Page:Narrative of an Official Visit to Guatemala.djvu/225

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CH. XIV.]
TO GUATEMALA.
205

racha, where vessels drawing twelve feet water can lie, making fast to the trees on both sides. The tide rises twelve feet up at the town; and docks could be made there for good sized vessels; but the difficulty would be to get them down to the Xaguey: I procured a plan and description of the port.

The city of Leon contains at least 38,000 inhabitants, and is next in rank to Santiago de Guatemala. Its only exports, at the present day, are Nicaragua wood of two classes, mahogany, fine spars for masts, excellent of their kind, allspice, sarsaparilla, brought from Costa Rica, balsam of copaivi in abundance, gums of 500 different classes, wild wax, exported, at 500 per cent. profit, to Lima, tortoise shells, very good, hides, very light, averaging from fourteen to eighteen pounds, and indigo in small quantities, though of the finest quality; also portable bedsteads of Granadilla or Ronron, a wood almost as hard as iron, similar to teak but admitting of