THE ATLANTIC COAST AND ITS CONNECTIONS. 29 
America. The climate is very healthful and agreeable, 
and the frequent communication by two lines of steamers 
with New Orleans, one line with New York, and another 
with Liverpool, make it an important business-centre. 
All the fine coffee from Alta Verapaz and the fruit from 
the plantations on the Chocon and Polochic is shipped 
here ; and the product might be indefinitely increased. 
The drawbacks are a bar with only a fathom of water 
at the mouth of a river navigable otherwise for many 
miles by the largest steamers, no wharves, little enterprise 
on the part of the native inhabitants, and a frequent sea- 
breeze in the afternoon, which sometimes makes landing 
through the rough water on the bar unpleasant. The 
population is about two thousand, chiefly Caribs; and 
long inaction and complete lack of enterprise have pro¬ 
duced a people poor and careless of riches if obtained at 
the price of labor. As in all similar places, there is no 
lack of adventurers of the lowest character. 
All this matter is not, however, learned at once, and 
observation must be depended on rather than report ; for 
the merchants of Livingston see the prospects of their 
town in very different lights when talking with a mere 
visitor or with a possible rival in the small, but very 
profitable business. As a stranger, I was told that the 
place was an el dorado ; that limitless crops grew with¬ 
out urging from a soil of unequalled richness; that the 
climate was salubrious, and eternal summer reigned ; that 
business was brisk, and constantly increasing under wise 
laws and a favoring government. As a settler, the song 
was sung to me in a minor key : labor -was not to be had; 
no good lands could be obtained ; the steamers were the 
tyrants of the place, and all earnings were eaten up by 
