Once in travelling alone on horseback over the desert lands which lie between the mountains of the Island of Maui, of the Hawaiian group, I was impressed with the desolate, arid land of that great plain. Stunted indigo, verbena, and malvaceous weeds thinly covered the parched soil, which was cracked in every direction. Ten thousand feet above me rose the vast dome of Haleakala, bare on this landward side, but which had sent down for centuries volcanic ash to make this plain, and which now was covering these earlier deposits with the decomposition of its rich lavas. I examined this soil and found it full of the elements best suited for the growth of cane. As is the case with many of our own Western plains comprised in what was known as the Great American Desert, which have often impressed me as the most inhospitable land, not even excepting the Sahara, I have ever seen, this Hawaiian plain needed only water to turn the desert into a fertile field. I laid before the then Government of Hawaii my plan for reclaiming this land, which in great part belonged to the School Fund. The Minister of Foreign Relations, the Hon. Robert C. Wyllie, a most remarkable man, saw the physical possibilities, but also the financial impossibilities, so far as the Government was concerned. Years went by, when on a second visit to Maui I had the pleasure of seeing that my plan had in part been carried out by private parties, and prospering sugar plantations, valued at many millions, occupied the once waste land. In travelling through Guatemala I was convinced of the physical advantages the country possessed, though I was not blind to the indisputable fact that of all countries I have seen, Guatemala, in common with the other States of Central America, makes least use of her natural advantages, and does least to overcome those obstacles Nature has thrown in her way. My readers will pardon me, I trust, if, in briefly discussing the present outcome of the soil, I let my imagination, trained and curbed by an extended experience, suggest at the same time what the wonderfully fertile lands of Guatemala might yield, properly cultivated. While I will endeavor to guard myself from all exaggeration, I cannot conceal from myself the fact that those not familiar with tropical luxuriance of growth and fruitfulness will not fully acquit me of this fault so generally charged to travellers. [Illustration: Indian Plough; a Type of Guatemaltecan Agriculture.]