Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/509

Rh much, within these few years, owing to the establishment of commission houses: some of them are in the habit of receiving monies which had been destined for the Havannah and the United States; and this intercourse will be larger as the facilities of exporting Guatemalian produce may increase. The bar at the entrance of the Golfo Dulce is the chief cause why Belize is valuable as an entrepôt. It is by this medium that goods being reshipped, are passed to and from Guatemala in vessels, calculated for the purpose, and which must not draw more than seven or eight feet water.

When I left Guatemala at the end of the year 1825, I made out an estimate of the trade which was carried on by the new republics with all parts of the world