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As this process has probably been going on for thousands of years, I believe that the edge of the forest is several miles nearer the Atlantic than it was originally. In this way many acres in the neighbourhood of Pital were taken from the forest, and added to the grass-lands, whilst I was in the country.
We started from Esquipula early next morning, and crossed low thinly-timbered hills and savannahs to Pital, a scattered settlement of many small thatched houses, close to the borders of the great forest; on the edge of which were clearings, made for growing maize, which is cultivated entirely on burnt forest land.
It is in the midst of the great forest that covers most of the Atlantic slope of Central America, and which continues unbroken from where we had entered it, at Pital, eastward to the Atlantic; westward it terminates in a sinuous margin about seven miles from the village, and there commence the lightly timbered and grassy plains and savannahs stretching to the Lake of Nicaragua.
To show how prolific the locality was in insect life, I need only state that about two hundred and ninety of the species were taken within a radius of four miles, having on one side the savannahs near Pital, on the other the ranges around Santo Domingo.
At first the road lay through small trees and brushwood, a second growth that had sprung up where the original forest had been cut for maize plantations; but after passing a brook bordered by numerous plants of the pita, from which a fine fibre is obtained, and which gives its name to Pital, we entered the primeval forest.
Cross high range. Esquipula. The Rio Mico. Supposed statues on its banks. Pital. Cultivation of maize. Its use from the earliest times in America. Separation of the maize-eating from the mandioca-eating indigenes of America. Tortillas. Sugar-making. Enter the forest of the Atlantic slope. Vegetation of the forest. Muddy roads. Arrive at Santo Domingo.
I listened with pleasure to the last hoarse cries of the mot-mots, and tried to impress on my memory the curious forms of vegetation the palms, the gigantic arums, the tangled lianas, and perching epiphytes. After reaching Pital I rode rapidly over the savannahs, where the swallows were skimming over the top of the long grass to frighten up the insects which rested there.
We started at seven o'clock on the morning of the 11th July, and, as usual, made very slow progress through the forest as far as Pital, in consequence of the badness of the road, which was now worse than when I had passed over it a month before. After reaching the savannahs, we proceeded more rapidly.
When not protected by fencing, however, the cattle and mules prefer these grasses so much to the native ones, that they are always close-cropped, and when the natural pasturage fails there is no reserve of the other to fall back on. I planted both the Para and Guinea grasses largely at the mines and at Pital, and we were able to keep our mules always in good condition with them.
I do not think that the sugar-cane was known to the ancient inhabitants of the country: it is not mentioned by the historians of the conquest of Mexico and Peru, nor has it, like maize and cacao, any native name. As soon as we passed Pital we entered the great forest, the black margin of which we had seen for many miles, that extends from this point to the Atlantic.
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