37K71 ^= 
 
 BOUNDARY QUESTION BETWEEN THE REPUBLIC 
 
 OF GUATEMALA AND THE REPUBLIC 
 
 OF HONDURAS 
 
 UNDER MEDIATION OF THE HONORABLE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 Reply on Behalf of Honduras to the Memorandum on the 
 
 Economic Survey Report Submitted by Counsel 
 
 for Guatemala in December, 1919 
 
 ROOT, CLARK, BUCKNER AND HOWLAND, 
 
 Attorneys for the Republic of Honduras 
 
 EMORY R. BUCKNER, 
 EDWARD SCHUSTER, 
 AUGUSTINE P. BARRANCO, 
 
 Counsel 
 
 New York, January, zgso 
 
 The Kvening Post Job Printing Office. Inc., 15G Fulton St.. N. Y. 
 
 
■'B7H7I 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 REPLY ON BEHALF OF HONDURAS 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ^^&^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory Statement i 
 
 I. The Cedula of 1563 upon which Guate- 
 mala relies to establish the Ulua-Fon- ^d % 
 seca Hne, is inconsistent with the 
 Cedula of July 24, 1791, and must be 
 regarded as abrogated thereby, irre- 
 spective of all the other varieties of 
 evidence of its derogation submitted 
 by Honduras ^ 
 
 II. Before the Mediator recommends a com- 
 promise boundary, based on equitable 
 compensations, Jie should determine 
 the line of uti possidetis of 1821: with- 
 out such determination, the essential 
 basis for ascertainment of the necessary 
 equitable compensations would be lack- 
 ing 12 
 
 III. The literature of political science and 
 
 geography by no means uniformly sup- 
 ports the Guatemalan argument for a 
 mountain chain as the ideal boundary. 18 
 
 IV. The geographical reasons for the moun- 
 
 tain line urged by Counsel for Guate- 
 mala are not sustained by the facts; 
 and on these, correctly appreciated, 
 the line so far as a mountain frontier 
 should be adopted, ought to run else- 
 where 30 
 
 V. The mountain boundary now proposed by 
 Counsel for Guatemala, so far as it 
 
II 
 
 rests upon the testimony of maps and 
 geographers, has no better basis than 
 a cartographical error of a Guatemalan 
 geographer 37 
 
 VI. The Guatemalan arguments for the line of 
 the Merendon, Gallinero, Grita, Espir- 
 itu Santo and Omoa mountains, so far 
 as based on economic and political con- 
 siderations, are outweighed by those 
 which may be urged in behalf of Hon- 
 duras 38 
 
 VII. In recommending a compromise boundary 
 the Honorable Mediator should so far 
 as possible respect the line of uti possi- 
 detis of 182 1 ; and in so far as he should 
 deem it expedient to depart from this 
 line, he should disregard all present- 
 day occupations verified tortiously or 
 since the dispute over the territory 
 arose, always making provision for re- 
 ciprocal equitable compensations 51 
 
 VIII. Final considerations to be taken into ac- 
 count by the Honorable Mediator in 
 his recommendation of a compromise 
 line 66 
 
 Honduranean Exhibit XXVI [Cedtda of July 24, 
 
 1791) 75 
 
 Reply by Dr. Mary W. Williams to remarks 
 made by Counsel for Guatemala in his 
 Memorandum on the Economic Survey 
 Report, of December, 1919, regarding 
 cartographical evidence submitted by 
 Honduras 79 
 
REPLY ON BEHALF OF HONDURAS TO THE MEMO- 
 RANDUM ON THE ECONOMIC SURVEY REPORT 
 SUBMITTED BY COUNSEL FOR GUATEMALA 
 IN DECEMBER, 1919. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras had supposed that the 
 Record in this Mediation was closed when the Briefs 
 filed by them and the Counsel for Guatemala were sub- 
 mitted to the Honorable Mediator; and that unless 
 specific requests for information should be forthcoming 
 from the Honorable Mediator, no further notes, evi- 
 dence or briefs would be submitted, with the exception 
 of the submission by Honduras of a certified copy of the 
 cedula of July 24, 1791, which approved the incorpora- 
 tion in the Intendencia of Comayagua (i. e., Hon- 
 duras) of the Alcadia Mayor of Tegucigalpa and all 
 the territory of the Bishopric of Comayagua except the 
 port and military post of Omoa. The Representative 
 of Honduras did not have in his possession this import- 
 ant cedula, although his counsel had taken steps to 
 obtain such copy from the Spanish archives. At the 
 time he received the verbal assent of the Hon. Boaz 
 Long, then the Representative of the Mediator, to file it 
 when received. In the sequel it did not prove feasible 
 to arrange for the certified copy until Dr. Bonilla went 
 
2 
 
 to Paris to attend the \'ersailles Peace Conference. 
 Upon his return to Washington, Dr. Bonilla trans- 
 mitted a certified copy of the cedilla to the Honorable 
 Mediator with his note of November 26, 1919. An 
 English translation of this cedula is attached hereto, 
 marked Honduranean Exhibit XX\'I. 
 
 In December, 1918, the Honorable Mediator fomid 
 that in the very brief period remaining before his depar- 
 ture for Europe, it would be impossible to give the 
 case the attention necessary to justify his suggestion of 
 a basis of asrreement for the settlement of the boimdarv 
 controversy; but he had examined the case sufficiently 
 to foresee that he would require additional information, 
 particularly as to topographical conditions along the 
 frontier and as to the extent and character of the 
 interests likely to be affected by the settlement. He 
 therefore proposed "that the two Governments jointly, 
 or separately, arrange to procure this information 
 under the direction of a representative of this Depart- 
 ment" in order that it might be available for use on his 
 return (Identic note of December 3, 1918, Mediation 
 Record, vol. II, pp. SS7-588). The Mediator's pro- 
 posal eventuated in the organization of the Economic 
 ?kIission organized under the auspices of the American 
 Geographical Societ}* and in its Report, dated Septem- 
 ber, 1919. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras desire to state that Dr. 
 Bomlla did not, as affirmed by Mr. Anderson, refuse to 
 agree to the Mediator's proposal for the despatch of the 
 ^lission. He at once accepted the proposal in principle 
 
3 
 
 DUt TTi ciGc CcTZa.!]! O u it.rv a. Zl' jUS S.nu rcQlicStcQ tlLc UCHHl- 
 
 tion of certain ambiguous points. — ^all ten dins- 1: i5="rr 
 the successful outcome of the ^lissicn. ?rt5jr_'r :. " 
 through the Mediator's absence, his iK)te cf 1 t.tmitr 
 11, 1918, remained unansivered- 
 
 In view of the fact that Counsel for Guatemala had 
 in December last filed with the Honorable Mediator a 
 Memorandum on the Re part of the Economic ^lissiin. 
 the Hon- Leo S. Rowe, the present RepresentatiTe of 
 the Mediator, at his conference with the Representa- 
 tives of the two Governments and their Counsel held 
 January 2, 1920, gave Honduras the oppctrtunitv of fil- 
 ing a R^fly and such additicnal dccuments as should be 
 desired, on the conditicn zsl^z zzty be sulmrittec n:: 
 later than the olst of the month. It was verzill'^ 
 agreed with Dr. Rowe by the conies that thi^ Reph 
 for Hondm-as and its exhibits shoold be irnsi\ and that 
 the Representative of Guate~ il£ md his counsel shoold 
 submit no further memoranda or docnments. 
 
 In submitting the present Reply to !Mr. Anderson's 
 Memoranahin on the Economic Survey Re pari. Qzin- 
 sel for Honduras desire to explain that they promise 
 therein also to ccmment upc»n and rebut so much of the 
 matter in his Summing-up of December last as goes 
 beyond the proper limits of a summary of the n<3tes 
 ani en fence filed by the parties. Such procedure is 
 the more permissible in view of the fact that Mr. Ander- 
 son has by reference incorpc»rated thi'g i: zument in his 
 Memorandum on the Report of tite Z::n:niic iMissirn. 
 
 Counsel f :r Honduras wish also to state thai since 
 
a considerable portion of Mr. Anderson's final Menio- 
 randuui is devoted to a criticism of the soundness of 
 the conclusions expressed by Dr. Williams in her 
 Cartographical and Geographical Report and to an 
 attempt to negative the evidential value of the maps 
 filed by Honduras, they have obtained from Dr. Wil- 
 liams, and submit herewith, a brief Reply with whose 
 considerations they are in accord and therefore adopt. 
 They have felt that the points at issue could most 
 effectively be dealt with" by the expert originally 
 engaged by them. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras do not propose herein to 
 engage the Honorable Mediator's attention with a re- 
 argument of the fundamental legal issues and prin- 
 ciples which are involved in the present controversy. 
 They have found nothing in the Brief submitted by the 
 Counsel for Guatemala to shake either the soundness 
 of the position taken by Dr. Bonilla in the Notes filed 
 by him with the Mediator or of the arguments put for- 
 ward by them in their Brief in support of this position. 
 
 To this proposal, however, there are two quaHfica- 
 tions. The first is that it becomes necessary to discuss 
 the ccdula of July 24, 1791, since its text was not avail- 
 able when their Brief was prepared and Counsel for 
 Honduras were accordingly forced to rely on refer- 
 ences thereto in printed sources. The second qtialifica- 
 tion is that it is necessary, in view of the attempt of 
 the Counsel for Guatemala to shift the issue joined, to 
 discuss the proper procedure for the Honorable Medi- 
 ator to follow in recommending a boundary line. 
 
THE CEDULA OF 1563 UPON WHICH GUATEMALA 
 RELIES TO ESTABLISH THE ULUA-FONSECA LINE, IS 
 INCONSISTENT WITH THE CEDULA OF JULY 24, 1791, AND 
 MUST BE REGARDED AS ABROGATED THEREBY, IRRE- 
 SPECTIVE OF ALL THE OTHER VARIETIES OF EVIDENCE 
 OF ITS DEROGATION SUBMITTED BY HONDURAS. 
 
 An inspection of the text of the cedula of July 24, 
 1791, shows that the references to it in print which 
 were available to Counsel for Honduras when they pre- 
 pared their Brief, were accurate in respect of stating 
 that its effect was to incorporate in the Intendencia of 
 Comayagua (Honduras) all the territory of its Bishop- 
 ric, except the port and military post (plaza) of Omoa 
 {Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 410, 411, 422, 448). 
 If now the Honorable Mediator will examine the trans- 
 lation of the cedula text, attached hereto as Hondur- 
 anean Exhibit XXVI, he will note that it is a royal 
 decree made by the King acting with his Council of 
 Indies, after hearing his Solicitor General (Fiscal), 
 duly noted in the Office of the Auditor General; and 
 that it legislated upon the question of the proper ter- 
 ritorial limits of the jurisdiction of the Governor-/w- 
 tendente of Honduras, defining such jurisdiction as 
 just mentioned. 
 
 The cedula is addressed by the King in Council to 
 the President and Ministers of the Superior Board of 
 the Royal Treasury at Guatemala City, who under the 
 new system of Intendencias introduced in 1787 into the 
 Captaincy General of Guatemala were the supreme 
 
6 
 
 authority therein. In it the King advised them: "I 
 have resolved to approve (as by this my Royal Cedilla 
 I approve) in all its parts your said order of January 
 9, 1788". 
 
 This order of the Superior Board of the Treasury 
 is summarized as follows in the preamble of the cedilla: 
 
 " . . .at the meeting held on January 9 of 
 said year 1788 you ordered the incorporation in 
 the Intendcncia of Comayagua of the said Alcal- 
 dia of Tegucigalpa with all the Territory of its 
 Bishopric, with the exception only of the mili- 
 tary post (plaza) and port of San Fernando de 
 Omoa, where its Political and Military Gover- 
 nor should remain as it had up to then, the 
 Treasury Department continuing subject to the 
 Superintendency General and separated from 
 the Province of Comayagua, in considera- 
 tion of the fact that said military post (plaza) 
 and Government had always corresponded to 
 the Superior Government of the Kingdom and 
 of the fact that its ties with Golfo-dulce, Bode- 
 gas Altas and the Royal Customs of your Capi- 
 tal would not suffer its separation from the said 
 Superintendency without leaving exposed to 
 many complications mercantile operations and 
 the operations of the Royal Treasury which 
 daily occurred in the said Port, which order 
 (Providencia) you hoped would merit my 
 Royal approval or that I should be pleased to 
 decide what should be my Royal wish." 
 
