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Rh as in other parts of (q.v.), each of the three climatic zones, cold, temperate and hot (tierra fria, tierra templada, tierra caliente) has its special characteristics, and it is not easy to generalize about the climate of the country as a whole.

Natural Products.—The minerals discovered in Guatemala include gold, silver, lead, tin, copper, mercury, antimony, coal, salt and sulphur; but it is uncertain if many of these exist in quantities sufficient to repay exploitation. Gold is obtained at Las Quebradas near Izabal, silver in the departments of Santa Rosa and Chiquimula, salt in those of Santa Rosa and Alta Vera Paz. During the 17th century gold-washing was carried on by English miners in the Motagua valley, and is said to have yielded rich profits; hence the name of “Gold Coast” was not infrequently given to the Atlantic littoral near the mouth of the Motagua.

The area of forest has only been seriously diminished in the west, and amounted to 2030 sq. m. in 1904. Besides rubber, it yields many valuable dye-woods and cabinet-woods, such as cedar, mahogany and logwood. 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).

Inhabitants.—The inhabitants of Guatemala, who tend to increase rapidly owing to the high birth-rate, low mortality, and low rate of emigration, numbered in 1903 1,842,134, or more than one-third of the entire population of Central America. Fully 60% are pure Indians, and the remainder, classed as Ladinos or “Latins” (i.e. Spaniards in speech and mode of life), comprise a large majority of half-castes (mestizos) and civilized Indians and a smaller proportion of whites. 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. 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 Itzas, Mopans, Lacandons, Chols, Pokonchi and the Pokomans who inhabit the large settlement of Mixco near the capital, all belong to the Maya family; but parts of central and eastern Guatemala are peopled by tribes distinct from the Mayas and not found in Mexico. In the 16th century the Mayas and Quichés had attained a high level of civilization (see, Archaeology), and at least two of the Guatemalan languages, Quiché and Cakchiquel, possess the rudiments or the relics of a literature. The Quiché Popol Vuh, or “Book of History,” which was translated into Spanish by the Dominican friar Ximenes, and edited with a French version by Brasseur de Bourbourg, is an important document for students of the local myths. In appearance the various Guatemalan tribes differ very little; in almost all the characteristic type of Indian is short but muscular, with low forehead, prominent cheek-bones and straight black hair. 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. Their confradias, or brotherhoods, each with its patron saint and male and female chiefs, exist largely to organize public festivals, and to purchase wooden masks, costumes and decorations for the dances and dramas in which the Indians delight. These dramas, which deal with religious and historical subjects, are of Indian origin, and somewhat resemble the mystery-plays of medieval Europe, a resemblance heightened by the introduction, due to Spanish missionaries, of Christian saints and heroes such as Charlemagne. 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; drunkenness is common on pay-days and festivals, when large quantities of a fiery brandy called chicha are consumed.

Chief Towns.—The capital of the republic, Guatemala or Guatemala la Nueva (pop. 1905 about 97,000) and the cities of Quezaltenango (31,000), Totonicapam (28,000), Coban (25,000), Sololá (17,000), Escuintla (12,000), Huehuetanango (12,000), Amatitlán (10,000) and Atitlán (9000) are described under separate headings. All the chief towns except the seaports are situated within the mountainous region where the climate is temperate. Retalhuleu, among the southern foothills of the Sierra Madre, is one of the centres of coffee production, and is connected by rail with the Pacific port of Champerico, a very unhealthy place in the wet season. Both Retalhuleu and Champerico were, like Quezaltenango, Sololá, and other towns, temporarily ruined by the earthquake of the 18th of April 1902. Santa Cruz Quiché, 25 m. N.E. of Totonicapam, was formerly the capital of the Quiché kings, but has now a Ladino population. Livingston, a seaport at the mouth of the Polochic (here called the Rio Dulce), was founded in 1806, and subsequently named after the author of a code of Guatemalan laws; few vestiges remain of the Spanish settlement of Sevilla la Nueva, founded in 1844, and of the English colony of Abbotsville, founded in 1825,—both near Livingston. La Libertad, also called by its Indian name of Sacluc, is the principal town of Peten.

Shipping and Communications.—The republic is in regular steam communication on the Atlantic side with New Orleans, New York and Hamburg, by vessels which visit the ports of Barrios (Santo Tomas) and Livingston. On the southern side the ports of San José, Champerico and Ocós are visited by the Pacific mail steamers, by the vessels of a Hamburg company and by those of the South American (Chilean) and the Pacific Steam Navigation Companies. Iztapa, formerly the principal harbour on the south coast, has been almost entirely abandoned since 1853. Gualan, on the Motagua, and Panzos, on the Polochic, are small river-ports. The principal towns are connected by wagon roads, towards the construction and maintenance of which each male inhabitant is required to pay two pesos or give four days’ work a year. There are coach routes between the capital and Quezaltenango, but over a great portion of the country transport is still on mule-back. 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. On the Atlantic slope transport is effected mainly by river tow-boats from Livingston along the Golfo Dulce and other lakes, and the Polochic river as far as Panzos. The narrow-gauge railway that serves the German plantations in the Vera Paz region is largely owned by Germans.

Guatemala joined the Postal Union in 1881; but its postal and telegraphic services have suffered greatly from financial difficulties. The telephonic systems of Guatemala la Nueva, Quezaltenango and other cities are owned by private companies.

Commerce and Industry.—The natural resources of Guatemala are rich but undeveloped; and the capital necessary for their development is not easily obtained in a country where war, revolution and economic crises recur at frequent intervals, where the premium on gold has varied by no less than 500% in a single year, and where many of the wealthiest cities and agricultural districts have been destroyed by earthquake in one day (18th of April 1902). At the beginning of the 19th century, Guatemala had practically no export trade; but between 1825 and 1850 cochineal was largely exported, the centre of production being the Amatitlán district. This industry was ruined by the competition of chemical dyes, and a substitute was found in the cultivation of coffee.