Below this military post is the usual landing-place for canoas. These are nearly all dug out of single mahogany or cedar logs, and are not only well made, but of good form. Some are forty feet long and six feet wide. The paddles were of mahogany, and the women paddled as well and powerfully as the men; both, indeed, seemed to be quite at home on the water. Some of the incoming canoes were laden with coconuts, others with bananas and plantains from the little _fincas_ along the coast, and yet others with fish. The last we noted more carefully, as there is no fish-market in Livingston, and the fish are always interesting to a stranger; for odd and various as may be the fruits of a new clime, the produce of the sea generally surpasses that of the land in curious forms. There were some of the oddest of the Central American waters; and the man who first ate them must have been very brave or very hungry. One of them had flesh resembling beef in color, and good and substantial when cooked. Paths about the town are narrow and grass-grown, and the hooked seeds of a _Desmodium_ cling to the clothes, and the thorns of the sensitive-plant (_Mimosa pudicans_) scratch the bare feet of the passer; but worse than all these, in the grass are tiny insects called _coloradía_, which bite the ankles and other exposed parts, causing red spots and an intolerable itching,—easily allayed, however, by salt-water or bay-rum applications. Mosquitoes were not troublesome, and we used no nettings; nor did we see any house-flies. A bath in the Rio Dulce was tempered by the dread of sharks; and refreshing as the sweet water was, there was a self-congratulatory feeling on getting safely back to the huge square-hewn mahogany logs that served for dressing-room. To the outward world Livingston is principally interesting as the free port of Guatemala,—the outlet of the coffee of Alta Verapaz and the fruits of the Atlantic coast-region. In its early history it was a settlement of Caribs,—those splendid negroes who were driven from the islands of the sea, which still bear their name, when the Spaniards enslaved or destroyed their fellow-owners of the land. Its situation at the entrance of the chief waterway to the interior and the capital soon marked it for a Spanish post; but the buccaneers were too powerful, and before their advance the port of entry was moved far up the Rio Dulce to Izabal, on the lake of that name,—the fort of San Felipe blocking the way to these lawless enemies. Not only pirates, but the Home Government hastened the decay and disuse of this port, and the banks of the Rio Dulce were of little importance, except to the mahogany-cutters and sarsaparilla-gatherers, for two centuries.