Belize

“ The governor’s house at Belize is a very large building, fronting the bay, with one of the finest views from and most refreshing breezes on its veranda that a man could hope to find on a warm day, and there is a proud and haughty sentry at each corner of the grounds and at the main entrance. A fine view of blue waters beyond a green turf terrace covered with cannon and lawn-tennis courts, and four sentries marching up and down in the hot sun, ought to make any man, so it seems to me, content to sit on his porch in the shade and feel glad that he is a governor. ”

“ Introduction Belize Background: Territorial disputes between the UK and Guatemala delayed the independence of Belize (formerly British Honduras) until 1981. Guatemala refused to recognize the new nation until 1992. Tourism has become the mainstay of the economy. The country remains plagued by high unemployment, growing involvement in the South American drug trade, and increased urban crime. ”

“ Yes, I reckon your brother will stay in Belize at first," said the planter, scratching his throat so significantly that John made haste to fill up his glass, thinking to himself that, if the cocktails at the Belize Yacht Club were as good as Mr. Ricketts boasted, Hugh would be unlikely ever to see much more of mahogany than he saw of it at present cut and rounded and polished to the shape of a solid dining-room table. However, the more attractive Belize, the less attractive England. ”

“ There would be no great difficulty in constructing a light railway from Belize to the Cayo, and I have shown, in the account of my excursion into the great Southern Pine Ridge, that a considerable elevation in an open and well-watered country could easily be reached from the Cayo by a road which could be cheaply made, and there can be no doubt that a sanatorium in such a situation would be of inestimable value to residents in the colony. It cannot be contended that Belize could ever become a pleasant place of residence ”

“ Mangrove swamps surround the town and epidemics of cholera, yellow fever and other tropical diseases have been frequent; but the unhealthiness of the climate is mitigated to some extent by the high tides which cover the marshes, and the invigorating breezes which blow in from the sea. Belize is connected by telegraph and telephone with the other chief towns of British Honduras, but there is no railway, and communication even by road is defective. ”

“ Though so atrociously cruel, yet who can blame them, when he remembers the torments inflicted upon the ancestors of these people by the early Spaniards? To them, every man with a pale face is a Spaniard, whose abhorred presence is to be rid of by death. They hold guarded intercourse with the English in Belize, but allow no white man to penetrate to their city. This city, whose inhabitants must yet retain much of their aboriginal simplicity, much of ancient cunning in the arts of their progenitors,—what traveller would not like to visit and describe it? ”

“ The climate of Belize is exceedingly hot: indeed, the average of the thermometer, night and day, was about 95°, during the period of our stay; which proved at least a fortnight longer than I had intended. The fact was, that the mahogany ships were all on the point of sailing, being obliged to do so, by their charter, by the 1st of the month. ”

“ At Belize the English are trying to build a road inland to Peten to open the logwood and mahogany forests; and they need a road along the coast to open the settlements that now have no outlet save by water. A hundred and forty miles, at the outside, would connect Belize with Livingston. The roads in Honduras will extend between Trujillo and Puerto Barrios, there connecting with the Northern Railroad of Guatemala. Not one of these projected lines presents any very difficult engineering problems. The financial question is the only obstacle ”

“ Brown, Ponder, and Co., of Belize, who dealt in mahogany and logwood—do still, I hope. That trade appears to be rather interesting. The merchant keeps a gang of Caribs, who have been in the employment of the firm all their lives perhaps. They go out at the proper season to find and mark the trees; fell [Pg 152] them presently and return whilst the timber is drying; or amuse themselves in the bush, hunting and gathering miscellaneous produce. Then they float the raft down to Belize.
These Caribs are more or less descended from the Indians of Jamaica. ”

“ In the colony of Belize alone, a settlement which may one day become a most valuable entrepôt for all the more immediate points of the Spanish Main, and including, of course, the rising republic of Guatemala, there is a capital little short of two millions sterling employed at the present day. ”