 The preamble of the cedilla in addition summarizes 
 the petition of Brigadier Quesada, Governor-Inten- 
 
dente of Honduras, which gave rise to the order of the 
 Superior Board, dated January 9, 1788, showing that 
 this order not only defined in general the territorial 
 jurisdiction of the GovQvnor-Intendente of Honduras, 
 but also restored to his jurisdiction the District of San 
 Pedro Sula which Matias de Galvez had taken from 
 him and placed under the control of the Military Com- 
 mandant of Omoa, for the duration of the war then 
 waging : 
 
 "By letter of April 2, 1788, you gave account 
 with certified copy of the appeal which Don 
 Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada, being Governor- 
 Intendente of Comayagua, made to your Su- 
 perior Government, setting forth that through 
 what is provided in articles 8 and 9 of the Royal 
 Ordinance of Intendentes to the effect that the 
 several officials of each Province should be con- 
 sidered Sub-delegate Vice-Patrons of the Prin- 
 cipal official, and that after its publication the 
 Corregimientos and Alcaldias May ores should 
 be suppressed as they should become vacant, it 
 appeared to him that in this number should be 
 comprehended the Alcaldia Mayor of Teguci- 
 galpa, whose Province was subordinate to that 
 of his command, and that it was so united with 
 his Province as well in Ecclesiastical matters as 
 in the collection of Tribute, payment of salaries 
 and other things relating to the Royal Treas- 
 ury, that the Royal intentions detailed in the 
 said Ordinance could not be entirely obeyed, if 
 all were not subject to the Order of the Inten- 
 dencia, and that for the same reason he con- 
 sidered that the occasion had arrived of reunit- 
 
8 
 
 ing also with the Intcndcncia the District of 
 San Pedro de Sula, which by special order of 
 the late President-Governor of your Kingdom, 
 Don Matias de Galvez, was added to the Com- 
 mandancy of Omoa, but with the proviso that 
 this should only be for the time that the war 
 should endure; since although the war had 
 ended, he did not represent it (the District of 
 San Pedro de Sula), believing that said Com- 
 mandant did so in order to have said District 
 more in view, at the present day he was forced 
 to request that its reunion be considered as in- 
 dispensable for the collection of Tribute in 
 accordance with the method established by said 
 Ordinance, declaring also whether the Treas- 
 uries of Omoa should be considered subject to 
 the Intendencia as established in the District of 
 the Province, in order with this knowledge to 
 make the distribution of the towns and Valleys 
 which should pay tribute into the said Treas- 
 uries, and into those of Comayagua, or whether 
 all should go to these Treasuries." 
 
 The evidence as to the extent of the ecclesiastical 
 jurisdiction of the Bishop of Honduras has been amply 
 considered in the Brief for Honduras {Mediation 
 Record, vol. H, pp. 433-437, 446-447, 461-462 and 475). 
 It is only necessary here to recall that this evidence 
 proves beyond a peradventure that the episcopal juris- 
 diction of the Honduranean Bishop extended, at this 
 date of 1791, and to the end of the colonial epoch, at 
 least as far West as the Motagua River and included 
 all of the hilly territory to the South inside of the 
 
present line of Honduranean occupation; and that 
 this fact is confirmed by the evidence of a political 
 character, to say nothing of the evidence of other 
 varieties. See especially the 1804 Report and accom- 
 panying map of Ramon de Anguiano, Governor- 
 Intendente of Honduras, both of which have been in- 
 troduced in evidence by Honduras (references in Brief 
 for Honduras, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 427-428). 
 
 This ecclesiastical evidence, when taken with the 
 cedida of 1791, seems to Counsel for Honduras to 
 supply, — in the language of the Article VI of the treaty 
 of 1914, — "boundaries defined in public documents not 
 in conflict with others of the same kind and of greater 
 force". The cedida of 1791 is "of the same kind" as 
 those of 1563 and 1564, since it defines the jurisdiction 
 of a province or intendencia; and as emanating from 
 the same authority at a later date, it is a public docu- 
 ment "of greater force" than the two cedulas of the 
 16th century. They are of opinion that it meets the 
 unconvincing and somewhat meticulous specifications 
 of the Guatemalan Representative and of his Counsel, 
 for a cedida of a later date than those of 1563 and 
 1564 defining territorial jurisdiction, — even if the 
 Mediator were not convinced of the soundness of their 
 contention that the cedula of 1564 in repealing that of 
 1563, before it left in the next mails for the Indies, 
 restored the boundaries therein defined as previously 
 existing (Brief, Mediation Record, vol. II, p. 405). 
 
 As a result of the cedula of July 24, 1791, the Gov- 
 trnor-Intendente of Honduras was confirmed in his 
 authority over the whole of his Province or Inten- 
 
10 
 
 dencia, with the sole exception of the Port and Mili- 
 tary Post of Omoa. 
 
 Omoa, the sole exception, was restored to Hondur- 
 anean jurisdiction by the cedula of October 16, 1818, 
 the King in Council using the following language 
 (Honduranean Exhibit XIV, Mediation Record, vol. 
 I, pp. 155-156): 
 
 "The King. To the Governor, Captain Gen- 
 eral and President of the Royal Audiencia of 
 Guatemala. Santiago Milla, ex-deputy to the 
 Cortes for the Province of Honduras, informed 
 me on August 22, 1814, that in the instructions 
 given to him by that Province he was directed, 
 among other things, to petition, as he has done, 
 for the reincorporation of the Port of Omoa to 
 the Government of Comayagiia, situate to the 
 north and in the territory of that Province . . . 
 In consequence of which, and after hearing 
 above all my fiscal and his general treasury of 
 the Indies, it (the Council) consulted me on July 
 31 last as to what was deemed advisable to 
 remedy such abuses, and being satisfied with 
 its opinion, I have commanded and I do hereby 
 command by this my royal rescript: That the 
 aforesaid port of Omoa shall remain immedi- 
 ately subject to the Government of Comayagiia 
 in the manner in zvhich 'it had been prior to its 
 annexation to Guatemala, without prejudice to 
 the authority to which you are entitled as the 
 superior chief of the Province: And I inform 
 you thus in order that you may make such 
 orders as may be advisable for the fulfillment 
 of this my royal decision, because this is my 
 will." 
 
11 
 
 Counsel for Guatemala did not refer in his Brief 
 to the cedula of 1791 ; but he has insinuated as to the 
 cedilla of 1818 that it was never put into effect, bolster- 
 ing this with a reference to the alleged satisfaction 
 with which Honduras accepted an order of the War 
 Department of the Mexican Emperor, Iturbide, dated 
 November 4, 1822 {Mediation Record, vol. II, p. 579). 
 Mr. Anderson did not meet the burden of proving his 
 allegation that the 1818 cedula was never put into effect. 
 Moreover, if such an allegation were to be seriously 
 considered, it would apply with even greater weight to 
 the cedula of 1563 and that of 1564 (as construed by 
 him) upon which his principal relies, especially as Hon- 
 duras and her counsel have provided an accumulation 
 of convincing evidence showing that the cedula of 1563 
 was in all probability repealed before it reached the 
 mails for the Indies and, if not, that the legislative, 
 administrative, ecclesiastical and cartographical his- 
 tory of the remaining two and a half centuries of the 
 colonial history reveals no trace of the existence or 
 application of this cedula {Brief for Honduras, points 
 I, especially section (2) thereof, and III). That Hon- 
 duras ever accepted the order of Iturbide's War 
 Department (postdating the year of the uti possidetis, 
 be it noted), has been refuted by Dr. Bonilla with the 
 very document on which Mr. Anderson relied (Hon- 
 duranean Note of June 29, 1918, Mediation Record, 
 vol. I, p. 141). 
 
12 
 
 II. 
 
 BEFORE THE MEDIATOR RECOMMENDS A COMPRO- 
 MISE BOUNDARY, BASED ON EQUITABLE COMPENSA- 
 TIONS, HE SHOULD DETERMINE THE LINE OF UTl 
 POSSIDETIS OF 1821: WITHOUT SUCH DETERMINATION, 
 THE ESSENTIAL BASIS FOR ASCERTAINMENT OF THE 
 NECESSARY EQUITABLE COMPENSATIONS WOULD BE 
 LACKING. 
 
 In the failure of Guatemala and Honduras to agree 
 upon the arhitration of their disputed frontier by the 
 President of the United States of America, as provided 
 in article IX of their treaty of 1914, they accepted the 
 mediation proffered by his Secretary of State for the 
 settlement of this frontier on the basis of his recom- 
 mendations; and in pursuance of such acceptance the 
 present proceedings have taken place. The treaty of 
 1914 has remained the law of the parties and articles 
 VI and VII govern the determination of the legal line 
 of the iiti possidetis of 1821 and the recommendations 
 of the Honorable Mediator. The memoranda filed by 
 the Special Representatives of the two Governments 
 harmonize with this theory of the mediation, those of 
 Dr. Toledo Herrarte being distinguished by their 
 emphasis and insistence upon the determination of the 
 frontier on the strict principle of the uti possidetis juris 
 of the year of independence. Thus in his final memo- 
 randum of September 20, 1918, Dr. Toledo Herrarte 
 stated {Mediation Record, vol. I, pp. 270-271) : 
 
 "The controversy must be examined from a 
 strictly legal point of view in order to establish 
 
13 
 
 with exactness and precision the territorial 
 rights of Guatemala and Honduras, and in order 
 to comply with this indispensable requisite, I 
 understand that this study must be made strictly 
 and only upon the basis of the treaty of 1914 
 which constitutes the law by which we must be 
 governed, and the provisions and stipulations of 
 which have been considered by both parties as 
 the invariable standard to which the whole pro- 
 cedure, after reaching a just solution of the 
 controversy, must be adjusted. 
 
 "Both the honorable delegation of Hon- 
 duras and the delegation over which I have the 
 honor to preside have already stated everything 
 they have deemed necessary to establish, accord- 
 ing to law, where the boundary line must be 
 established between the two States, and for this 
 purpose they have filed all the briefs and argu- 
 ments which they have deemed advisable." 
 
 This was but a restatement of the position of Gua- 
 temala in her Representative's other notes, which are 
 extracted and evaluated by Counsel for Honduras, in 
 their Bidef, to which the Honorable Mediator is re- 
 ferred {Mediation Record, vol. H, pp. 415-417). 
 
 As a result, this mediation has differed from an 
 arbitration only in respect of the informality of the 
 discussions had with the Honorable Mediator's rep- 
 resentatives and of the memoranda and evidence 
 filed with him and in the inobservance of the peremp- 
 tory terms of an arbitration. The function of the 
 Honorable Mediator still remains that of the arbitrator, 
 
14 
 
 except that he is granted ample discretion in recom- 
 mending a compromise Hne, which the arbitrator would 
 be denied, unless in the course of the arbitration the 
 two Governments should grant it in pursuance of article 
 VII of the treaty. 
 
 Counsel for Guatemala has expressly accepted these 
 views of counsel for Honduras. In his Brief he stated 
 (Mediation Record, vol. II, p. 575) : 
 
 *'It is evident from the foregoing considera- 
 tions that the function of the Mediator is to 
 propose for the acceptance of the two Govern- 
 ments a boundary line which will furnish a per- 
 manent and lasting solution of their differences 
 in view of their political and economic require- 
 ments, taking into consideration their respect- 
 ive contentions and the legal bases for the same 
 with such readjustments as may be required 
 under the system of equitable compensations as 
 provided by Article 7 of the treaty of 1914, 
 including such modifications as may be required 
 to make it conform to the best natural boun- 
 daries in order that a clear and stable line may 
 be established. 
 
