each year from Peru and New Spain. The port of Omoa is alone sufficient for the trade with the Peninsula, reduced to very few vessels; indeed all these ports with the exception of Omoa, may be said to be abandoned. Between them and the capital lie immense tracts of country, without regular roads, and totally unprotected, and the risk of forwarding produce to them for exportation is considerable. Nor is it lessened when they arrive. Without suitable stores, or warehouses, goods must remain four or perhaps six months, waiting some vessel to transport them; while the villages on the coast unhealthy and pestiferous, owing to the quantity of trees, which have been permitted for years to multiply unmolested around them, are inhabited only by the lowest order of mariners, and totally undefended. In these situations the country round does not furnish even the common necessaries of life.”
“Were the rich and fruitful lands, which lie from Comayagua to Truxillo, from the Llanos, Gualan, and Coban, to Omoa and the Golfo Dulce, and those which stretch along the extensive coast of the South Sea, filled with an industrious population, willing to cultivate the various fruits which are the natural productions of this favoured spot, blessed as it is with every variety of climate and of soil, there is not perhaps a country in the world, which would he more prosperous.
