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WEST INDIES.
CHAPTER XXV. BRITISH HONDURAS. HONDURAS (the name signifying, it is said, the depth of water along the shore) is a colony on the east coast of Central America. It is situated between 18° 29' 5" and 15° 53' 55" N. lat. and between 89° 9' 22" and 88° 10' W. long. Many attempts have been made to revive the sugar industry ; but although the land is very rich, owing probably to the difficulty of labour, they have not been particularly successful. The efforts made, however, have been deserving of prosperous results. Mahogany and logwood have been for many years its principal exports. To the north and south it is bounded by Yucatan and Guatemala respectively. There was a line laid down by the Convention with Guatemala in 1859, extending from the rapids of Gracias á Dios on the River Sarstoon to Garbutt’s Falls on the Belize River. Guatemala, therefore, and Mexico are at the back of this coast country. British Honduras is the only dependency of Great Britain in Central America. On the east is the Bay of Honduras. Columbus in 1502, in his search for the strait that he thought would communicate with the Indian Ocean, came upon Honduras. The length of the colony is 174 miles and its breadth 68 miles ; the area being 7,502 square miles. The country becomes narrower, through an area of country entirely unBRITISH