THE KINGDOM OF GUATEMALA. 
17 
of a noble bay, is now growing in importance with the 
development of Olancho, of which it is the natural sea¬ 
port ; but it has no wharf or any sufficient landing- 
place for merchandise. 
The Bay Islands are small, but of considerable impor¬ 
tance. Roatan, the largest, is about thirty miles long 
by nine broad, and in its highest part nearly a thousand 
feet above the sea. Guanaja, or Bonaca, the first land 
of Central America discovered by Columbus on his fourth 
voyage, is fifteen miles from Roatan, and of an extent of 
five by nine miles. This group is fertile, and 'with a fine 
climate should prove very attractive to settlers from the 
North who appreciate the waste of life in an arctic cli¬ 
mate of eight months each year, when all vegetation 
ceases to grow, and man himself can be kept alive only 
by artificial heat, where the farmer must toil wearily four 
months for the poor produce that is to sustain him all 
the “ famine months,” and the laborer live poorly all the 
twelvemonth, whatever be his work. 
The history of Honduras has not been a happy one, 
even since its revolt from the Spanish yoke in 1821, and 
revolutions have been the rule; but in 1865 a new Con¬ 
stitution was adopted, with some prospect of internal 
quiet. The four hundred thousand inhabitants include 
perhaps seven thousand whites, the Spanish population 
being mainly on the Pacific side, Caribs along the Atlantic 
coast, and several thousand of the mixed races, the great 
majority being Indios, known as Xicaques and Poyas. 
Perhaps the most adverse influence to the progress of this 
naturally rich republic, next to the revolutions, was the 
scandalous loan for building the “ Honduras Inter-oceanic 
Railway ” from Puerto Cortez to the Gulf of Fonseca, a 