 "The real distinction to be drawn between 
 mediation and arbitration, as applied to the 
 functions of the Mediator in this case, is that 
 for the purpose of reaching a definite boundary 
 agreement through mediation both parties have 
 conferred upon the Mediator certain discretion- 
 ary powers, whereas discretionary powers are 
 not generally conferred upon an arbitrator." 
 
15 
 
 Again, in his final Summing-up of October, 1919, 
 Mr. Anderson says: 
 
 ''The question, therefore, in accordance with 
 the treaty, is a question of domain; the de facto 
 possession cannot and must not be taken into 
 consideration." 
 
 Further on, in the same document, after reviewing 
 the legal evidence submitted by both parties, Counsel 
 for Guatemala adds : 
 
 "In conclusion, it cannot be gainsaid that, 
 for the determination of the boundaries between 
 the Republics of Guatemala and Honduras, the 
 fundamental bases are the Royal Orders of the 
 Spanish sovereign issued in 1563 and 1564, 
 which fill all the requirements demanded by the 
 treaty of 1914." 
 
 So evident a matter would not be dwelt upon, if it 
 were not for the fact that at the conference of January 
 2, 1920, the Representative of Guatemala and his Coun- 
 sel verbally expressed qualifications of the function of 
 the Mediator which are inconsistent with the issues 
 joined — be it noted, joined on the initiative and reitera- 
 tion of the Guatemalan Representative — and which if 
 implicitly followed by the Honorable Mediator might 
 jeopardize the successful outcome of the mediation. 
 These qualifications involved nothing less than the idea 
 that the Mediator was free to recommend a frontier 
 without ascertaining the line of uti possidetis of 1821. 
 
 While Counsel for Honduras have no desire to 
 
16 
 
 commit the Honorable Mediator to any given train of 
 mental processes, they urge that in his recommenda- 
 tions he express his opinion as to the location of the 
 line of titi possidetis of 1821, whether considered as 
 de jure (as insisted by Guatemala) or as merely de 
 facto. They are convinced that he should ascertain 
 this line as the necessary basis for his recommendations 
 of a compromise line and of the reciprocal compensa- 
 tions which will justify the acceptance of such compro- 
 mise line by the two Republics. 
 
 If the Honorable Mediator does not ascertain what 
 was the line of possession in 1821, he will disregard 
 the provisions of the treaty of 1914, which continues 
 to govern the parties to this Mediation ; and he will also 
 have no just criterion with which to evaluate the 
 changes in the line of possession which have subse- 
 quently taken place. In addition in recommending a 
 compromise line, he will have no means of measuring 
 the reciprocal compensations to which the parties will 
 be entitled under article VII of the treaty, so far as 
 these compensations are territorial in character. 
 
 These preliminary observations premised. Counsel 
 for Honduras next propose to refute the arguments of 
 Counsel for Guatemala and to show : first, that a moun- 
 tain chain does not furnish the ideal scientific frontier ; 
 second, that the orography of the disputed region is 
 such that the mountain chain proposed by him is not 
 available as a frontier in its entire extension and that 
 there exist other mountains which far more closely 
 
17 
 
 approximate the line of possession both in 1821 and 
 at the present day; third, that this mountain chain as a 
 proper boundary has no support in the cartographical 
 and geographical evidence antedating 1821, and that 
 the evidence of this character postdating the year of 
 Independence, which indicates this line, is based upon 
 a cartographical error of a Guatemalan geographer; 
 fourth, that upon the considerations of a politico- 
 economic character urged by Counsel for Guatemala, 
 Honduras has greater claim to the region between 
 this mountain chain and the Motagua River than 
 has Guatemala; and fifth, that the Honorable Media- 
 tor, in recommending a compromise line, should 
 so far as possible respect the line of the uti possidetis 
 of 1821, and insofar as he should find it expedient to 
 depart from this line in order to take account of the 
 present-day possession of the parties, he should not 
 recognize any tortious occupations verified since the 
 first boundary treaty of 1845, and he should as to any 
 modern possession admitted, always make provision for 
 equitable compensations, in accordance with the treaty 
 stipulation, — in either event taking advantage of local 
 topographical features in the detailed meander of the 
 line. 
 
18 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND GE- 
 OGRAPHY BY NO MEANS UNIFORMLY SUPPORTS THE 
 GUATEMALAN ARGUMENT FOR A MOUNTAIN CHAIN AS 
 THE IDEAL BOUNDARY. 
 
 Mr. Anderson has devoted the major portion of his 
 Siimming-Up and his Memorandum on the Report of 
 the Economic Survey to a demonstration that a moun- 
 tain chain furnishes the ideal scientific frontier, in 
 order thus to convince the Honorable Mediator that he 
 should recommend as the compromise boundary the 
 Omoa-Espiritu Santo-Grita-Gallinero chain rather 
 than the consequently inferior river boundary provided 
 by the Motagua and Managua rivers. 
 
 It must have embarrassed the present Counsel for 
 Guatemala that his distinguished predecessors, Marure 
 and Larreynaga in the proceedings which led to the 
 boundary treaty of 1845 took exactly the opposite stand 
 and argued with equal eloquence for a river frontier. 
 In their Instructions of 1844 to the Guatemalan boun- 
 dary Commissioner, Marure and Larreynaga stated 
 {Mediation Record, vol. I, p. 253) : 
 
 "From the point at Chucuyales, following 
 the mountain to the Motagua, it forms a 
 boundary, and also the river to its mouth in the 
 Bay of Omoa or Honduras. This boundary 
 must be fixed as certain because it is so stated by 
 Father Juarros at vol. I, p. 35, and as such has 
 been recognized in the past by usage and cus- 
 tom. Law 1, tit. 1, bk. 5 of the Indies, provides 
 
19 
 
 that with respect to boundaries, that established 
 by use and custom shall be abided by and 
 accepted. It also orders that the one decided 
 upon previously by royal ordinance and superior 
 orders shall be accepted and abided by without 
 doubt or objection. A river, is one of the most 
 important means, therefore, even though it 
 should not be proven that it really is. It should 
 he presumed. It is so stated in the Curia Filipica 
 Mar, Art. River, No. 18. In case of doubt the 
 ends of the jurisdictions are understood to he 
 divided by the river, as stated by Gregorio 
 Lopez, because it is believed that the river was 
 placed by nature as an eternal boundary of the 
 sections." 
 
 In support of his contention that a mountain 
 boundary furnishes the ideal boundary, Mr. Anderson 
 quotes from the works of Fawcett and Holdich. These 
 specialists belong to what may be called the military 
 school of political geographers whose premise is that 
 the contact of adjoining peoples produces friction and 
 often war and, accordingly, that the ideal frontier is 
 that which provides an isolating or defensive barrier 
 {e. g., Fawcett, Frontiers, p. 29; Holdich, Political 
 Frontiers and Boundary Making, pp. 30 and 128), But 
 even Holdich and Fawcett are agreed that under 
 special circumstances, as for instance in thinly-popu- 
 lated and tropical regions or between countries which 
 have not reached a high degree of industrial develop- 
 ment, a river frontier may be superior to a mountain 
 line. The river line is easily ascertainable; and it does 
 
20 
 
 not require heavy expenses of survey or demarcation 
 and of the up-keep of artificial monuments. 
 Thus Holdich writes {op. cif., p. 156) : 
 
 "Next to mountain ranges, rivers afford the 
 most tangible line for boundary definition. 
 There is no mistaking the line, there is no waste 
 over artificial constructions in connection with 
 demarcation. Their geographical conditions 
 and environment are always better known, and 
 they do very often serve the purpose of a barrier. 
 There are geographical conditions in many parts 
 of the globe where a river line is the only one 
 possible to afford any prospect of permanence 
 and easy recognition. Indeed it entirely depends 
 on these same conditions of environment 
 whether a river is a good boundary or a bad one. 
 Where the surrounding country is a waste of 
 trackless forest or wild upland, and where 
 the river is confined to a comparatively narrow 
 channel in a rockbound bed, it is a God-sent 
 feature for boundary-making, and requires no 
 assistance from man. . . ." 
 
 Again, Fawcett says (op. cit., p. 54) : 
 
 "A river, as a boundary, possesses the one 
 great advantage of being easily recognizable, 
 and hence of needing no demarkation. This ad- 
 vantage is particularly valuable under primitive 
 conditions and in thinly peopled or unoccupied 
 territories, where a recognizable limit is needed 
 and a precise and costly demarkation is unde- 
 sirable or unnecessary. Some of the North 
 American river boundaries seem to be inherit- 
 ances from this stage of development. . . ." 
 
21 
 
 It is true that Fawcett goes on to say that a valley- 
 is a natural unit of population ; that it tends to become 
 a place of frequent intercourse; and that the peoples 
 of its banks become more or less assimilated to one 
 another. But the answer to these observations is that 
 in our special case, the population of the Motagua 
 river system has been uniform in race and speech since 
 before the Spanish conquest. The inhabitants are of 
 the Chorti race and occupy not only the hydrographic 
 basin of the Motagua River but also spread eastward 
 beyond the mountain chain here under discussion. 
 (Thomas, Indian Languages of Mexico and Central 
 America and their Geographical Distribution, pp. 69, 
 70; and see linguistic map at the end). Since the 
 advent of the Spaniards they have also possessed 
 in common the Spanish language and Catholic religion. 
 As the Economic Survey has reported, they enter- 
 tain fraternal feelings for one another, notwith- 
 standing their respective Honduranean and Guate- 
 malan nationalities {Report, Nos. 118-119). In our 
 case, acordingiy, there exists the reverse of the usual 
 historical development : an uniform race, with the same 
 language, religion and customs was, through the acci- 
 dent of the Spanish conquest and for reasons of ad- 
 ministrative convenience during the colonial epoch, 
 segregated into separate provinces, which since 
 achieving independence have continued as separate 
 sovereign nationalities, and in the course of four cen- 
 turies have acquired their respective national con- 
 sciousness. This national consciousness has received 
 
22 
 
 the sanction of American international law and is 
 formulated as the principle of the uti possidetis of the 
 year of independence (Brief for Honduras, Mediation 
 Record, vol. II, pp. 414-415; and authorities cited). 
 
 Fawcett then goes on to say that with a river 
 boundary, with the advance of civilization it becomes 
 necessary to control the course of the river, to drain its 
 bordering marshes, to improve it for navigation, to 
 regulate its use for water power, irrigation and town 
 water supply ; and that these necessities become sources 
 of friction. The answer to these objections is simple: 
 a special convention can be negotiated between the par- 
 ties under the supervision of the Mediator. There is 
 an ample body of precedents, including, besides the con- 
 ventions which are actually in force for the various in- 
 ternational rivers, the Standard Regulations adopted 
 by the Institute of International law at its Heidelberg 
 meeting in 1887 and the Special Regulations for the 
 industrial and agricultural use of rivers adopted at its 
 Madrid meeting in 1911 ( Kaeckenbeeck, International 
 Rivers, pp. 173-187 and passim). There is also avail- 
 able the American-Mexican experience with the Rio 
 Grande (Moore, Digest of International Lazv, vol. I, 
 Sec. 160). 
 
 As a convenient summary of the views of what 
 Counsel have designated as the military school of 
 writers, the following passage from Lord Curzon's 
 Lecture on Frontiers (pp. 21-22) may be quoted: 
 
 ''Accordingly the advantages and disadvan- 
 tages of rivers as Frontiers may be thus stated. 
 
