“ Fruits, grain and medicinal plants are obtained in great abundance, especially where the soil is largely of volcanic origin, as in the Altos and Sierra Madre. Parts of the Peten district are equally fertile, maize in this region yielding two hundredfold from unmanured soil. The vegetable products of Guatemala include coffee, cocoa, sugar-cane, bananas, oranges, vanilla, aloes, agave, ipecacuanha, castor-oil, sarsaparilla, cinchona, tobacco, indigo and the wax-plant (Myrica cerifera) . ”

“ During the colonial period, the cocoa of western Guatemala and Soconusco was reserved on account of its fine flavour for the Spanish court. The indigo and cotton plantations yield little profit, owing to foreign competition, and have in most cases been converted to other uses. The cultivation of bananas tends to increase, though more slowly than in other Central American countries. Grain, sweet potatoes and beans are grown for home consumption. Cattle-farming is carried on in the high pasture-lands and the plains of Peten ”

“ The mean elevation is greatest in the west (Altos of Quezaltenango) and least in the east (Altos of Guatemala) . A few of the streams of the Pacific slope actually rise in the Altos, and force a way through the Sierra Madre at the bottom of deep ravines. One large river, the Chixoy, escapes northwards towards the Atlantic. (4) The relief of the mountainous country which lies north of the Altos and drains into the Atlantic is varied by innumerable terraces, ridges and underfalls ”

“ About half the births among the Indians and one-third among the whites are illegitimate.
No part of Central America contains a greater diversity of tribes, and in 1883 Otto Stoll estimated the number of spoken languages as eighteen, although east of the meridian of Lake Amatitlán the native speech has almost entirely disappeared and been replaced by Spanish. The Indians belong chiefly to the Maya stock, which predominates throughout Peten, or to the allied Quiché race which is well represented in the Altos and central districts. ”

“ The condition of the Indians on the plantations is often akin to slavery, owing to the system adopted by some planters of making payments in advance; for the Indians soon spend their earnings, and thus contract debts which can only be repaid by long service. ”

“ The average rainfall is very heavy, especially on the Atlantic slope, where the prevailing winds are charged with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean Sea; at Tual, a high station on the Atlantic slope, it reaches 195 in.; in central Guatemala it is only 27 in. Towards the Atlantic rain often occurs in the dry season, and there is a local saying near the Golfo Dulce that “it rains thirteen months in the year.” Fogs are not rare. In Guatemala, as in other parts of Central America (q.v.) ”

“ The Indians are devoted to bull-fighting and cock-fighting. Choral singing is a popular amusement, and is accompanied by the Spanish guitar and native wind-instruments. The Indians have a habit of consuming a yellowish edible earth containing sulphur; on pilgrimages they obtain images moulded of this earth at the shrines they visit, and eat the images as a prophylactic against disease. Maize, beans and bananas, varied occasionally with dried meat and fresh pork, form their staple diet ”

“ In addition to the breweries, rum and brandy distilleries, sugar mills and tobacco factories, which are sometimes worked as adjuncts to the plantations, there are many purely urban industries, such as the manufacture of woollen and cotton goods on a large scale, and manufactures of building material and furniture; but these industries are far less important than agriculture. ”

“ Guatemala is surpassed only by Brazil and the East Indies in the quantity of coffee it exports. The chief plantations are owned and managed by Germans; more than half of the crop is sent to Germany, while three-fifths of the remainder go to the United States and one-fifth to Great Britain. The average yearly product is about 70,000,000 ℔, worth approximately £1,300,000, and subject to an export duty of one gold dollar (4s.) per quintal (101 ℔) . Sugar, bananas, tobacco and cocoa are also cultivated ”

“ Of the population in 1893, 90% could neither read nor write, 2% could only read, and 8% could read and write. Primary instruction is nominally compulsory, and, in government schools, is provided at the cost of the state. ”

“ Counting on the support of Honduras and Salvador, he proclaimed himself, in February 1885, the supreme military chief of Central America, and claimed the command of all the forces within the five states. President Zaldívar, of Salvador, had been his friend, but after the issue of the decree of union he entered into a defensive alliance with Costa Rica and Nicaragua. In March Barrios invaded Salvador, and on the 2nd of April a battle was fought, in which the Guatemalan president was killed. ”

“ In character the Indians are, as a rule, peaceable, though conscious of their numerical superiority and at times driven to join in the revolutions which so often disturb the course of local politics; they are often intensely religious, but with a few exceptions are thriftless, indolent and inveterate gamblers. ”

“ All the railway lines have been built since 1875. The main lines are the Southern, belonging to an American company and running from San José to the capital; the Northern, a government line from the capital to Puerto Barrios, which completes the interoceanic railroad; and the Western, from Champerico to Quezaltenango, belonging to a Guatemalan company, but largely under German management. For local traffic there are several lines; one from Iztapa, near San José, to Naranjo, and another from Ocós to the western coffee plantations. ”

“ S. of the capital lies the Lake of Amatitlán (q.v.) with the town of the same name. On the borders of Salvador and Guatemala there is the Lake of Guija, about 20 m. long and 12 broad, at a height of 2100 ft. above the sea. It is connected by the river Ostuma with the Lake of Ayarza which lies about 1000 ft. higher at the foot of the Sierra Madre.
The geology, fauna and flora of Guatemala are discussed under Central America. The bird-life of the country is remarkably rich ”

“ Climate.—The climate is healthy, except on the coasts, where malarial fever is prevalent. The rainy season in the interior lasts from May to October, but on the coast sometimes continues till December. The coldest month is January, and the warmest is May. ”

“ Owing to their tropical heat, low elevation above sea-level, and marshy soil, they are thinly peopled, and contain few important towns except the seaports. (2) The precipitous barrier of the Sierra Madre, which closes in the coastal plains on the north, is similarly prolonged into Salvador and Mexico. It is known near Guatemala city as the Sierra de las Nubes, and enters Mexico as the Sierra de Istatan. It forms the main watershed between the Pacific and Atlantic river systems. ”

“ Free grants of uncultivated land are sometimes made to immigrants (including foreign companies) , to persons who undertake to build roads or railways through their allotments, to towns, villages and schools. ”

“ It includes a foreign population of about 12,000 Europeans and North Americans, among them being many Jews from the west of the United States. There are important German agricultural settlements, and many colonists from north Italy who are locally called Tiroleses, and despised by the Indians for their industry and thrift. ”

“ In 1845 an attempt to restore the federal union failed; in 1851 Carrera defeated the Federalist forces of Honduras and Salvador at La Arada near Chiquimula, and was recognized as the pacificator of the republic. ”