CENTRAL AMERICA. Extending southeast from Mexico to Colombia, like the curved finger-tip of a hand whose thumb is Florida, Central America joins North and South America, partly enclosing the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. In this strip of land, nearly 1,000 miles long and varying from about 50 to 600 miles in breadth, are the six republics of Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama, which, with the colony of British Honduras, comprise Central America. Broad low lands of intense humidity and suffocating temperature occupy the wide Atlantic coast, covered with tropical forests except where banana growing has been intro duced. Farther inland extends a range of mountains, growing higher and higher toward the Pacific until it culminates in the long and almost unbroken line of beautiful volcanic cones near the western shore. It is here, where the lava has created a marvelously fertile soil and where the heat owing to the high altitude is less intense, that civilization has mainly developed, and the chief staple, coffee, is grown.
Such Natural Riches, So Few to Use Them Although a rich and beautiful region, with gold, silver, and other minerals in its mountains, great pasture lands, forests of rare and valuable woods, and a very fertile soil, Central America has little more than 25 people to the square mile. The mines and forests are almost untouched, little land is cultivated, and there is scarcely any manufacturing. The old Indian method of planting by making holes with a pointed stick is still employed in all but the most thickly settled areas. This backward condition is largely due to the isolation in which the several colonies were kept by Spain during the three centuries in which the region belonged to her, when commercial intercourse with countries other than Spain was prohibited. Even after 1821 when following a revo lution the colonies declared their independence, there was little change in this respect. Civil wars and revolutions caused a periodic destruction of property and planted fields. The new republics still had no
direct means of communication with Europe or North America, and all the important cities were separated from the east coast by an almost impassable jungle and mountainous country. It was therefore not until the construction of an interoceanip railway in Panama, and more recently in Guatemala and Costa Rica, that these countries of Central America obtained an outlet upon the Atlantic. Even now transporta tion is extremely difficult in most places. Roads are poor and often impassable even by ox-cart.
What the Coffee Plant Did for Central America The introduction of the coffee plant into Central America, not long after the countries became inde pendent, did much to develop the commerce of the country. Owing to the high price which its excellent quality commanded in Europe, it was soon exported in large quantities. Immense coffee haciendas or estates, many of them producing 200,000 to 1,000,000 pounds each year, are now scattered over the fertile slopes of the volcanoes on the coast. They are con trolled by a comparatively small number of people who obtained possession of the land in colonial times, and who still maintain a dominant place in the com munity. The laborers are descendants of the native tribes of Indians who were enslaved in the 16th century, and have never entirely regained their independence. They still remain the largest element in the population which resulted from a fusion of the Spanish, the aborigines, and the negroes.
Although they have adopted the Spanish language and religion, they are still Indian in civilization and standards of living. Whether in cities or in the country, they live in one or two-room huts of adobe or wood with dirt floors and thatched roofs. Corn, beans, rice, and coffee form their diet. Because of the primitive living conditions throughout Central America disease is common and the death rate high.
The hookworm, with which half the people are estimated to be infected, has done incalculable harm.