23 
 
 The position of the river is unmistakable, no 
 survey is required to identify or describe it, and 
 the crossing-places frequently admit of fortifica- 
 tion. Rivers are lines of division as a rule very 
 familiar to both parties, and are easily trans- 
 ferred to a treaty or traced on a map. On the 
 other hand, they may be attended by serious 
 draw-backs, confronting diplomatists and jurists 
 with intricate problems. Rivers are liable to 
 shift their courses, particularly in tropical 
 countries. The vagaries of the Helmund in 
 Seistan, where it is the boundary between 
 Persia and Afghanistan, have led to two 
 Boundary Commissions in thirty years. The 
 precise channel which contains the Frontier line, 
 the division of islands, very likely new accre- 
 tions, in the riverbed, the determination of 
 drinking-rights or of water-rights in cases 
 where cultivation is only effected by means of 
 irrigation from the Frontier river, the exact 
 identity of the source of a river, if this be men- 
 tioned in a Treaty or Convention, or of its main 
 affluent, or, in a deltaic region, of its mouth, the 
 provision required for navigation, police, and 
 fiscal control — all of these suggest possible dif- 
 ficulties in the acceptance of a river boundary, 
 particularly in new or tropical countries, which 
 cannot be ignored. In ancient and civilized 
 States the procedure to be followed in many of 
 these cases is regulated by international agree- 
 ment or by the Law of Nations. The general 
 principles regarding the navigation of rivers 
 traversing different States were indeed em- 
 
24 
 
 bodied in Articles 108-116 of the Final Act of 
 the Congress of Vienna, and have been applied 
 by subsequent Agreements to some of the prin- 
 cipal rivers of Europe, Africa and America." 
 
 The problems mentioned by Lord Curzon as arising 
 out of the shifting of the courses of tropical rivers 
 would only arise in the last dozen kilometers of the 
 Motagua River. International law has developed the 
 necessary rules to cover such developments (Brief for 
 Honduras, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 464-465) ; 
 and the suggested International Convention could con- 
 veniently provide for their application. The upper 
 course of the Motagua River and the whole course of 
 its affluents consist of V-shaped canyons which in Col. 
 Holdich's phrase provide a "God-sent feature for boun- 
 dary making requiring no assistance from man". 
 
 But there is not lacking a newer trend of thought 
 wherein the belief is expressed that the future destiny 
 of nations is toward a state of peace; and that frontiers 
 of union and communication will best promote peaceful 
 relations. Thus Professor Lyde in his recent lectures 
 on Some Frontiers of Tomorrozv, says (pp. 15-16) : 
 
 "It is, however, not the destiny of the world 
 to be for ever at war ; war is not even its normal 
 state; and the conception of the role of a 
 frontier is already changing, so that in the 
 future — perhaps not the nearest future — the 
 principles underlying the delimitation of a 
 frontier will be such as involve all possible aids 
 to the peaceful meeting of nations, not to their 
 parting. 
 
25 
 
 "Three points are of vital importance, as sug- 
 gested in the Introductory chapter : ( 1 ) that the 
 feature used as a frontier should be associated 
 not with war, but with peace; (2) that the unit 
 of area should have some direct relation to 
 national sentiment; (3) that inability to assimi- 
 late should disqualify any Power for territorial 
 expansion. Of these the most important is that 
 the feature used for the frontier should be, as 
 far as possible, one where men naturally meet. 
 Obviously, this is not on water-partings and 
 mountain-crests, or in deserts and swamps; and 
 no other science has such claims as Geography 
 to say authoritatively what, and where, such 
 natural meeting-places are. . . . All three 
 aspects of the science [historical, political and 
 economic geography] affirm that there are cer- 
 tain lines along which in every latitude people 
 tend naturally to meet in peace; and the most 
 important, the most universal, and the most 
 obvious of these is a navigable river — it is also 
 at once indisputable, and costs absolutely noth- 
 ing to delimit. Along such lines even the most 
 discordant elements have a maximum tendency 
 to concord. . . ,'' 
 
 Again, M. Moulin, Professor of Public Inter- 
 national Law at the University of Dijon, has said 
 {Litige Chilo-Argentin et la Delimitation des Fron- 
 tier es Naturelles, pp. 51-52) : 
 
 ''But when international relations take on a 
 more pacific character, and when nations com- 
 prehend at the same time that they have a 
 mutual interest in pursuing among them regular 
 
26 
 
 exchanges and in agreeing upon physical ob- 
 stacles as their political frontiers whose route 
 they define, they recognize in a river this double 
 advantage of being at once a way of traffic and 
 a natural barrier. And it is thus in our epoch 
 that the international treaties which, either by 
 special accord among States or by general con- 
 vention made by the powers, have attributed ter- 
 ritorial limits to new States, have voluntarily 
 chosen the course of a great river as the political 
 frontier : thus the Danube in the Balkan region, 
 the Oubanghi in Africa, etc. The river is like 
 the tangible image of the modern frontier, which 
 in time of peace allows men and products to cir- 
 culate freely from either side of the line, and 
 which at the same time marks the contact of two 
 absolute sovereignties, of two impenetrable 
 political organisms, and which, in time of peace 
 as in time of war, should be defended against 
 aggression and invasion." 
 
 Counsel for Guatemala has stressed the advantages 
 of mountain claims as the ideal frontier; and by his 
 quotations from Fawcett and Holdich endeavored to 
 leave the impression with the Mediator that they are 
 under all circumstances the ideal frontier. It is only 
 just that Counsel for Honduras be permitted to com- 
 plete the picture by calling attention to the disadvan- 
 tages, which in a sparsely settled country of heavy 
 vegetation are considerably greater than in more 
 settled regions with a more temperate climate. 
 
• 27 
 
 Thus Lord Curzon has said {op. cit., pp. 18-19) : 
 
 "On the other hand the theoretical 
 superiority of a mountain Frontier may be 
 qualified by a number of considerations arising 
 from its physical structure. Of course a range 
 or ridge with a sharply defined crest is the best 
 of all. But sometimes the mountain-barrier may 
 be, not a ridge or even a range, but a tumbled 
 mass of peaks and gorges, covering a zone many 
 miles in width ( for instance, the breadth of the 
 Himalayas north of Kashmir is little short of 
 200 miles) . . . 
 
 "In every mountain border, where the entire 
 mountainous belt does not fall under the control 
 of a single Power, the crest or water-divide is 
 the best and fairest line of division ; for it is not 
 exposed to physical change, it is always capable 
 of identification, and no instruments are re- 
 quired to fix it. But it is not without its pos- 
 sible drawbacks, of which the most familiar is 
 the well-known geographical fact that in the 
 greatest mountain systems of the world, for 
 instance, the Himalayas and the Andes, the 
 water-divide is not identical with the highest 
 crest, but is beyond it and at a lower eleva- 
 tion. ..." 
 
 Again, Prof. Camille Vallaux of the French Naval 
 School has written {Le Sol et VBtat, pp. 380-381) : 
 
 "Mountains seem at first sight more impos- 
 ing as obstacles than rivers, and also more 
 efficacious as protection, although the majority 
 of chains and of mountain masses fashioned and 
 half-destroyed by erosion, are cut up by a sort 
 
28 
 
 of net-work (quadrillage) of transversal and 
 longitudinal valleys which permit the passage at 
 numerous points from one slope to the other. 
 But where does the central axis of demarcation 
 run which is suitable to serve as a precise politi- 
 cal frontier? A close study of mountainous 
 chains shows that it is almost impossible for 
 physical reasons to determine this axis. The 
 delimitators have the choice between the line of 
 the separation of waters and the line of greatest 
 altitudes which in general do not coincide : they 
 almost always take the first. But the line of the 
 separation of waters is subject to variation at 
 the points where the erosion from down-stream 
 upwards is most felt; it is subject to inde- 
 cision on the high plateaux where the relief 
 levels out and where the waters follow, accord- 
 ing to the season, different directions; finally the 
 survey of this line is extremely capricious and 
 political necessities impose frequent correc- 
 tions. . . . What to conclude from this, unless 
 that mountain frontiers are very truly artificial 
 frontiers, in the same manner as those which 
 run invisible across the plains and which only 
 posts and mile-stones indicate? Although inter- 
 penetrations are rarer across the mountains than 
 in the united plains, they have never lacked it: 
 there are bonds of very ancient and singularly 
 durable relations across the Alps and the 
 Pyrenees; modern circulation, in piercing its 
 tunnels and in constructing its roads, will more 
 and more cause barriers to tumble, will multiply 
 the points of contact and will entirely assimi- 
 late mountainous frontiers to those of the 
 plains." 
 
29 
 
 The truth of the whole matter is that the science 
 of geography teaches that every international frontier 
 must be determined onMts special facts, respecting the 
 national sentiments of the peoples affected, rather than 
 by any theoretical and a priori consideration of the 
 relative merits of the various types of frontiers. Mr. 
 Dominian has happily expressed this truth in the fol- 
 lowing passage {Frontiers of Language and Nation- 
 ality, p. ?>?>?)) : 
 
 "The preceding remarks should not be con- 
 sidered as implying that a mountain, or a river, 
 or even the sea are to be arbitrarily regarded as 
 frontiers. Lines of water-parting deserve par- 
 ticular mention as having provided satisfactory 
 national borders in history. But in boundaries 
 each case should be treated upon its own merits. 
 There was a time when, in Cowper's words : 
 
 7:^' Mountains interposed i 
 
 Make enemies of nations who had else 
 Like kindred drops been mingled into one. 
 
 ''And yet the passes of the Alps refute the 
 poet's statement. Their uniting function event- 
 ually overcame their estranging power. The 
 easterly spread of French language over the 
 Vosges concurs in the same trend of testimony. 
 The imposing mass of the Urals is no more of 
 a parting than are the Appalachians. To be 
 pertinent, it will be necessary, in each instance, 
 to consider the complex operations of natural 
 laws and the process of fusing and building up 
 of nationality brought about by their agency." 
 
30 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REASONS FOR THE MOUNTAIN 
 LINE URGED BY COUNSEL FOR GUATEMALA, ARE NOT 
 SUSTAINED BY THE FACTS; AND ON THESE, CORRECTLY 
 APPRECIATED, THE LINE, SO FAR AS A MOUNTAIN 
 FRONTIER SHOULD BE ADOPTED, OUGHT TO RUN 
 ELSEWHERE. 
 
 Mr. Anderson's Memorandum on the Economic 
 Survey Report contains errors of fact or of apprecia- 
 tion as to the mountain chain of the Merendon, Gal- 
 linero, Grita, Espiritu Santo and Omoa, which would 
 vitiate his arguments for location of the compromise 
 line along it, even if his major premise — the ideal 
 nature of a mountain frontier — were undisputed. 
 
 It will be convenient, in pointing out and comment- 
 ing upon these errors, to group them so as to follow the 
 division of the frontier area into the districts adopted 
 by the Report of the Economic Survey. These dis- 
 tricts correspond to the sections adopted by the Mixed 
 Boundary Commission which labored in pursuance of 
 the treaty of 1895, except that the Mixed Boundary 
 Commission was dissolved before it surveyed the third 
 section. 
 
 1. Mr. Anderson states that this mountain chain 
 runs from the frontier of El Salvador to the Atlantic 
 coast near the port of Omoa, supposing that not only 
 does it touch, but also that it crosses, the Salvadorean 
 frontier near the point designated as Pefia de Caya- 
 guanca. He has failed to note that in all the modern 
 maps, which in this case reflect the reality, the moun- 
 
31 
 
 tain called Merendon figures as a part of the Sierra 
 Madre which parts the waters that flow into the Atlan- 
 tic Ocean and those reaching the Pacific and is in fact 
 a continuation of the American Rocky Mountain divide. 
 The Merendon Mountain, which runs parallel to the 
 frontier of El Salvador and starts from the Guatema- 
 lan frontier, from south to north, doubles westward 
 approximately on the parallel of the Cerro de San 
 Jeronimo, passes along it and along Cerro Obscuro 
 and invades Guatemala. From the parallel of Cerro 
 Obscuro begins the Sierra de Gallinero, Grita, etc., 
 mentioned by Counsel for Guatemala. The Economic 
 Survey in their Report confirm the accuracy of this 
 observation (No. 9). 
 
