Page:Guatimala or the United Provinces of Central America in 1827-8.pdf/213

Rh As these two branches of commerce decayed, the attention of the government was turned to the cultivation of indigo, which continues at the present day to be the chief article of exportation.

From the time of the conquest, the Indians were more or less employed in manufactures, and as the kingdom soon found itself very irregularly supplied by Spain, and at the same time shut out from communication with the other nations of Europe, every encouragement was of course given to this branch of native industry.

The articles thus manufactured were strong and by no means despicable, but could only be procured at prices enormously high, while so great at times was the scarcity, that when a quantity of goods arrived from the peninsula, the stores and shops were literally besieged with purchasers, and the government in some instances were obliged to use precautions to avoid tumult.

Such a state of things naturally invited a contraband trade, and the proximity of the English settlers in Belize, afforded a convenient opportunity for obtaining goods at reasonable rates. Once commenced, all the efforts of government were unable to repress its progress; it rapidly assumed the shape of a regular trade, and was carried on systematically, chiefly by the way of the river Leanes. Still the manufactures of the country found a market, and so late as the year