Chapter I: Front Matter

MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_

A series of Geographical Readers for Intermediate Grades, written by Harry A. Franck and published by F. A. Owen Publishing Company:

THE JAPANESE EMPIRE
CHINA
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
_Others in preparation_

* * * * *

Books by Mr. Franck published by The Century Company, New York:

A Vagabond Journey Around the World

Four Months Afoot in Spain

Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras

Zone Policeman 88

Vagabonding Down the Andes

Working North from Patagonia

Vagabonding Through Changing Germany

Roaming Through the West Indies

Glimpses of Japan and Formosa

Wandering in Northern China

Roving Through Southern China

East of Siam (French Indo-China)

_TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS_

MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA
A Geographical Reader

BY
HARRY A. FRANCK

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, MANY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
DANSVILLE, NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT 1927
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY

_Travels in Many Lands—Mexico and Central America_

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PUBLISHERS’ FOREWORD

The very best way to give boys and girls a clear idea of just what life is to their brothers and sisters of other lands is to take them through those lands. If they cannot go in person (and of course few can), a well-written story of travel will be a valuable substitute for personal experience.

To be of educational value to the reader, a book of travel must first of all be authentic. It must have been written by one who knows at first hand the things about which he writes. A superficial knowledge gained by flitting through a country along its main traveled routes is not sufficient to enable a writer to tell a complete story about it.

Among the notable travelers of our time, probably none has more thoroughly covered many countries than Harry A. Franck, the author of this book. His travels have not been mere sight-seeing tours. He has gone into the out-of-the-way places and lived in the homes of the common people, to study their habits and manner of living. He has visited their temples and schools. He has learned something of their language and talked with them on all manner of subjects so as to become familiar with their views of life.

From boyhood, Harry Franck had a desire to know about the great outside world. In 1900, during his first summer vacation while attending the University of Michigan, he set out, with only $3.18 in his pocket, to see something of Europe. He worked his way across the ocean on a cattle-boat, visited the principal cities of England, then Paris and the Exposition that was being held there. He signed as an able seaman for the return trip and reached Ann Arbor for the fall term, only two weeks late.

Mr. Franck worked his way through college and intended to make teaching his profession, but that first European trip gave him an appetite for more travel. When he was graduated, he started out, with only enough money to buy supplies for his camera, to work his way around the world—which he did in sixteen months. After this trip he wrote _A Vagabond Journey Around the World_, which is regarded as one of the most remarkable books of the kind ever published. Since then he has written many other volumes telling of his experiences. During more than twenty years of travel, Mr. Franck has covered half a hundred countries. He has journeyed 50,000 miles on foot and at least an equal distance by primitive native methods. He carries equipment for obtaining the best possible pictures. Many of the illustrations in this volume are from photographs taken by him personally. They give intimate and unusual glimpses of peoples and places.

_Mexico and Central America_ may be given to children as supplementary reading with the assurance that it is based on actual facts most carefully verified. The world to-day is not what it was even a decade ago. Conditions, customs, the very people themselves have changed; some greatly, some slightly. A book of this kind, to be really helpful, must reflect these changes. It is no less true, however, that such a book should be concerned chiefly with those characteristics and aspects of a country and its people which have an element of permanence. For this reason, the perplexing internal problems of the countries visited are, for the most part, merely touched upon by Mr. Franck. To do more would be outside the scope of a geographical reader.

As children read about our Latin-American near neighbors, we feel confident that they will be impressed with the fact that the people of the whole world are one great family; that what affects one nation affects all nations sooner or later, and to a greater or less degree. Children, like adults, must be led to see that people everywhere have their virtues and ambitions, their trials and hardships, and that the misfortune or the prosperity of one country is reflected in other countries far away.

Knowledge of these facts should prompt us to work for the peace and well-being of all peoples, particularly through the channel of our schools. In this connection, Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts, has aptly said: “Education in all lands should lead the youth to recognize those interests which are common to humankind, to magnify the virtues which all men hold in common, to minimize those differences and distinctions which divide, and to interpret the history of race and nation in those terms that are helpful to world progress as well as to national self-respect.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To the Century Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Franck’s _Tramping
Through Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras_, grateful acknowledgment is
made for permission to use certain of the author’s photographs which
first appeared in that volume. The illustrations referred to are on
the following pages of this book: 21, 27, 31, 33, 36, 47, 68, 69, 70,
74, 76, 79, 84, 85, 86, 96, 103, 105, 110, 111, 137, 156, 165, 166,
167, 168, 170, 176, 179, 191, 206, 207, 208, 213, 215, 217, 218, 220,
223.

For courteous and generous response in providing other illustrations,
we are indebted to the following: Mr. J. M. Bejarano, secretary of the
Mexican Chamber of Commerce of the United States, New York; Mr. C. A.
McIlvaine, executive secretary, The Panama Canal, Canal Zone; United
Fruit Company, Boston; Panama Mail Steamship Company, San Francisco;
Ward Line and Wendell P. Colton Company, New York; Resorts and
Playgrounds of America, New York (publishers of _Picturesque
America_); International Harvester Company of America, Inc., Chicago;
Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.

The proofs were critically read by Mr. J. M. Bejarano (mentioned
above), Mr. P. K. Reynolds of the United Fruit Company, and Miss Lena
M. Franck, the author’s sister. To all of these appreciation is due.

Coats of Arms of
Mexico and the Central American Countries

Guatemala
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Honduras
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Salvador
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Mexico
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Nicaragua
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Costa Rica
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Panama
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(Cuts by courtesy of Pan American Union)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I OUR SOUTHERN NEIGHBORS 11
II ON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER 17
III TRAVELING AS THE MEXICANS DO 29
IV SOMETHING OF MEXICO HISTORY 39
V NORTHWESTERN MEXICO 53
VI ON THE GREAT TABLE-LAND 64
VII I GO TO WORK IN A MINE 73
VIII VARIED PRODUCTS AND HOW THEY ARE SOLD 87
IX CITY AND COUNTRY LIFE IN MEXICO 95
X GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH MEXICO CITY 108
XI RECREATIONS AND SOCIAL LIFE 124
XII THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT 134
XIII ROUND ABOUT THE MEXICAN CAPITAL 141
XIV MY JOURNEY TO THE GULF COAST 151
XV TROPICAL MEXICO 163
XVI THROUGH GUATEMALA ON FOOT AND BY RAIL 174
XVII A CONTRAST IN CIVILIZATIONS 186
XVIII IN THE DEPTHS OF HONDURAS 200
XIX A VERY PECULIAR “ROYAL HIGHWAY” 209
XX INDUSTRIOUS LITTLE SALVADOR; AND BELIZE 224
XXI NICARAGUA, AND AMERICAN “CO-OPERATION” 233
XXII COSTA RICA—THE “RICH COAST” 247
XXIII PANAMA AND THE GREAT CANAL 259
PRONUNCIATION LIST 283

MAPS

SPANISH POSSESSIONS AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 51
PROPOSED NICARAGUA CANAL ROUTE 239
RELIEF MAP OF THE PANAMA CANAL 266–267
PANAMA CANAL AND CANAL ZONE 269

Underwood & Underwood

Beautiful Mexico City, circled by mountains, as it looks from the
Cathedral clock tower. In the foreground is the National Palace.
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MEXICO _and_
CENTRAL AMERICA