 2. The Sierra del Merendon does not, as intimated 
 by Mr. Anderson, cut the frontier of El Salvador, but 
 runs parallel to it, the valleys of the Rivers Lempa and 
 Sumpul lying between them and also between said fron- 
 tier and the Peiia de Cayaguanca. Consequently it 
 would be materially impossible to trace the frontier as 
 indicated by him. 
 
 Moreover, Cerro Brujo, which is separated from 
 the Sierra Madre by the valleys of the Rivers Lempa 
 and Sesecapa and diverts their waters to the Pacific 
 Ocean, is an indisputable boundary point. It has been 
 recognized at all times as common to Honduras, Guate- 
 mala and El Salvador, as was thus expressly declared 
 in Minutes No. 5 of July 9, 1908, and No. 6 of the 16th 
 of the same month and year, of the sessions of the 
 Mixed Boundary Commission which labored on the 
 
32 
 
 frontier under the treaty of 1895, and whose work was 
 approved by article XVI of the Treaty of 1914. The 
 fact was also recognized by the Economic Survey 
 {Report, No. 9), in limiting their reconnaissance to the 
 same region which the above Mixed Boundary Com- 
 mission surveyed between Cerro Brujo and Cerro 
 Obscuro. The latter mountain is for similar reasons 
 an immutable boundary point (Minutes No. 17, of 
 March 7, 1910. of the mixed Boundary Commission). 
 
 Moreover, if the line were run along the Merendon 
 mountain, it would place in Guatemala the very old 
 town of Ocotepeque, which during the whole colonial 
 epoch and since independence to the present day has 
 been Honduranean, as well as the quite ancient villages 
 of Sinuapa, Santa Fe, Concepcion Jute and Merendon. 
 The Report of the Economic Survey (No. 140) con- 
 firms the fact that in this first section of the frontier 
 there is no conflict of land concessions made by the two 
 Governments, because in reality there exist only grants, 
 more or less ancient, made in Honduras; so that the 
 present day line of possession, which has been actually 
 surveyed, follows the limits of these concessions and 
 has not given occasion for any disputes among the 
 adjoining inhabitants. 
 
 Accordingly, Mr. Anderson's pretension that the 
 line should be run along the Sierra del Merendon, must 
 be disregarded. 
 
 3. Coming now to the second district of the Eco- 
 nomic Survey Report: Honduras has proved with all 
 
33 
 
 the concessions of lands granted by the ancient Prov- 
 ince of Honduras, by the State of Honduras (during 
 the Federation) or by the Republic, — extracted in 
 printed volume III of the Honduranean Exhibits, — 
 that she is the legitimate owner of the territory compre- 
 hended to the left of the irregular Hne which runs from 
 Cerro Obscuro to the junction of the quebradas of Las 
 Vegas and Sururuin, passing over the Llano del Jicaro 
 and Cerro del Suspiro de Tizamarte. This line is con- 
 firmed by concessions of lands granted in Guatemala, 
 bounding with those granted by Honduras, which are 
 also extracted in the printed volume III above men- 
 tioned. All of these concessions, as well as historical 
 authorities like the History by Juarros and the 1844 
 Instructions of Marure and Larreynaga and the official 
 documents from colonial times, declare that the Copan 
 Valley belongs to Honduras (see Brief for Honduras, 
 point V). In this region there also exist the ancient 
 towns of Copan and Santa Rita (alias Cachapa) and 
 the more modern towns of Cabanas {alias Santa Bar- 
 bara), Encarnacion (alias Playon) and San Jorge 
 (alias Rincon de Jorge), and thirty-three villages or 
 ranches, all of which have been, and actually are, Hon- 
 duranean. In the region no town is organized as a 
 municipality belonging to Guatemala; and there are 
 only about seven villages or ranches that owe allegiance 
 to Guatemala. The great majority of the inhabitants 
 of the region — 5,400 according to the Economic Survey 
 — are Honduraneans. 
 
 In this district the Report of the Economic Survey 
 
34 
 
 traced a line from Cerro del Mico or San Isidro to 
 Cerro de Llano Grande, affirming that to the right are 
 to be found only villages which Honduras governs, and 
 that to the left of the line the villages are governed by 
 Guatemala (Report, no. 33). This line is arbitrary, 
 because it cuts across lands, titled before 1821 in Hon- 
 duras, whose inhabitants still acknowledge her sover- 
 eignty; but insofar as it insinuates a compromise line, 
 it furnishes an argument against the adoption of the 
 mountain line urged by Counsel for Guatemala, which 
 runs about twenty-five kilometers further east and 
 cuts that much more deeply into Honduranean terri- 
 tory. 
 
 If in this second district a mountain line were to be 
 adopted as the compromise frontier, on the basis of 
 the geographical arguments put forward by Mr. Ander- 
 son that it furnishes the ideal frontier, then the Hon- 
 orable Mediator should prefer and recommend in this 
 region the Copan mountain as the boundary as far as 
 the Motagua River. The valley of the Motagua River 
 breaks the continuity of the Copan mountain with the 
 range which on the other side of the river runs, under 
 the name of the Sierra del Mico, in a northwesterly 
 direction until it ends in Cape Three Points. 
 
 On the basis of the argument for a mountain line as 
 the ideal scientific frontier, which is so eloquently urged 
 by Mr. Anderson, the Honorable Mediator should cer- 
 tainly recommend the Copan mountain as far as the 
 Motagua River. Such a line would work far less in- 
 jury to vested Guatemalan rights, than would the other 
 
35 
 
 line to Honduranean sovereignty. Moreover, unlike 
 that line, it has the support of official documents, among 
 others, the Guatemalan Instructions of 1844, which, as 
 has been pointed out in the Brief for Honduras, have 
 all the weight of an admission against interest. In 
 their Instructions, Marure and Larreynaga wrote 
 (Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 252-253) : 
 
 "This valley (the Copan) is the divisor be- 
 tween Guatemala and Honduras, according to 
 Father Juarros, vol. II, p. 153. . . . Along 
 Copan there passes a cordillera, w^hich com- 
 mences to the south of Mita, and which is com- 
 monly called ^lerendon, and intersects the 
 Motagua, and extends to the east of Port St. 
 Thomas, to enter Cape Three Points called 
 Punta de Castilla or Manavique. The dividing 
 line between Honduras and Chiquimula strikes 
 this mountain before it (the mountain) inter- 
 sects the Motagua, the line passing through the 
 north of the village or hamlet of Chucuyales, 
 and it is a point which should be examined and 
 marked out very scrupulously. This mountain, 
 which the English and French maps call 'The 
 Copan', and which is not marked continuously 
 in that of Rivera, forms a landmark toward 
 Sensenti, but not in the rest of its course, for 
 which reason it is necessary that the com- 
 missioners shall fix precisely the intervening 
 section. 
 
 "From the point at Chucuyales, following 
 • the mountain to the Motagua, it forms a boun- 
 dary, and the river to its mouth in the Bay of 
 Omoa or Honduras. ..." 
 
36 
 
 4. With respect to the third district, it cannot be 
 disputed that upon geographical considerations and 
 having regard for the present-day possession (but 
 excluding all tortious occupation), the line after leav- 
 ing the Copan Mountain near the confluence of the 
 Managua River and the River Motagua should follow 
 the latter stream to its mouth. 
 
 If the Honorable Mediator should recommend 
 either the Copan Mountain, the Copan River or the 
 Managua River as the compromise frontier in the 
 second and third districts, he could only reach the 
 Sierra de Grita-Gallinero-Espiritu Santo-Omoa by cut- 
 ting across country at a sharp angle and with an arti- 
 ficial boundary which w^ould disregard both the line 
 of ulti possidetis of 1821 and the present-day line of 
 possession. As to the uti possidetis of 1821, the evi- 
 dence submitted to him by the Honduranean Repre- 
 sentative — it is compiled and evaluated in Point V of 
 the Brief for Honduras — proves conclusively that the 
 Copan valley lay entirely within Honduras at the close 
 of the colonial era. As to the present-day line of 
 possession, the Honorable Mediator may be referred to 
 the Report of the Economic Survey (Nos. 109-116), 
 with the request that he take into consideration the fact, 
 as noted elsewhere in the present memorandum, that 
 with the exception of Las Quebradas, the points occu- 
 pied by Guatemala in this district, to the west of the 
 Motagua River, have been seized by military force, 
 notwithstanding the treaty of 1895 w^hich in legal effect 
 required respect by the parties of the statu quo ante 
 
37 
 
 pending a settlement of the frontier. Las Quebradas, 
 the sole exception, was occupied by Guatemala at some 
 time between 1882 and 1892. But even this occupation 
 was tortious having taken place after the boundary- 
 dispute had arisen and therefore must not be recog- 
 nized by the Honorable Mediator, even in recommend- 
 ing a compromise line. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN BOUNDARY NOW PROPOSED BY 
 COUNSEL FOR GUATEMALA, SO FAR AS IT RESTS UPON 
 THE TESTIMONY OF MAPS AND GEOGRAPHERS, HAS NO 
 BETTER BASIS THAN A CARTOGRAPHICAL ERROR OF 
 A GUATEMALAN GEOGRAPHER. 
 
 For this conclusion Counsel for Honduras are in- 
 debted to Dr. Williams. It is demonstrated in her Reply 
 to Mr. Anderson's criticisms of her Cartographical and 
 Geographical Report. Accordingly the Honorable Medi- 
 ator is referred directly to her remarks in her Reply 
 which is attached to the present memorandum {infra, 
 pp. 100-107). 
 
 Counsel for Honduras also are of opinion that Dr. 
 Williams' Reply provides an adequate and convincing 
 reply to Mr. Anderson's criticisms of her original Re- 
 port and fortify the conclusions reached by her therein 
 as to the effect and bearing of the geographical and 
 cartographical evidence on the extent of Honduranean 
 jurisdiction, both in the colonial epoch and thereafter. 
 
 The arguments deduced by Counsel for Guatemala 
 from the map published by Byrne in 1886, do not 
 
38 
 
 deserve serious consideration. Without stressing the 
 fact that this map has not been placed in evidence by 
 the CTuatemalan Representative (who in this particular 
 has been exigent in requiring the submission of the 
 maps upon which Honduras has relied), it may be said 
 that the official character of its author is not proven 
 and that it has not been accepted by Honduras. In 
 order that the map might be considered as evidence of 
 an abandonment of sovereignty, Guatemala would have 
 to produce an official act of the Honduranean Govern- 
 ment approving it. Moreover, if the map referred to 
 is the one with which the Honduranean Representative 
 is acquainted, it does not designate as the frontier the 
 Sierra of Omoa-Espiritu Santo-Grita-Gallinero, but 
 rather a frontier supposed to lie to the west of the 
 Copan Valley which approached rather the mountain 
 described by Marure and Larreynaga in their Instruc- 
 tions, with the difference that it does not end in the 
 Motagua River, as they indicate, but near its mouth. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE GUATEMALAN ARGUMENTS FOR THE LINE OF 
 THE MERENDON, GALLINERO, GRITA, ESPIRITU SANTO 
 AND OMOA MOUNTAINS, SO FAR AS BASED ON ECON- 
 OMIC AND POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS, ARE OUT- 
 WEIGHED BY THOSE WHICH MAY BE URGED IN BE- 
 HALF OF HONDURAS. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras propose to summarize the 
 arguments of this character offered by Counsel for 
 Guatemala and to refute them with like considerations 
 favoring their client: 
 
39 
 
 (1) Much weight is placed by Counsel for Guatemala upon 
 the poor means of communication between the rest of Hon- 
 duras and the disputed region, and the present-day fact that 
 those with Guatemala are much easier. From this contrast, 
 the consequence is deduced of the commercial dependency of 
 the region on Guatemala and therefore of its manifest destiny 
 as an appanage of this country. 
 
