A large force of soldiers is always kept under arms—that is, large in proportion to the population. Its standing army is almost half as great as our own with about one one-hundred and fiftieth of the population. Every town and village of any size has its _commandancia_, or barracks, in which a force of troops is quartered. They are not formidable looking troops, and yet they sometimes have a reckless way of shooting that is destructive to human life. Military service is compulsory for men from twenty-one to thirty years of age, and after that they remain members of the reserve until they are forty. This is the written law but the unwritten law of the revolutionary leader is far more potent.
As I have stated above, Honduras is the least progressive of the five republics of Central America, and yet it is a country of wonderful natural resources and is burdened with plenty of opportunities. The low coast land sloping up to the high mountain plateaus furnish every variety of climate and give a wide range of agricultural possibilities. Bananas, cocoanuts, oranges, sugar cane, wheat, corn, rice, rye, barley are among the list of profitable products that can be cultivated. Few fields are properly plowed and the care bestowed on growing crops amounts to nothing. The ground is so fertile that the mere insertion of a kernel of corn in the earth is sufficient. A kernel thus planted on Thursday has been found four inches high by the following Monday. With all this fertility there is sometimes an insufficient food supply for the cities. Agriculture is in the most primitive condition and will probably remain so until there are better roads, better markets and cheaper transportation facilities.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1907, by Judge Company, New York. SOLDIERS OF HONDURAS.]
In many parts of Honduras there are lands well suited to cattle raising. They may be found grazing on the sterile slopes of the mountain ranges as well as in the more fertile valleys. There is much fine rolling land, well watered during the rainy season and rich in pasturage, to be found in the republic, which is well suited to this industry. In the dry season, however, many of those plains, or savannahs, furnish scant fodder for the cattle. As irrigation has not been attempted the cattle have a feast half the year and a famine the other half. No care whatever is taken of their herds by the owners and they are left to forage as best they can. It is not much wonder that the grade of stock is poor, although hundreds of thousands of cattle are raised in this way, and wander over the public domain. Each rancher has his own brand which is recorded the same as in the United States. Thousands more would be raised and sent out of the country were it not for the heavy export tax.