Page:Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala.djvu/53

 sea. In August, 1873, he again visited Malacate in company with a government surveyor, and effected the denouncement and survey of a tract of public lands adequate for the contemplated coffee plantation to the north of Malacate, adjacent to the reputed frontier of Guatemala, but taking care that the lands in question should be exclusively on Mexican territory. Contracts were made with laborers resident in the vicinity for planting corn and for clearing the land destined for the coffee plantation, to which the name of "Cafetal Juarez" was given. President Barrios was duly and minutely informed by letters of all the steps taken in pursuance of his repeated requests.

In January, 1874, General Barrios visited his hacienda of Malacate and inspected, in company with Mr. Romero, the lands comprising the "Cafetal Juarez."

He then expressed the fear that a portion of those lands belonged to Guatemala, and indicated what he conceived to be the frontier between the two republics in terms differing from what had been assumed as such by Mr. Romero—namely, the course of the small river Petacalapa. As the result of his inspection of the lands. General Barrios withdrew from the proposed partnership, leaving Mr. Romero free to form the projected coffee plantation on his own account, under promise of efficacious co-operation from the Indian laborers resident within the frontier of Guatemala.

During this visit of General Barrios to Soconusco he was informed that three Guatemalan exiles, residing at Tapachula, had formed a plot to assassinate him. Through the intervention of Mr. Romero, those individuals were arrested and kept in prison for some weeks. They were afterward liberated by the local