 The first flaw to be noted in this argument is that 
 Mr. Anderson proposes to include in Guatemala the dis- 
 trict of Ocotepeque, which is separated from the rest of 
 the region by the Sierra Madre. It would, therefore, 
 logically follow that as this district undoubtedly has 
 greater facilities for commerce with El Salvador, it 
 should be annexed to this Republic. Moreover, since 
 all of Honduras is mountainous country, with difficult 
 communications, the argument would equally hold good 
 for the loss of its independence and its partition among 
 its neighbors. As regards the Ocotepeque region, Mr. 
 Anderson's arguments admit of a true reductio ad 
 absurdum. 
 
 Thus, since communications and commerce of the 
 first district, including Ocotepeque, are with El Sal- 
 vador, along and across the Sumpul and Lempa Val- 
 leys, the Guatemalan railway does not serve the dis- 
 trict. 
 
 As regards the second district and the southern part 
 of the third district : it is true that at the present time 
 they are nearer to the Guatemalan railway than to the 
 Honduranean railway. But this would not now be the 
 case if Guatemala had not, by military force, paralyzed 
 the continuation of the Cuyamel Railroad. Honduras 
 
40 
 
 has had, and still has, the intention of continuing this 
 line up the Motagua Valley into the Copan region. In 
 addition, the Cuyamel Fruit Company has a concession 
 from Honduras to extend its line over the cordillera of 
 Omoa, etc., and communicate the third district with the 
 valley of the Chamelecon River, tying the district to the 
 centre of Honduras. This net-work of railways will 
 thus constitute the commercial artery of both the second 
 and third districts, and will have for its outlet the Port 
 of Omoa, which Mr. Anderson recognizes as excellent. 
 Accordingly, on these same grounds of economic and 
 political policy, Honduras needs, and cannot and ought 
 not to renounce, her sovereignty over the Eastern slope 
 of the Motagua Valley, which must serve as the road- 
 bed of this railroad along the greater portion of its 
 route. 
 
 (2) It is argued by Mr. Anderson that Guatemala ought 
 to have the region west of the mountain-chain under discus- 
 sion, because she needs it for her political unity and in order 
 to maintain her integrity. 
 
 In order for the Honorable Mediator to accept this 
 solution, he would have to favor solely the interests 
 of Guatemala, without taking into account those of 
 Honduras. This it is not difficult to demonstrate. 
 
 Even if Guatemala had with perfect right con- 
 structed her railway, Honduras would still need to con- 
 clude and protect her railroad on the right bank of the 
 Motagua River. Moreover, if Guatemala considers 
 this river and her railway as her natural transportation 
 route to the Atlantic coast and requires exclusive con- 
 
trol of the region for military and strategic purposes, 
 Honduras also is entitled to the same argument with 
 reference to the same river and her own railway. 
 
 But the Counsel for Honduras are not agreed with 
 Counsel for Guatemala, that such exclusive control is a 
 necessity. There are many countries which have com- 
 mon dominion over the rivers which separate them. 
 For examples it is not necessary to go farther afield 
 than Central America. Guatemala herself does not 
 feel her integrity menaced, or her political and economic 
 independence jeopardized, because she does not enjoy 
 the exclusive dominion of the Paz River which sep- 
 arates her from El Salvador, or of the River Usuma- 
 cinta which separates her from Mexico. It would be 
 unjust to attribute to Honduras any political ambi- 
 tions, because she desires to conserve a territory which 
 she has possessed during centuries ; and not to attribute 
 such ambitions to the country which wishes to acquire 
 the same territory simply because in very recent years 
 she has come to believe that she needs it. 
 
 Counsel for Guatemala, relying principally on the 
 argument of her security, rejects rivers as a frontier 
 line with Honduras, but only with Honduras ; and calls 
 for the summit of the cordillera, because it is easier to 
 defend. The answer is that Guatemala need not fear 
 aggression on the part of Honduras. It is the weaker 
 and less populated country and on various occasions it 
 has suffered aggressions from Guatemala. But as con- 
 flicts in Central America have not been wars of con- 
 quest, the victor has not demanded territorial compen- 
 
42 
 
 sations. Even the last war waged by Guatemala on 
 Honduras in 1876 involved no boundary question, 
 although it is true that at that time the dispute was 
 reduced to a narrow area in the populous region; and 
 in the region of the Motagua River there was no ques- 
 tion, since the river was recognized as the boundary 
 de facto. These antecedents, taken by themselves, 
 would give Honduras the right to reject the boundary 
 now concretely proposed by Counsel for- Guatemala; 
 since once her powerful neighbor were placed on the 
 summit of the cordillera, she could dominate the passes, 
 fortify them in her favor and descend upon Honduras 
 at will. On the other hand, with the frontier fixed in 
 the lower area of the river, the Honduraneans could 
 detain the invaders at the foot of the mountains and 
 in case of necessity fall back upon the mountain passes. 
 Counsel for Honduras regret urging these con- 
 siderations, which are forced upon them by the other 
 party. They would have preferred to discuss this 
 frontier question as a purely legal question, in the 
 manner in which such disputes are settled among the 
 states of our own Federal Union. 
 
 (3) Counsel for Guatemala argues that because the dis- 
 puted region is thinly populated — not exceeding ten persons 
 to the square mile — it may be delivered to Guatemala, without 
 serious injury to Honduras. 
 
 This fact gives no preferential right to either of the 
 parties. Moreover, Honduras denies, as intimated by 
 Mr, Anderson, that the inhabitants would prefer to 
 belong to Guatemala. Counsel for Guatemala affirms 
 
43 
 
 the fact, without any basis therefor in the Economic 
 Survey Report. The Survey Hmited themselves to re- 
 porting the statement of the inhabitants of both coun- 
 tries that they greatly desired to see the boundary ques- 
 tion settled amicably — a very natural desire because 
 they have suffered most the prejudice which the bound- 
 ary disputes have entailed. Mr. Anderson failed to add 
 that there was no doubt in the minds of the inhabitants 
 as to where the frontier runs ; and, be it noted, that it is 
 to be found in a region far removed from the Cordillera 
 proposed by him. Otherwise the Economic Survey 
 could not have stated that in the whole disputed region 
 the conflicting area of land concessions granted by the 
 respective Governments totalled less than 178 square 
 miles {Report, no. 140). 
 
 (4) Counsel for Guatemala bases his claim to the terri- 
 tory in the lower portion of the disputed region, on the fact 
 that the greater area of land concessions has been granted by 
 Guatemala. 
 
 In thus arguing, Counsel forgets that on various 
 occasions the Guatemalan Representative has declared, 
 — and that he has echoed the declaration in his Memo- 
 randum, — that in this Mediation possession de facto 
 must have no weight as against strict legal right, even 
 though such possession should have in its favor the 
 duration of centuries; and this declaration has been 
 accepted by Honduras, at least for the period since 
 1821, the date indicated by the treaty of 1914 as the 
 year of uti possidetis. He also overlooks the fact that 
 the major number of the concessions granted by Guate- 
 
44 
 
 mala have been granted ad hoc, since the conferences 
 on the frontier from 1908 to 1910. Counsel for Hon- 
 duras are not acquainted with the titles issued by Guate- 
 mala and cannot discuss them because they have not 
 been filed in these proceedings by the Guatemalan Rep- 
 resentative. Accordingly, so far as the poHtico- 
 economic arguments of Counsel for Guatemala are 
 based upon these titles, they should not be considered 
 by the Honorable Mediator. 
 
 On the other hand, these same arguments are avail- 
 able for Honduras, since her representatives have pro- 
 duced duly certified copies of the land titles granted 
 within her territory, and in addition have for the con- 
 venience of the Mediator filed a printed volume wherein 
 the titles are extracted.* 
 
 The Economic Survey were unable to take note of 
 all the land concessions granted by the two countries 
 {Report, no. 140). Since no representative of Hon- 
 duras accompanied the Mission except in the last few 
 days, it may well be that the Guatemalan engineers 
 have exhibited a greater number of concessions in the 
 disputed region. This would result, because, as Coun- 
 sel for Honduras are informed, instead of respecting 
 the status quo ante, pending adjustment of the dispute, 
 Guatemala made haste, since 1895 and mostly in the 
 
 ♦Certified copies of extracts from the land titles and of other 
 documentary evidence submitted by Honduras, also various original 
 documents, are to be found in a box delivered, with its key, to the 
 State Department. The originals of the most ancient titles are also 
 deposited in a Washington vault, subject to the order of the Repre- 
 sentative of Honduras, li it is desired, he is prepared to submit 
 them to the Honorable Mediator. 
 
45 
 
 year 1911, to grant numerous concessions in the third 
 district, undoubtedly proceeding on the theory that such 
 grants would be considered as indicia of occupation and 
 thus improve her claim to the region. 
 
 In striking contrast, Honduras has, since the sign- 
 ing of the Boundary treaty of 1895, in general abstained 
 from granting new concessions in the region. Never- 
 theless, there are pending in the respective Land Office 
 of Honduras many applications for concessions in the 
 third district upon which no grants have been issued, 
 notwithstanding the fact that some of the lands applied 
 for have been actually surveyed. 
 
 (5) Counsel for Guatemala endeavors to capitalize the 
 recent occupation of certain points in the disputed region by 
 Guatemalan forces. 
 
 In the Economic Survey Report (nos. 114, 115, 
 116) are mentioned the military posts which Guate- 
 mala and Honduras have in the lower portion of the 
 Motagua Valley, that is, from the River Morja. To 
 judge from the situation at the end of 1918 — as it ap- 
 pears in data which the Representative of Honduras 
 presented to the Honorable Mediator in requesting the 
 retirement of forces introduced by Guatemala in recent 
 years — the presence of Guatemalan soldiers in the terri- 
 tory to the East of the Motagua River, instead of found- 
 ing a right thereto, shows the system which Guatemala 
 has adopted to achieve de facto occupation, notwith- 
 standing that such occupation is vitiated by the double 
 defect that it has been effected by violence and during 
 the operation of treaties which preserve the status quo 
 
46 
 
 ante, and, as Counsel for Honduras are informed dur- 
 ing the course of the present mediation. Dr. Bonilla, 
 in his note of December 11, 1918, answering the Honor- 
 able Mediator's proposal 'for the despatch of a technical 
 commission, renewed his insistence that the Guatemalan 
 troops be withdrawn, in order that the constant danger 
 of armed conflict created by the continuance of these 
 troops might be avoided {Mediation Record, vol. H, p. 
 591). 
 
 (6) Counsel for Guatemala argues that the interests of 
 the Cuyamel Fruit Company in the disputed region are not 
 Honduranean but American, and therefore should not be 
 taken into consideration. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras are astonished that this 
 argument should be put forward, because it applies 
 with equal force to the interests of the United Fruit 
 Company and to the interests of the Guatemalan Rail- 
 way. Both of these enterprises are entirely American 
 in respect of capital and management and, what is 
 more, they are the only enterprises which operate under 
 Guatemalan auspices in the valley of the Motagua. 
 
 Moreover, there is a difference in favor of the 
 Cuyamel Fruit Company. It carries on operations 
 only in Honduras, and therefore would have no motive 
 to desire that its properties, either in whole or in part, 
 should pass to Guatemalan sovereignty. In contrast, 
 the United Fruit Company has properties in both coun- 
 tries, with the further circumstance that those in Hon- 
 duras are more important than those in Guatemala and 
 
47 
 
 have a better future. Accordingly, it should be indif- 
 ferent to this company what portion of its properties 
 should remain in the one country or in the other. 
 