“ Two leagues from Guastatoia, which is ten from Omohita, we met a Spaniard travelling from the coast, by name Señor Valdero, informing us that a British ship of war was arrived at Belize, bringing a consul from his majesty's government, and also three commissioners and a secretary. ”

“ As it is liable therefore to attack only from the sea-board, and as the fort has room enough in it to be made capable of holding artillery sufficient to repel a formidable fleet, Belize ought to be considered a very important key to this part of the continent.
The European inhabitants, who may not exceed thirty families, are divided into two classes: the elite party had given a ball to which the other had not been invited ”

“ There are a 238number of little villages along the coast from which bananas and other tropical fruits are shipped, and in the interior are the settlements of the logwood and mahogany workers, but none of the places pass beyond the dignity of villages. The total population is in the neighbourhood of twenty-five thousand, of which negroes predominate, and the whites are only a small percentage.
Belize, the principal town, and capital, is the largest and most important town on the Caribbean coast of Central America. ”

“ Clay whistles modelled in grotesque form, which also sound three notes, may be found to-day in the plazas for sale; but the material and workmanship of these ancient terra-cottas surpasses any of the work of modern Indios.
During the night we were awakened by the noise of the surf on the beach; but when I went out on the piazza there was no wind. Before morning the “City of Belize”—the very steamer that had nearly finished our journey in the Rio Polochic—arrived from Pansos. ”

“ I close the chapter on Guatemalan antiquities with two short quotations, embodying all I have been able to find respecting the ancient monuments of the English province of Belize, on the Atlantic coast eastward from Peten. "About thirty miles up the Balize River, contiguous to its banks are found, what in this country are denominated the Indian-hills. These are small eminences, which are supposed to have been raised by the aborigines over their dead; human bones, and fragments of a coarse kind of earthen-ware, being frequently dug from them. ”

“ The treaties of 1783 and 1786 between Great Britain and Spain reserved to the latter the sovereignty over Belize, otherwise called British Honduras, granting to the settlers merely the privilege of cutting dye and other woods, [XV-18] using the spontaneous products of the 314 soil, fishing along the coast, repairing their vessels, and building houses and stores. The colonists were not to set up any government, either civil or military, construct forts or defences, maintain troops of any kind, or possess any artillery. ”

“ But great Britain claimed that the excepted “settlement” at Honduras was the “Belize” covered by the extreme British claim; that the Bay Islands were a dependency of Belize; and that, as for the Mosquito Coast, the abnegatory clauses being wholly prospective in intent, she was not required to abandon her protectorate. The United States contended that the Bay Islands were not the “dependencies” of Belize, these being the small neighbouring islands mentioned in the same treaties ”

“ But, because rumour ever runneth swift of foot, even in so small a colony as this--where, naturally, its feet have not so much ground to cover--and in so small a capital as Belize, with its six thousand inhabitants, the church was also filled with many others drawn from the various races, mixed and pure, who dwell therein. For, by now, there was scarcely a person in either the colony or capital to whose ears there had not come the news that the handsome young officer who was in a few moments to become the husband of Miss Spranger, was, in truth, the rightful owner of Desolada. ”

“ The journey from the Cayo to Belize by the river presents no features of interest; the scenery is monotonous and the rapids are not dangerous. Although the river is navigable for canoes and pit-pans at almost all times of the year, and supplies can thus be carried in small quantities to the mahogany-cutters and other settlers on its banks, a more satisfactory highway must be established if the colony is to advance and prosper. ”

“ Every one knows that an Englishman takes his atmosphere with him wherever he goes, but the truth of it never impressed me so much as it did at Belize. There were not more than two hundred English men and women in the place, and yet, in the two halves of two days that I was there I seemed to see everything characteristic of an Englishman in his native land. There were a few concessions made to the country and to the huge native population, who are British subjects themselves ”

