Guatemala, the largest and most important of these republics, has been described as the privileged zone of Central America and is easily reached from both sides by steamers, and will soon be connected with the northern republics by rail. It is a country of mountains, tropical forests, lakes, rivers, coast and plains. No portion of the earth presents a greater diversity of level in an equal amount of surface, or a greater variety of climate. Humboldt, the great traveller, described it as an extremely fertile and well cultivated country more than a century ago. To this day, however, there are great tracts of fertile virgin lands open to cultivation. There are three minor mountain systems in the country. Of these the northern series is composed chiefly of denuded cones from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high with plains between; the central consists of ranges running from east to west and reaching a height of from seven to fourteen thousand feet; the southern branch comprises a number of volcanic peaks which culminate in several notable volcanoes. These ranges parallel the Pacific and are known as the Cordilleras. The Pacific side of Central America, from Guatemala to Nicaragua, is a highly volcanic region, and Guatemala has her full share. The many companion peaks and notched ranges as they are seen from the sea look like great fangs. In no country in the world can one find a greater number of perfect cones than in Guatemala where there are scores of these peaks ranging from Tajumulco (13,814 feet), and Tacana (13,334 feet), down to small cones only a few hundred feet above the sea level, yet maintaining the characteristic outline. Many of the peaks have never been ascended so that little is known about their formation. All of these volcanoes are now extinct, or at least quiescent, except Santa Maria (10,535 ft.), from which smoke and steam constantly issue out of a fissure, or crater, on the side several hundred feet from the top of the cone or crater proper. This volcano had been quiet so long that it was looked upon as extinct until early in April, 1902, rumblings were heard, and suddenly it belched forth mud and sand, throwing the latter fifty miles or more. By this eruption Quezaltenango, hitherto an enterprising town and second city in the republic, was almost ruined, and several thousand of its inhabitants destroyed. A number of villages near the base of the mountain were almost completely demolished and a part of Ocos, the most northerly Pacific port, sank into the sea during one of the earthquakes which accompanied the eruption.