THE ATLANTIC COAST AND ITS CONNECTIONS. 37 
to be content with slim comforts and undaunted in the 
face of every discouragement, looking always to the final 
result, experience shows cannot be found in this class. 
They do well enough as eleventh-hour assistants, when 
the strong men have felled the forest and broken the 
ground and built houses and shops for these weaker but 
still useful brothers; but the first colonists must be of 
sterner stuff. Probably, had shelter and good food been 
provided for those inexperienced Belgians, there would 
have been at Santo Tomas something more to-day than 
the memory of their visit. 
In 1881 the little town contained but one hundred and 
twenty-nine inhabitants, mostly fishermen; but the con¬ 
struction of the Ferro-carril del Norte, to connect the 
capital with the Atlantic, changed for a time the sleepy 
hamlet into the busy haunt of contractors and laborers. 
The exigencies of the railroad calling for the deepest 
water, however, the new town of Port Barrios has been 
founded, some three miles to the eastward of the ancient 
village. Curiously enough, the Bay of Santo Tomas has 
no river; but it lies between the Rio Dulce and the 
Motagua. 
From Livingston to New Orleans the distance is 900 
miles; to Belize, 125; to Kingston, Jamaica, 800; to 
Puerto Cortez (Caballos), 55 ; to Izabal, 45; to Pansos, 
90; and to Guatemala City (water to Izabal, and mule- 
path thence), 120. The usual steamer time from New 
Orleans is six days, including a stop of two days at 
Belize; from New York, ten days, including stops at 
Kingston and Belize; and three days should be ample to 
New Orleans, seven to New York, and eight to Boston. 
A glance at a map will show that the course as well as 
