Guatemala City is a perfect place to play with life, cloistered away from the active world, and yet so near to its bustling stir. The real world and its manners are here, but there are none of its problems. All things are reduced to so small a scale that the individual need not worry. People who have money have inherited it or made it easy; those who have it not, never expect it. There is no hustling, ambitious middle class to stir up rivalry and discontent. The people drift along placidly and, content with what they have, covet not the riches or luxury of another. The visitor can enjoy life and live quietly, feeling that he can always go back to the real world whenever he wants to, and that a few days’ journey will transport him back to the busy life of our great metropolis. [Illustration: STREET CAR IN GUATEMALA CITY.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV THE TROPICS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT THE growth of vegetation in tropical lands is a revelation of what rich soil aided by a hot sun and an abundance of water can do. There are localities in the world where is found the rich soil, but either warmth or water is wanting and they are comparatively barren. In this region where the soil is frequently eight to fourteen feet in depth, where the fall of water is from eighty to one hundred and twenty inches annually, and where the sun furnishes perpetual summer heat, nature reveals herself in her grandest moods, and the stranger coming here for the first time cries out in astonishment at her prodigality. The first feeling of one on entering a tropical forest is that of helplessness, confusion, awe, and all but terror. Without a compass or a blazed path a man would be almost lost in a few minutes if he should venture into such a tangled growth by himself. The exuberance of vegetation is fairly astounding and the English language is utterly inadequate to express the variety and luxuriance of the vegetable world. It is equally as impossible to describe the colours for there are so many tints of green. The costliest amusements of our gayest cities can never equal the gratuitous diversions which nature provides for her favoured guests. Thus it is that one feels when traversing the tropical forests of Guatemala. Eastern Guatemala, that part bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, is an American Java, a botanical garden spot where climate and the black soil vie with that eastern isle. And no land can compare with it in the number and variety of its birds and flying insects, for it is a veritable natural museum of living birds and butterflies.