INDUSTRIOUS LITTLE SALVADOR; AND BELIZE
Tucked away on the Pacific side of Honduras lies Salvador, the smallest
republic between Hudson Bay and the Golden Horn. In size it is just a
big farm, 140 miles long by 60 miles wide. There are single estates
larger than that, in Mexico and in several other countries. Yet it has
more inhabitants than any other Central American country except
Guatemala. In area not much larger than Vermont, it has five times the
population of the Green Mountain State. The 1,700,000 people who live in
its 7,225 square miles make Salvador the most crowded country in the
western hemisphere, with the single exception of the “black republic” of
Haiti in the West Indies. In fact, few countries in the world are more
thickly populated.
Where people are crowded, the struggle to earn a living is harder; and
where it is hard to earn a living, people cannot afford to be lazy. So
it is not surprising to find that the Salvadoreans have more energy and
industry than their neighbors. Hillsides that would remain untouched in
Honduras are cultivated to their very summits. Nowhere can you look down
into a valley without seeing it well planted. Salvador has less forest
and fewer wild animals than the other Central American republics, and
with the possible exception of Costa Rica it is the most progressive
country in that group.
Perhaps there are other reasons for its progressiveness besides a large
population. There are few Indians, and these are more advanced than the
Indians of the neighboring countries. They all speak Spanish. Most of
the upper class are of pure European descent. Perhaps the inhabitants of
Salvador have always been of better stock than their neighbors.
Certainly Alvarado found it a hard job to conquer Cuscatlán, as this
region was called in early days.
There are very few foreigners in Salvador; they do not own much of the
country, as the Germans do in Guatemala. Nearly every Salvadorean has
his own piece of land, instead of working for a huge estate, and this
condition naturally makes the people ambitious and willing to work.
Like Guatemala, Salvador is a land of volcanoes. On the way to the
capital you can count several peaks; from the ocean you can see a dozen.
Mount Izalco has been in such constant eruption for more than a century
that sailors call it the “Lighthouse of Salvador,” and for a long time
volcanoes were the only lighthouses along the coast. The postage stamps
of Salvador once bore the picture of a volcano.
As I said earlier, the damage done by eruptions and accompanying
earthquakes is often balanced by the fact that volcanic ash enriches the
soil. Salvador is a fertile country. Its narrow seaboard, its low
alluvial plain, and its level plateau, about two thousand feet high,
furrowed by river valleys and broken by smoking cones, grow splendid
crops. Its rivers, flowing toward the Pacific, water the country well.
In some regions there are three crops of corn a year. But coffee is the
principal product. It was introduced in 1840 by a Brazilian school
teacher, and to-day there are hundreds of thousands of descendants of
the coffee tree he planted in his garden. In fact, eighty per cent of
the exports of Salvador consists in coffee, which goes mostly to France
and Germany.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Mount San Miguel in Salvador still smokes. The lava in the foreground
rolled down the mountain side a century ago.
]
Indigo, which grows in many parts of the country, was once the chief
export, but aniline dyes made it a less important crop. Did you know
that indigo when under cultivation looks like a field of willow
switches? The switches and leaves are soaked in water to which chemicals
have been added, the resulting fluid being boiled down later into a
paste. Indigo is used to dye cloth as well as to make the blueing for
wash day. In Salvador cattle abound and there are many minerals, but it
is an agricultural rather than a grazing or a mining country.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Coffee being dried on a plantation in Salvador.
]
The Usual Way to Enter Salvador
Almost all visitors to Salvador come by sea. It has several ports along
its single coast. At Acajutla steamers anchor a mile out. Sometimes
passengers have to be transferred to the shore boat in a big basket,
lifted by a steam winch on board the ocean vessel. La Unión, down at the
southern border of the country on the Bay of Fonseca, has a good harbor
and better docking facilities.
A railroad runs from Acajutla to San Salvador, the capital; altogether
there are now about 250 miles of railway. It is hoped to make connection
with the railways of Guatemala and Mexico so that the people of Salvador
can go all the way to New York by rail. This little country has good
roads between the chief cities, and the government is building new ones.
