CHAPTER II.
Early Commerce,—Manufactures,—Harvest of Indigo,—Cochineal,—Tobacco,—Sugar,—Balsams,—Cotton,—Coffee,—Hides,—Productions of the different states,—Mines,—Corpus,—Tabanco,—Imports and Exports,—Ports of the north,—Roads,—River Polichic,—Ports of the South Sea,—Independencia,—Impediments to commercial prosperity.
The total absence of all tables connected with commercial statistics, renders it exceedingly difficult to furnish any regular history of the trade and commerce of Guatimala. From a memorial presented in July 1823, to the consulado by their secretary, we learn that the principal source of its early prosperity was the cultivation of cocoa, which was produced in considerable quantities, and of the very first quality. The province of Nicaragua is said to have supplied exclusively San Salvador and Comayagua, while the more easterly parts of the southern coast, covered with plantations over 180 leagues of territory, after supplying the neighbouring provinces, and the