 While it is true that the Guyamel Fruit 'Company 
 was organized under this name in 1912, its operations 
 date from 1902 when a concession was granted by Hon- 
 duras to a third person acting for the same interests. 
 In addition, among the lands exploited by the Cuyamel 
 Fruit Company is to be found the Hacienda of Cuya- 
 mel, surveyed in Honduras during the epoch of the Cen- 
 tral American Federation, which extends as far as the 
 old mouth of the Motagua River. This Hacienda was 
 recognized by the Oidor Rodesno in 1770 as one which 
 belonged to the Spanish Crown, comprehended in the 
 jurisdiction of Omoa (Honduranean Exh. VH). The 
 Hacienda was also the object of a Honduranean deed 
 of sale in 1822, wherein it appears that the land was 
 located in the same jurisdiction (Honduranean Exh. 
 XXV, No. 20). 
 
 The notes exchanged by the American Charge 
 d' Affaires with the Government of Guatemala, were 
 not known to the Representative of Honduras until he 
 learned of their existence from the Memorandum of 
 Counsel for Guatemala. The notes could be taken to 
 show only that the Government of Guatemala under- 
 took to suspend the further operations of the United 
 Fruit Company, — an undertaking which, the Honor- 
 able Mediator will note, the Guatemalan Government 
 has not fulfilled. On the contrary, it has taken steps 
 to paralyze the operations of the Cuyamel Fruit Com- 
 
48 
 
 pany, even to the extent of employing armed force. 
 The poHcy of Honduras in this respect has been con- 
 sistently to the contrary, since her Government has 
 believed that the development of the disputed region 
 should not be impeded. Honduras has taken the view, 
 in accordance with international law and the 1914 
 treaty, that such development could not alter the vested 
 rights of either party, and that the territory thus 
 improved would in the sequel pass to the sovereignty of 
 that Government which should prove to be entitled 
 thereto ; and that the title, and even the simple posses- 
 sion, of the interested concessionaries, would be 
 respected to the extent that the concessionaries should 
 have the territory under cultivation or should other- 
 wise have permanently improved them (infra, pp. 60- 
 61). 
 
 (7) It is not correct to state, as is assured by Counsel for 
 Guatemala, that Honduras has no political, commercial or 
 economic interests of importance in the region between the 
 mountains and the Motagua River. 
 
 With respect to the first and second districts, Coun- 
 sel for Honduras have already had occasion to state 
 what are the Honduranean interests of this character 
 (Point IV above). 
 
 With respect to the third district, the Honorable 
 Mediator should note that there is to be found in it the 
 town of El Paraiso, which was erected by Honduras 
 into a municipality before the treaty of 1895; and that 
 upon this municipality are dependent the villages of 
 Agua Buena, Agua Caliente, Achotes, Arcos, Caiias, 
 
49 
 
 Chachagualia, Chapulco, Cisne, Desmontes, Managua, 
 Morrito, Navedad (Los Ranches), Piedras Gordas and 
 other villages and ranches, among them one village 
 whose dwellings were burned by the Guatemalans 
 after the Economic Survey returned from their mission. 
 In this region are also to be found the ancient Hon- 
 duranean Port and Municipality of Omoa and the 
 Municipality of Cuyamel, together with the ranches 
 which have grown up along the railway line that runs 
 from Omoa to Rio Nuevo. 
 
 The Honorable Mediator is also requested in this 
 connection to refer to the Brief for Honduras, section 
 5 of Point VI (Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 462-463), 
 in which Counsel for Honduras discussed the diplo- 
 matic exchanges between Guatemala and Honduras 
 which resulted in the treaty of 1895. Here he will 
 find reference not only to El Paraiso and some of the 
 villages above mentioned, and to the Honduranean 
 towns of Santa Cruz and Los Chajales and the villages 
 of Tapesco and El Chorro, but also the concession of 
 3,000 mansanas (5,250 acres) granted by the Hon- 
 duranean Government in October, 1893, to a Dutch 
 Company. This concession, called "La Esperanza", on 
 which the Dutch Company had a tobacco plantation, 
 is located between the Jubuco and Morja Rivers, front- 
 ing on the latter river. It is indicated on the map sub- 
 mitted by Honduras, and also on those prepared by the 
 Economic Survey. 
 
 In this region Guatemala has only the villages and 
 ranches which it has been progressively seizing, or 
 which have been installed on unoccupied land by Guate- 
 
50 
 
 malans who as such have declared in favor of submis- 
 sion to their country of origin. The Honorable Media- 
 tor should also note that all of these Guatemalan vil- 
 lages and ranches have sprung up since the treaty of 
 1895, with the sole exception of Las Quebradas, which 
 Guatemala had occupied previously, that is, at some 
 time between 1882 and 1892. Las Quebradas is not 
 mentioned in the electoral census published by Guate- 
 mala in 1882 {Guatemala: Armies Bstadisficas) ; but 
 is claimed for the first time in 1892, by the Guate- 
 mala Statistical Office {Guatemala: Demarcacion 
 Politica). In this connection the Honorable Medi- 
 ator is asked to recall the circumstance, which ap- 
 pears in the Honduranean evidence, that only in 1863 
 did Guatemala seize by armed force the territory be- 
 tween the Motagua River and Lake Izabal, removing 
 the authorities of four Honduranean villages located 
 near the Lake. It further appears from the evidence 
 submitted by Honduras that at that time Guatemala 
 did not even possess the right bank of the River 
 Motagua and that it could have nothing on the left 
 bank. The Mediator is referred to Honduranean Ex- 
 hibits XVII (a), XVII {b), no. 7, XXI and XXV, 
 no. 22. 
 
 Accordingly, it is not true that Honduras in this 
 region has no interests except those of the Cuyamel 
 Fruit Company. On the other hand, Guatemala has 
 no other interests in this region than those represented 
 by the United Fruit Company, which, besides, com- 
 menced operations on the right bank of the Motagua 
 
51 
 
 River long after Honduras had granted the original 
 concession which the Cuyamel Fruit Company is ex- 
 ploiting. Honduras did not disturb these operations of 
 the United Fruit Company, because, as already related, 
 it did not believe that they would prejudice its 
 sovereignty to the region, and because since 1894 she 
 had protested in diplomatic notes addressed to Guate- 
 mala that she considered as indisputably hers the ter- 
 ritory on the eastern bank of the IMotagua River from 
 the mouth of the Managua River. 
 
 VII. 
 
 IN RECOMMENDING A COMPROMISE BOUNDARY THE 
 HONORABLE MEDIATOR SHOULD SO FAR AS POSSIBLE 
 RESPECT THE LINE OF UTI POSSIDETIS OF 1821; AND 
 INSOFAR AS HE SHOULD DEEM IT EXPEDIENT TO 
 DEPART FROM THIS LINE, HE SHOULD DISREGARD ALL 
 PRESENT-DAY OCCUPATIONS VERIFIED TORTIOUSLY 
 OR SINCE THE DISPUTE OVER THE TERRITORY AROSE, 
 ALWAYS MAKING PROVISION FOR RECIPROCAL EQUI- 
 TABLE COMPENSATIONS. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras have hereinabove had occa- 
 sion to refer to the insistence of the Guatemalan 
 Representative and of his Counsel that the Honorable 
 Mediator make his recommendations on the basis of 
 the strict uti possidetis juris of 1821 ; and to show that 
 this step is logically necessary in order that he may 
 with justice to both parties, in recommending a com- 
 promise line, make proper use of his discretion as a 
 Mediator in applying the principle of equitable com- 
 
52 
 
 pensations, which their Representatives have conferred 
 upon him in pursuance of article VII of the 1914 
 treaty (point II above). 
 
 It is now proposed to discuss the actual problem 
 of the Honorable Mediator in recommending a definite 
 compromise frontier, doing so in the light of the prin- 
 ciples of international law which are applicable and 
 of the topography and politico-economic conditions of 
 the disputed region as developed hereinabove. 
 
 At the outset Counsel for Honduras desire to point 
 out that the deductions made by Mr. Anderson from 
 his quotation of the boundary recitals contained in the 
 Honduranean Constitution of 1839 and from his cita- 
 tions of like provisions in the subsequent Constitutions 
 of Honduras, by no means dispose of the Honduranean 
 claim to the territory west of the Motagua River, upon 
 the principle of the ufi possidetis juris of 1821. If the 
 coast region between the Alcaldia Mayor of Verapaz, 
 Golfo Dulce and Belize was unorganized territory in the 
 closing years of the colonial epoch under the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Intendente of Honduras (see the evidence 
 collected in point VII of their Brief), then the most 
 that these provisions of the Honduranean Constitutions 
 could be taken to waive, would be the claim of Hon- 
 duras to the coast region west of Golfo Dulce (or Lake 
 Izabal) and as far as the frontier with British Hon- 
 duras. The recital in the early Honduranean Consti- 
 tutions that the Republic was bounded ''on the west by 
 Guatemala" would still hold true. Honduras has, in 
 this Mediation, offered evidence from Guatemalan 
 
53 
 
 sources that as late as 1863 Honduras authorities were 
 governing four villages near Lake Izabal (H. Note of 
 August 27, 1918, Mediation Record, vol. I, pp. 226- 
 227). If this declaration in the early Honduranean 
 Constitutions, in Mr. Anderson's words, ''finally and 
 conclusively disposes of any claim on the part of Hon- 
 duras to jurisdiction as far as Belize", like weight 
 must be given to the declaration in the Constitutions 
 and enabling laws of Guatemala as disposing of any 
 claim by Guatemala to the region east of the Motagua 
 River (see Brief for Honduras, Mediation Record, vol. 
 n, pp. 411-413). 
 
 In their Brief for Honduras Counsel have referred 
 to the rules of international law regarding the non- 
 prescription of litigious territory and the preservation 
 therein of the status quo ante pending settlement of the 
 dispute; and they have shown, in the light of the 
 boundary treaties of 1845, 1895 and 1914 that the 
 frontier region between the two countries has mean- 
 while been clearly in litigation (Mediation Record, vol; 
 II, p. 417). 
 
 Strictly speaking, the rules of international law 
 regarding the acquisition of title to territory by pre- 
 scriptive occupation have no application to the Amer- 
 ican continents. Here there is no territory which may 
 be regarded as res mdlius and therefore open to pre- 
 scription through adverse possession running over a 
 term of years; and therefore the principle which has 
 been elaborated by European publicists for the partition 
 of Africa and parts of Asia and Oceania, can properly 
 
54 
 
 have no application. The point has been cogently 
 expressed by Don Alejandro Alvarez, Professor of 
 Law in the University of Chile {Revue Gen. de Droit 
 Intern. Public, vol. X, pp. 652-653) : 
 
 "The difliculties between European States 
 concerning their colonial possessions relate, in 
 the majority of cases, to territories which con- 
 stitute res nnllius, with reference to which occu- 
 pation is not only permitted, but even confers 
 rights of which it is necessary to take account. 
 The titles of these States for the delimitation of 
 the frontiers of their possessions, of their zones 
 of protectorate or of their hinterland, derive in 
 effect from occupation, which is a purely 
 material fact, and not from an anterior title. 
 They therefore themselves create their titles, and 
 thus, properly speaking, there should be no ques- 
 tion of litigious zones by virtue of titles pro- 
 duced by two or more States, as this occurs in 
 America. From this it results that the conflicts 
 between these nations relative to the occupations 
 of territory, however acute they may be, are 
 settled by conventions. And these conventions, 
 the number of which is great, fix the frontier in 
 a precise fashion; because these States, if they 
 have to make the delimitation of unexplored 
 territories, realize it by means of an ideal line 
 determined according to the latitude and longi- 
 tude. Nothing of this sort takes place in 
 America. We have said elsewhere {Diplomatic 
 History of the American Republics and the Con- 
 ference of Mexico, pp. 14 and 28) that, accord- 
 ing to the Monroe Doctrine, tacitly accepted by 
 
55 
 
 the Latin- American States, one should consider 
 the American continent as constituting a unity, 
 belonging entirely to the States actually existing 
 in America ; whence it follows that there should 
 be no question there of vacant territories: all, 
 even those which are still unexplored, must be 
 reputed as occupied and to belong to one 
 sovereign and independent State. One, there- 
 fore, cannot speak in America of the acquisition 
 of territories by occupation, much less of a pro- 
 tectorate or hinterland." 
 
