W ITH the exception of Buenos Ayres and Santiago, Chili, the city of Mexico is the largest and the finest capital in Spanish America; but unfortunately the shadow of the sixteenth century still rests upon it. It wounds the pride of the Yankee tourist to discover that so little of our boasted influence has lapped over the border, and that the historic halls of the Montezumas are only spattered with the modern ideas we exemplify. The native traveller still prefers his donkey to the railroad train,

G UATEMALA has had three capitals, all called Guatemala City, since the Conquest. The first was founded by Alvarado in 1524, and buried under a flood of sand and water in 1541. The second capital was founded the same year, a few miles eastward of the old site, and was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773. The present capital is the largest and by far the finest city in Central America, and is more modern in its appearance than any other. It is situated in what is called the tierra templada , or te

I N 1540 Cortez, the Conqueror of Mexico, directed Alonzo Caceres, one of his lieutenants, to proceed with an army of one thousand men to the Province of Honduras, which had been subdued by Alvarado a few years before, and select a suitable site for a city midway between the two oceans. Caceres was a pioneer of most excellent discretion, and so good a judge of distance was he that if a straight line were drawn from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the centre would be just three miles north of the pl

A STRANGER landing at the port of Corinto, Nicaragua, asked the men who were taking him ashore in a bongoe the name of the capital of the republic. There were three of them. The quickest of wit answered promptly, “Grenada;” both the others disputed it, one of them contending for the city of Managua, and the other for Leon. So animated did the controversy become that all three dropped their oars, and nearly upset the boat by their gesticulations. This question is, and always has been, a dangerous

W HOEVER visits the little republic of San Salvador, and lands at La Libertad, its principal seaport, must expect to undergo a novel and alarming experience. There is no harbor in the country, although it has one hundred and fifty-seven miles of sea-coast. The shore of the Pacific is a line of bluffs, with a fringe of beach at the bottom, and upon the sand a mighty surf is always beating. Ships anchor several miles off the coast, to avoid being driven ashore by the winds that sometimes rise very

N EARLY four hundred years ago an old sailor coasted along the eastern shore of Costa Rica in a bark not much bigger than a canal-boat, searching for a passage to the western sea. He had a bunk built in the bows of his little vessel where he could rest his weary bones and look out upon the world he had discovered. There was little left of him but his will. He had explored the whole coast from Yucatan to Trinidad, and found it an unbroken line of continent, a contradiction of all his reasoning, a

A LTHOUGH geographically one of our nearest neighbors, Bogota, the capital of the United States of Colombia, is almost as far distant by days, if not by miles, from New York as the interior of India, and quite as difficult to reach. Until recently there has been no direct communication by steam between the ports of Colombia and those of our own country. Within the last three years an English company has established a line of steamships between New York and the mouth of the Magdalena River. Two t

T HE voyage from New York to Venezuela is one of the most delightful in the world, and gives the traveller not only a nine days’ taste of the sea, but shows him a glimpse of tropical America, and affords him an opportunity to study the peculiar life and customs of our Spanish-American neighbors. A splendid fleet of steamers—the “Red D” line, owned by Messrs. Boulton, Bliss & Dallett, of New York, and sailing under the American flag—furnish as comfortable transportation facilities as can

O N the west coast of South America is found the perfection of sea-travel—fine ships, fair weather, and a still sea. Although one floats under, or rather over, the equator, the atmosphere is cool, the breezes delicious, and the water as smooth as a duck-pond. The Pacific Navigation Company is a British institution, founded by an American, Mr. William Wheelwright, of New York, which has been sending vessels from Panama to Liverpool, through the Straits of Magellan, for over forty years, and has n

A LTHOUGH the glory of Lima has long since faded, it is easy to see how grand and beautiful the place was in the days of its ancient prosperity, when it was called “The City of the Kings.” Few places possess such historical or romantic interest as this old vice-regal, bigoted, corrupt, licentious capital of Peru, the second city founded by the Spaniards in South America, and the seat of Spanish power for more than three centuries. Pizarro selected the location, and founded the city on the 6th of

“The Callao painter” is something that skippers dread. Its brush is the breeze, and its pigments are in the air. It comes and goes without premonition, and its work is usually done in the night. A vessel will enter the harbor of Callao with its timbers as white as the virgin snow, and its planking as clean as holy-stone and elbow-grease can make them. The disgusted sailors may awaken in the morning and find everything covered with a brown, nasty film, which penetrates the cabin, and even the bat

N ATURE never intended there should be a city where Valparaiso stands, but the enterprise of the Chillanos, aided by English and German capital, has built there the finest port on the west coast of South America, and the only one with all the modern improvements. The harbor is spacious and beautiful, and ten months in the year it is perfectly safe for shipping, but during the remaining two months, when northern gales are frequent, vessels are often driven from their anchorage, and compelled to c

T HE spinal column of the hemisphere, extending from the Arctic to the Antarctic Sea, and called the Cordilleras, breaks suddenly at the foot of the Southern continent, and is divided by a narrow and deep ravine called the Strait of Magellan. Before the strait is reached, along the western coast of South America are numberless islands, cast into the sea by some convulsion of nature, like sparks flung from hammered iron. Few of these islands have ever been explored, but they all bear a close rese

THE HARBOR, BUENOS AYRES. The Chillanos claim to be the Yankees of South America, and it is their proudest boast, but the Argentinians are more entitled to that distinction. Chili, commercially and in her political affinities, is to all intents and purposes an English colony. She reckons her transactions in pounds, shillings, and pence, and her statute-books bear the law of entail. There is no democracy outside her constitution, and a peon can never be anything else. The poor may not acquire lan

S OON after General Garfield became President, an ex-member of Congress, since the governor of a western State, came into a correspondent’s office in Washington, and sitting down with a discouraged and disgusted air, asked, “Where in Tophet is Uruguay? I have been offered the honor of representing the United States in that country, and before I accept I would like to find out where it is.” THE CITY OF MONTEVIDEO, LOOKING TOWARDS THE HARBOR. Not three out of four men in the Congress of the United

T HE population of Paraguay and its products to-day are less than they were one hundred years ago, when the present half-ruined city was the capital of the southern half of the continent, and from it had been issued the ecclesiastical and vice-regal edicts for over two centuries. Then Asuncion was a gay and busy capital, and Buenos Ayres, with the rest of the continent, paid tribute to the viceroy there. After the war of independence, a Jesuit by the name of Francia secured control of the Govern

T HE name of the capital of Brazil means “River of January,” and in the native tongue is pronounced Reeo-day-Hay-nay-ray-oh . When the ancient mariners who discovered the Brazilian coast passed through the narrow gate-way to the harbor, and saw the beautiful bay in the amphitheatre of mountains surrounded by eternal verdure, they supposed they were entering the mouth of a river that would lead them to the Enchanted Land; and when they found out their mistake they despised the place so much that