crater of Agua; and in 1542 Alvarado founded Santiago de los Caballeros la Nueva, now Antigua. This city flourished greatly, and by the middle of the 18th century had become the most populous place in Central America, with 60,000 inhabitants and more than 100 churches and convents. But in 1773 it was ruined by an earthquake. It was rebuilt, and ultimately became capital of the department of Sacatepeques, and a health-resort locally celebrated for its thermal springs. But the Guatemalans determined to found a new capital on the site occupied by the hamlet of Ermita, 27 m. N.E. Here the third and last city of Guatemala was built, and became the seat of government in 1779. The remarkable regularity of the streets is due to the construction of the city on a uniform plan. The wide area covered, and the lowness of the houses, were similarly due to an ordinance which, in order to minimize the danger from earthquakes, forbade the erection of any building more than 20 ft. high. Many of the belfries of convents or churches, added after the ordinance had fallen into abeyance, were overthrown by the earthquake of 1874, which also destroyed a large part of Antigua.
GUATOS, a tribe of South American Indians of the upper Paraguay. They are of a European fairness and wear beards. They live almost entirely in canoes, building rough shelters in the swamps. They aided the Brazilians in the war with Paraguay 1865–70. Very few survive.
GUATUSOS, a tribe of American Indians of Costa Rica. They are an active, hardy people, who have always maintained hostility towards the Spaniards and retain their independence. From their language they appear to be a distinct stock. They were described by old writers as being very fair, with flaxen hair, and these reports led to a belief, since exploded, that they were European hybrids. There are very few surviving.
GUAVA (from the Mexican guayaba), the name applied to the fruits of species of Psidium, a genus belonging to the natural order Myrtaceae. The species which produces the bulk of the guava fruits of commerce is Psidium Guajava, a small tree from 15 to 20 ft. high, a native of the tropical parts of America and the West Indies. It bears short-stalked ovate or oblong leaves, with strongly marked veins, and covered with a soft tomentum or down. The flowers are borne on axillary stalks, and the fruits vary much in size, shape and colour, numerous forms and varieties being known and cultivated. The variety of which the fruits are most valued is that which is sometimes called the white guava (P. Guajava, var. pyriferum). The fruits are pear-shaped, about the size of a hen’s egg, covered with a thin bright yellow or whitish skin filled with soft pulp, also of a light yellowish tinge, and having a pleasant sweet-acid and somewhat aromatic flavour. P. Guajava, var. pomiferum, produces a more globular or apple-shaped fruit, sometimes called the red guava. The pulp of this variety is mostly of a darker colour than the former and not of so fine a flavour, therefore the first named is most esteemed for eating in a raw state; both, however, are used in the preparation of two kinds of preserve known as guava jelly and guava cheese, which are made in the West Indies and imported thence to England; the fruits are of much too perishable a nature to allow of their importation in their natural state. Both varieties have been introduced into various parts of India, as well as in other countries of the East, where they have become perfectly naturalized. Though of course much too tender for outdoor planting in England, the guava thrives there in hothouses or stoves.
Psidium variabile (also known as P. Cattleyanum), a tree of from 10 to 20 ft. high, a native of Brazil (the Araçá or Araçá de Praya), is known as the purple guava. The fruit, which is very abundantly produced in the axils of the leaves, is large, spherical, of a fine deep claret colour; the rind is pitted, and the pulp is soft, fleshy, purplish, reddish next the skin, but becoming paler towards the middle and in the centre almost or quite white. It has a very agreeable acid-sweet flavour, which has been likened to that of a strawberry.
GUAYAMA, a small city and the capital of a municipal district and department of the same name, on the southern coast of Porto Rico, 53 m. S. of San Juan. Pop. (1899) of the city, 5334; (1910) 8321; (1899) of the district, 12,749. The district (156 sq. m.) includes Arroyo and Salinas. The city stands about 230 ft. above the sea and has a mild, healthy climate. It is connected with Ponce by railway (1910), and with the port of Arroyo by an excellent road, part of the military road extending to Cayey, and it exports sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, cattle, fruit and other products of the department, which is very fertile. The city was founded in 1736, but was completely destroyed by fire in 1832. It was rebuilt on a rectangular plan and possesses several buildings of note. Drinking-water is brought in through an aqueduct.
GUAYAQUIL, or Santiago de Guayaquil, a city and port of Ecuador, capital of the province of Guayas, on the right bank of the Guayas river, 33 m. above its entrance into the Gulf of Guayaquil, in 2° 12′ S., 79° 51′ W. Pop. (1890) 44,772; (1897, estimate) 51,000, mostly half-breeds. The city is built on a comparatively level pajonal or savanna, extending southward from the base of three low hills, called Los Cerros de la Cruz, between the river and the partially filled waters of the Estero Salado. It is about 30 ft. above sea-level, and the lower parts of the town are partially flooded in the rainy season. The old town is the upper or northern part, and is inhabited by the poorer classes, its streets being badly paved, crooked, undrained, dirty and pestilential. The great fire of 1896 destroyed a large part of the old town, and some of its insanitary conditions were improved in rebuilding. The new town, or southern part, is the business and residential quarter of the better classes, but the buildings are chiefly of wood and the streets are provided with surface drainage only. Among the public buildings are the governor’s and bishop’s palaces, town-hall, cathedral and 9 churches, national college, episcopal seminary and schools of law and medicine, theatre, two hospitals, custom-house, and several asylums and charitable institutions. Guayaquil is also the seat of a university corporation with faculties of law and medicine. A peculiarity of Guayaquil is that the upper floors in the business streets project over the walks, forming covered arcades. The year is divided into a wet and dry season, the former from January to June, when the hot days are followed by nights of drenching rain. The mean annual temperature is about 82° to 83° F.; malarial and bilious fevers are common, the latter being known as “Guayaquil fever,” and epidemics of yellow fever are frequent. The dry or summer season is considered pleasant and healthy. The water-supply is now brought in through iron mains from the Cordilleras 53 m. distant. The mains pass under the Guayas river and discharge into a large distributing reservoir on one of the hills N. of the city. The city is provided with tramway and telephone services, the streets are lighted with gas and electricity, and telegraph communication with the outside world is maintained by means of the West Coast cable, which lands at the small port of Santa Elena, on the Pacific coast, about 65 m. W. of Guayaquil. Railway connexion with Quito (290 m.) was established in June 1908. There is also steamboat connexion with the producing districts of the province on the Guayas river and its tributaries, on which boats run regularly as far up as Bodegas (80 m.) in the dry season, and for a distance of 40 m. on the Daule. For smaller boats there are about 200 m. of navigation on this system of rivers. The exports of the province are almost wholly transported on these rivers, and are shipped either at Guayaquil, or at Puna, its deep-water port, 612 m. outside the Guayas bar, on the E. end of Puna Island. The Guayas river is navigable up to Guayaquil for steamers drawing 22 ft. of water; larger vessels anchor at Puna, 40 m. from Guayaquil, where cargoes and passengers are transferred to lighters and tenders. There is a quay on the river front, but the depth alongside does not exceed 18 ft. The principal exports are cacao, rubber, coffee, tobacco, hides, cotton, Panama hats, cinchona bark and ivory nuts, the value of all exports for the year 1905 being 14,148,877 sucres, in a total of 18,565,668 sucres for the whole republic. In 1908 the exports were: cacao, about 64,000,000 ℔, valued at $6,400,000; hides, valued at $135,000; rubber, valued at $235,000; coffee, valued at $273,000; and vegetable ivory, valued at $102,000.