On them one sees some automobiles but more oxcarts. There are other
fairsized towns besides the capital, the largest being Santa Ana. In
addition, one passes through a number of pretty villages.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail S. S. Co., San Francisco
Sacks of indigo, product of Salvador, ready for shipment to San
Francisco. The straw man at the top of the pile shows that these
workmen were as fond of a joke as ours would be.
]
I hope you have not made the mistake of thinking that this country is
the San Salvador where Columbus first landed. That was a small island in
the West Indies; this is a continental country bordered by the Pacific.
Besides, its name is merely Salvador, though the capital is called San
Salvador. This capital, by the way, is one of the most beautifully
located cities of Central America, a warm, sunny place about two
thousand feet above sea level. It stands in a fertile plateau, among
green hills, at the base of a volcano 8,360 feet high. Deep ravines are
worn in the plain by streams rushing down from the highlands. As these
are crossed only by narrow tracks they protect the city in time of war.
However, Salvador is quite a peaceful state compared to its neighbors.
It has not had a revolution since 1903. Its presidents are legally
elected and they are not dictators.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
Wouldn’t it be fun to have a ride in this kind of swing? At La
Libertad, Salvador, the water is so shallow that passengers have to
be transferred from the ocean vessels to shore boats.
]
The Capital and Its Troubles
The capital, however, has had its troubles. Founded in 1528, it has been
ruined several times by earthquakes. It was completely destroyed in a
single night in 1854, and there have been many severe shocks since then.
Once it was rebuilt twelve miles southwest of the original site, but it
was moved back in 1858. As recently as 1917 a great earthquake did heavy
damage to five towns including the capital.
No wonder, then, that the houses of San Salvador are nearly all of one
story, with very thick walls built to withstand earthquakes. There is a
handsome government building, and a cathedral. The streets are straight,
the sidewalks paved with rock and cement, the water supply a good one.
There are more automobiles in San Salvador than in any other Central
American place except the city of Panama. In general it is perhaps the
most modern and progressive city of that region, outside the Canal Zone.
One sees many pretty _señoritas_, many priests in black robes. The
120,000 people of the capital, all white or _mestizo_ (Spanish and
Indian mixture) do not wear gaudy garments, and there is little that is
picturesque.
Salvador possesses a good telegraph system, and better schools than
those of its neighbors. In theory the schools are all free and every
child is obliged to attend. But this is true only in the towns. The
country people and the lower classes have little education. Since even
in the United States many people cannot yet read or write, we must not
be too critical of conditions in Central America.
[Illustration:
Panama Mail Steamship Co., San Francisco
In the city of San Salvador there are handsome buildings in the
shopping district which surrounds Duenas Park.
]
A few queer old customs remain. Men ringing bells go along the streets
and through the markets with little boxes containing tiny images of the
Virgin, to which people may bow if they pay a penny. Horse cars rattle
leisurely through the streets with a great cracking of the drivers’
whips. There is music almost every night in the central _plaza_, and
flirtations under the palm trees. In almost every town an official looks
after the people’s health. Sanitary conditions are better and there is
less sickness than in most tropical countries. Salvador, lacking an
Atlantic coast, is free from the diseases that are common in the
fever-infested hot lands.
England’s Central American Colony
Belize (British Honduras) is one region in Central America that we are
likely to forget or overlook, for it is not a republic. Yet it is larger
than Salvador, being of much the same width but nearly forty miles
longer. We find that its area is about that of Massachusetts. Tucked
away on the eastern side of Guatemala and the Mexican peninsula of
Yucatan, much of Belize is low country bordering on the Caribbean.
Besides the more usual tropical products, such as mahogany and chicle,
it has tortoiseshell and sponges for export.
Of its 45,000 people only about a hundred are pure white. Most of the
inhabitants are negroes from the West Indies, and English is the
language spoken. The river Belize runs through the middle of the colony.
The capital, of the same name, has a population of about 13,000.
Belize seems to be a Spanish corruption of “Wallis,” the name of an
early British settler. Buccaneers or pirates first occupied it, then
came logwood hunters. Off the coast, the British settlers were attacked
by a Spanish fleet, but they repulsed it and landed a force of two
thousand men. In 1798 Spain acknowledged the occupation. Belize has been
an organized British colony since 1862.