euphorbia, low and gnarled, but with trunks several 
inches diameter; also cactus trees, wild cherries and box elder. 
At this altitude, also at 8000 feet in the upper temperate belt, occurs 
our own well-known sweet gum, the Liquidambar styraciflua L. 
I have'met it only on the Pacific side, and on one mountain of 
the interior, forming green groves about springs and brooks on the 
mountain side, while all the other trees were brown or dull in the 
dry season and in the dry belt. 
