10 
GUATEMALA. 
twelve wide; the Lago de Yojoa, between the Depart¬ 
ments of Comayagua and Santa Barbara, twenty-five 
miles long and from five to eight wide; the Lago de 
Cartina, eighteen miles by eight, and the Laguna de la 
Criba, fifteen by seven miles. Of all the lakes of Central 
America, none is so interesting commercially as the Lake 
of Nicaragua. It is large (ninety miles by forty), and the 
largest south of Lake Michigan. Of a depth sufficient 
for all vessels (forty-five fathoms in places), and con¬ 
nected with the Atlantic by the Rio San Juan, with the 
Lago de Managua (thirty-five miles by sixteen), by the 
Tipitapa, it has the serious disadvantage of being a vol¬ 
canic basin, whose bottom may at any time be elevated 
above the surface, — as in the case of the volcano of 
Ometepec. Whether the channel between these two lakes 
is permanent, is a matter of some doubt, as travellers 
have lately found no water flowing from Managua. The 
Lago de Guija, between Guatemala and Salvador, is 
seventeen miles long from east to west, and its mean 
width is six. Fishes and alligators abound, and its waters 
— which are not of the best quality — discharge through 
the Lempa to the Pacific. Another lake in Salvador has 
attracted attention in late years by a curious volcanic 
disturbance in its midst; Ilopango will be described with 
the volcanoes. 
With this bare list of some of the prominent features 
of the country, we may join a brief account of those 
other natural and political characteristics of what was 
once Spain’s stronghold on this continent that have most 
immediate relation to the present inhabitants. Leaving 
Guatemala for a separate chapter, the other four republics 
may be described as follows : — 
