Guatemala contains fifty thousand six hundred square miles, being about the size of Illinois, and extends from the thirteenth to the seventeenth degree north latitude. Its greatest length from north to south is three hundred and sixty miles, and its greatest breadth from east to west is three hundred and ninety miles. The range of mountains, or Cordilleras, which runs through the country northeasterly and southwesterly, seems to be a connecting link between the Rocky and Andes ranges. The climate varies through the background of mountains, the sloping direction, the nearness to the sea, or the direction and force of the periodical winds. Depending upon altitude the climate ranges from torrid heat on the coast to regions where snow occasionally falls on the crest of the mountains. The _tierra caliente_ (hot land) is the name given to those lands up to two thousand feet high. From two thousand to five thousand feet is found the _tierra templada_, and above that is the _tierra fria_ (the cold land). From May to October the rainy season occurs with great regularity. The coldest months are December and January, and the hottest months March and April. By reason of this variation in temperature and soil, all the products of the torrid and temperate zones can be cultivated. The average person has a habit of associating tropical lands with the idea of intense and disagreeable heat. This person does not stop to think that the conditions are often much different from what they seem on the map. Even at the equator, which one would naturally think almost uninhabitable, the upland sections are just as well adapted for the abode of white people as the temperate zone. If one should start at sea level, at the equator, and ascend the mountains one mile, he will experience the same change in temperature as to go due north one thousand miles. If he goes up another mile he will find the summer temperature lower than in that part of North America twenty-five hundred miles north of the equator. The same is true in Central America, for climate is determined by altitude and not by nearness to the equatorial line. The population of Guatemala in 1904 was estimated to be 1,842,000, of whom about fifty per cent are full blooded Indians and forty per cent are Ladinos, or those of mixed blood. The Ladinos are descendants of the early Spanish conquerors and natives and are generally superior to the natives, although in some instances they seem to have inherited the evil of both races. The remaining ten per cent comprise the Creole, or Spanish, population, who form the aristocracy. A few thousand foreigners are also engaged in business in the country.