“ While people in Northern latitudes are bundling themselves up as a protection against the chilly blasts of old Boreas, the populace of Belize are enjoying pleasant summer weather and wearing 243their warm-weather clothes. At night the trade winds which nearly always blow across this bay lower the temperature so that refreshing sleep can be obtained. It is healthful and there is no more fever than at our own Gulf ports, and yellow fever very seldom gets any foothold whatever, even though the town is only a few feet above the level of the sea. ”

“ It is supposed that the sales of one commercial house at Belize average £15,000 currency per month, which is one twentieth part of what is sold, and would make the sales of British dry goods imported for the supply of that colony and Guatemala at least £2,500,000 currency, or about £1,500,000 sterling. The greatest part of the import and export trade of Guatemala is carried on by the port of Izabal, at the bottom of the Golfo Dulce, and by that of Omoa, on the left of the entrance of that gulf. ”

“ Of domestic animals there are enough 317 for the needs of the people. The colony during the last fifteen or twenty years has been on the downward course.
In former times the port of Belize was an entrepôt for the neighboring states of Yucatan, Guatemala, and Honduras, [XV-31] but after the opening of direct trade between those states and the United States and Europe, and the diversion of trade on the Pacific to Panamá, that source of prosperity ceased. Total tonnage entered and cleared in 1877, exclusive of coasting trade, 73,974, of which 46,168 were British. ”

“ Baliol, Sir John de, of Norman descent; a guardian to the heir to the Scottish crown on the death of Alexander III.; founder of Baliol College, Oxford; d. 1269.
Balize, or Belize, the capital of British Honduras, in Central America; trade in mahogany, rosewood, &c.
Balkan Peninsula, the territory between the Adriatic and the Ægean Sea, bounded on the N. by the Save and the Lower Danube, and on the S. by Greece.
Balkans, The, a mountain range extending from the Adriatic to the Black Sea; properly the range dividing Bulgaria from Roumania; mean height, 6500 ft. ”

“ The town of Belize, at the mouth of the river of the same name, generally has 6,000 inhabitants. The dwellings of the wealthy class are large and comfortable. Besides the govt houses, court-house, barracks, and jail, there are several churches, episcopal, methodist, baptist, and presbyterian, and some large and costly fire-proof warehouses. The town has experienced two destructive conflagrations, one in 1854 and another in 1863. Packet Intelligencer, June 17, 1854; Guat., Gaceta, Sept. ”

“ The bishopric of British Honduras is part of the West Indian province of the Church of England. Almost all the schools, secondary as well as primary, are denominational. School fees are charged, and grants-in-aid are made to elementary schools. Most of these, since 1894, have been under the control of a board, on which the religious bodies managing the schools are represented.
Defence.—The Belize volunteer light infantry corps, raised in 1897, consists of about 200 officers and men; a mounted section, numbering about 40, was created in 1904. For the whole colony, the police number about 120. ”

“ These people now consider themselves under the protection of the British government, and some of their kings have been educated in Jamaica. [1] On the accession of the last king to the throne he expressed a wish to be crowned at Belize, and orders were received by his Britannic majesty's superintendent to gratify his wish, and to defray all attendant expenses. ”

“ There is no place of worship, and mass is not performed more than once in a twelvemonth. The principal inhabitant, at whose house all travellers put up, is Doña Maria Barnes: she keeps a posada, or inn, and here we met with a Spaniard named Don Miguel Español, a man well to do in the commercial world, having a considerable fortune: he was a friend of my companion Don Francisco: he had just left Belize ”

“ The country southwest of Yucatan, that portion of Guatemala west of the British colony of Belize, south of Campeche, and east of Chiapas and Tabasco, is an almost unexplored region. Here the aboriginal Indians roam with all the freedom of their ancestors before Spanish dominion. Somewhere in this wild region is situated the "mysterious city" described by Stephens and Morelet, said to have walls of silver which glisten so that they can be seen one hundred miles away, and to be still STATUE FROM PALENQUE. occupied by the descendants of its original builders. ”