There are about one hundred and sixty miles of coast line on the Atlantic, or Gulf, side of the republic. Puerto Barrios is the chief port now because of the railway terminal having been established at that place and it has been in existence less than twenty-five years. The Spaniards established no large settlement on this coast and the nearest city was Coban, at an altitude of four thousand feet, and about one hundred miles from the coast. To the English, who were always seeking to establish coast towns for the benefit of commerce, and with whom there were few inland cities, the location of the principal cities inland seems strange. Yet south of us in Central America, where the continent grows narrow and wrinkled, scowling as it were, a territory larger than all New England, this was the universal practice. A commercial nation would long ago have established a harbour at Livingston, about twenty-five miles north of Puerto Barrios. It is situated on a bluff where a large city should be located, and has a far better climate than Vera Cruz, Mexico. Although several hundred years old it is still nothing but a crude wall and palm-thatched village. Lowell has said “What is so rare as a day in June?” Here it is a perpetual June where the thermometer seldom exceeds 86 degrees, and it is generally considerably below that. Yellow fever has never become epidemic here, and the deaths from it, and other tropical fevers, are fewer than the victims of tuberculosis in northern climates. Livingston is at the mouth of the Rio Dulce (Sweet River), which, after a few miles inland from the coast, broadens out into Lake Izabal, and this lake would make a beautiful and commodious harbour, large enough to hold all the navies of the world. At the present time some sand bars impede the passage of vessels, but a few dredges would soon make a fine channel into the lake, where vessels would be perfectly protected from the severe “northers” which sometimes sweep over the Gulf. The Pacific coast line with its indentations is almost three hundred miles long. The commerce in the early days was nearly all carried on through the small ports on this coast and transported to the cities in the interior. Guatemala City, Quezaltenango, Totonicapan and all the other principal cities on this slope, except Retalhuleu and Mazatenango, are located at a distance of from sixty to one hundred miles from the sea, which meant a journey of from two to five days by the old means of conveyance which are still necessary to reach many of those centres of population.