 Alvarez then goes on to say that the American 
 states are almost never in accord as to the extent of 
 their domains, that each, in order to pretend against 
 the other to the possessions of vast lands which it 
 occupies or which are unoccupied, relies upon the uti 
 possidetis of the colonial "epoch or upon a boundary 
 treaty, made generally without an exact knowledge of 
 the territory claimed. It is thus at the present day 
 that, on the subject of disputed territories, arise in 
 America the questions, first, of ascertaining which of 
 the two States in litigation is the exclusive sovereign 
 of the litigious portion ; and second, of determining the 
 respective rights and duties of the States in the litigious 
 zone during the pendency of the dispute (Ibid, p. 653). 
 He then proceeds to define these rights and duties, 
 postulating three possible situations: (1) Neither of 
 the States is in possession of the disputed territory, at 
 least not in a sufficient fashion; (2) both States are in 
 possession; and (3) one of the States is in possession. 
 
56 
 
 In the first situation Ah-arcz applies the following 
 rule {Ibid, 655-656): 
 
 "The rule which is imposed in this first 
 hypothesis, is that the States should abstain 
 reciprocally from all acts of sovereignty, even 
 necessary acts, unless the exercise of these acts 
 by one of them does not injure the interests of 
 the other. The reason is simple. To permit 
 one of the two States to exercise on the con- 
 tested domain an act of sovereignty, would be 
 to ignore the pretensions of the other State to 
 this domain; would be to pre-judge the solu- 
 tion of the litigation in favor of the first, by 
 placing the second State in a situation of in- 
 feriority as regards the territory; would be, in 
 fine, to tolerate on the part of one State with 
 regard to the other a veritable provocation. 
 
 ''But, as we have said, an exception should 
 be made to this rule for the necessary acts of 
 sovereignty which, by their nature, are not 
 susceptible of injuring the rights of the other 
 State. And this exception justifies itself: such 
 a necessary act of sovereignty could not be a 
 motive for complaint for this other State, be- 
 cause an act of this sort is as well in its interest 
 as in that of the State which exercises it, and 
 the act does not place it in a condition of in- 
 feriority. 
 
 "Let us apply this double principle. It will 
 follow therefrom, first, that each one of the 
 States should abstain from occupying in any 
 manner the disputed territory, from granting 
 concessions therein, from founding cities, from 
 raising fortresses, upon penalty of the annul- 
 
57 
 
 ment of the concessions or the demolition of the 
 works if the other State demands it. In effect, 
 despite their utility, these are not acts of 
 sovereignty which it is lawful to accomplish. 
 
 "But in the second place and inversely, it is 
 permissible for a State to exercise the police 
 power, to see to the maintenance of order and 
 of hygiene in the litigious zone . . ." 
 
 In the present case, this first situation discussed by 
 Alvarez does not exist, since all of the region in dis- 
 pute has been in the possession of one or other of the 
 parties. 
 
 In the second hypothesis — where both disputant 
 States are in possession — Alvarez states the rule to be : 
 
 "In this hypothesis, when each one of the 
 two States has in good faith made occupations 
 of territory which in the sequel give rise to diffi- 
 culties, the one and the other should respect the 
 acts of sovereignty respectively accomplished 
 upon the litigious territory before the birth of 
 the litigation. The reason is that here we have 
 a case of a possession in good faith which it 
 was not possible to alter. But, once the conflict 
 has been declared, each should abstain from new 
 acts of sovereignty in the contested zone, as 
 in the first case which we have indicated. In 
 consequence, if cities have been founded, or 
 works effected upon the territory by one of the 
 States before the litigation, they should be main- 
 tained, without right on the part of the other 
 State to intervene in the administration of these 
 cities or to demand the demolition of these 
 works." 
 
58 
 
 In the present case, this second situation discussed 
 by Alvarez applies to the region between the Motagua 
 River and Lake Izabal. The coast along the Gulf of 
 Amatique and the territory in the interior to the north 
 of Lake Izabal passed into the possession of Guatemala, 
 in the years immediately following Independence, in cir- 
 cumstances as to which it has been impossible to pro- 
 duce evidence. It was only in very recent years that 
 Guatemala constructed in this region Puerto Barrios 
 and the appurtenant Railway. It has already been 
 noted hereinabove that Honduras exercised jurisdic- 
 tion over the region near Lake Izabal until her authori- 
 ties were removed in 1863 by the military forces of 
 Guatemala. 
 
 In the third hypothesis — where one of the disputant 
 States is in possession — Alvarez defines the rule as 
 f ollow' s : 
 
 "In this case it is the State in possession of 
 the territory, become litigious, which should 
 there exercise the entire sovereignty, to the 
 exclusion of the claimant State. The former, 
 in effect, already exercises the sovereignty: to 
 admit that the mere arising of the litigation 
 could embarrass its action, would be to place 
 it in an unfavorable condition by pre-judging in 
 some degree the solution in favor of the claim- 
 ant State. If the State in possession should not 
 continue to exercise its sovereignty, the inter- 
 national situation of the populations of the liti- 
 gious territory w^ould moreover be quite 
 abnormal. All that the claimant State can and 
 ought to exact in this hypothesis, is that the 
 
59 
 
 other State should not accomplish any act of 
 a nature to injure its rights . . . 
 
 "There is another question that, in order to 
 be complete, we must yet consider. This is that 
 of the rights which can appertain to a State 
 which has founded cities or constructed works 
 upon the territory which, through the arbitral 
 award, is found to be returned to the other liti- 
 gant State. In this question as in the preceding, 
 it is only possible to construct a theory by hav- 
 ing recourse to the principles of international 
 law. 
 
 "One could not say here that the territory 
 is annexed to one of the States, because the 
 award has had no other effect than to decide 
 to which of the two it belonged. \\^hence it 
 must be admitted that the works have been 
 effected without right by the State which has 
 lost. But ought not this State to have the right 
 to a certain compensation for the improvements 
 with which it has endowed the litigious terri- 
 tory. Apart from every question of the nation- 
 ality of the inhabitants, the difficulty does not 
 cease to be delicate and it does not seem ever to 
 have been studied by the authors of the law of 
 nations. It is, in our opinion, impossible to 
 apply to this difficulty the theory of the improve- 
 ments made by a possessor of good faith, or that 
 of the quasi-contract of enrichment without 
 cause, because these are theories of pure civil 
 law. Here is how, according to us, the difficulty 
 should be resolved. If the arbitrator has dis- 
 cretionary powers {le pouvoir d'amiahle com- 
 positeur), he should, in the award itself where- 
 
60 
 
 by he transmits the territory to one of the States, 
 accord to the other an indemnity equivalent to 
 the expenses incurred by him, which indemnity 
 moreover may be settled in money or by the adju- 
 dication of a portion of the territory itself . . ." 
 
 This third situation applies in the present instance 
 to the region which lies to the south and east of the 
 Motagua River. Honduras possessed the region from 
 colonial times and continued to occupy it exclusively 
 for many years after the treaty of 1845. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras feel that they are justified 
 in quoting extensively from the monograph of Prof. 
 Alvarez, because it contains the most complete exposi- 
 tion of the rules of international law, known to them, 
 which are applicable to the present mediation. The 
 rules thus formulated have received the approval of 
 European publicists (e. g., Moulin, *%' Affaire du 
 Territoire d'Acre", Revue de Droit Intern. Public, vol. 
 XI, pp. 181, 184). Moreover, they obviously have a 
 very direct bearing upon the solution of the problem of 
 the Honorable Mediator in the present case. Thus 
 they indicate that to the extent that either Guatemala 
 or Honduras has been in undisputed possession of any 
 portion of the region since a period antedating the dis- 
 pute, such possession should be recognized by an arbi- 
 trator enjoying discretionary powers — this being the 
 situation of the present Mediator by express assent of 
 counsel for Guatemala. They ' further indicate that 
 Guatemala, to the extent that she has forcibly occu- 
 pied, or granted concessions for the exploitation of, 
 
61 
 
 any portion of the disputed region not in her exclusive 
 possession from a date anterior to the arising of the 
 dispute, has attempted to pre-judge the solution of the 
 case and should not be permitted to profit by the act. 
 Thus the Guatemalan authorities must vacate Las Que- 
 bradas; and the United Fruit Company and other con- 
 cessionaires as to their concessions acquired over this 
 region from Guatemala, as well as Guatemalan citi- 
 zens or others who have squatted upon lands therein, 
 must, if they are to be permitted to remain, recognize 
 the sovereignty of Honduras. Furthermore, Guate- 
 mala will not, upon surrender of its claim to the region, 
 be entitled to any money indemnity, because it has 
 been put to no expense in connection with these private 
 enterprises, to say nothing of the fact that the occu- 
 pation here under discussion was countenanced by 
 Guatemala, during the time when Honduras had 
 peaceful and acknowledged exclusive possession of this 
 territory which only subsequently became litigious. 
 
 It is appropriate here to remind the Honorable 
 Mediator, that the treaty of 1914, by its articles VI 
 and VII, expressly adopted these principles of inter- 
 national law, for application to the settlement of the 
 present dispute. 
 
 In the older literature, and doubly valuable by 
 reason of the fact that they were formulated for the 
 demarcation of the frontier under dispute in the present 
 mediation and that they were prepared on behalf of 
 Guatemala, exist the Instructions of Marure and 
 Larreynaga. It is not necessary to quote their Instruc- 
 
62 
 
 tions for the section of the frontier between the com- 
 mon boundary of the two parties with El Salvador. 
 That section has been actually delimited by the Mixed 
 Boundary Commission working in 1908-1910 and their 
 work was approved by Article XVI of the 1914 
 treaty, — the criticism of Dr. Toledo Herrarte to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. On the remaining sections 
 of the frontier, the Honorable Mediator may profitably 
 consult the following significant remarks of these 
 lustntctioiis (Mediation Record, vol. I, pp. 249-250) : 
 
 "The boundaries of the bishopric of Hon- 
 duras, and those of any other, are well known, 
 as every town, valley, hamlet, estate and farm 
 knows w^here it must go for the administration 
 of the sacraments, for its marriages, baptisms, 
 interments, attendance at church, tithes, first 
 fruits and other religious obligations, and know- 
 ing this one knows the political boundaries, 
 which are the same as the ecclesiastical. The 
 only ones respecting which there might be a 
 doubt are the places in between and unpopu- 
 lated, which might lie between two bishoprics, 
 but Law 3, T. 7, L. 1 of the Indies, decides the 
 question. It provides that dioceses shall have 
 a territory with a radius of 15 leagues, and 
 that if any should lie between them it should 
 be divided in half. . . . 
 
 "This rule of dividing in the middle unculti- 
 vated and unpopulated lands has its exceptions, 
 as have all general rules. One exception is that 
 if the residents are agreed in recognizing a 
 specified boundary, that shall be respected as the 
 true one and not a new one, because the ancient 
 
63 
 
 one is always the best, because it is established 
 by time, in which case, although such boundary 
 should not fall in the exact center of the terri- 
 tory to be divided, it is nevertheless to be pre- 
 ferred. The agreement of the residents, it is 
 understood, is that of past generations, tacit or 
 express, or by free acts occurring once or re- 
 peated, proved by science, by ancient books, 
 writings which have not been litigated, and even 
 by poets. The Greeks and their neighbors used 
 to prove their boundaries by Homer. Tradi- 
 tion (fama) is good proof, as decided in ch. 13 
 of the Decretales, Title 'De probatio', ex- 
 plained by its commentator Manuel Gonzales. 
 In this matter reasoning is admitted in evidence, 
 which thing is not admissible in other judicial 
 suits. Another exception is where a permanent 
 river lies in between, or a mountain range, 
 hills or ravines, which are the best natural 
 boundaries, which none can question, change, or 
 remove, and which seem to have been fixed by 
 Nature, and when there are such even though 
 they are not in the very middle, they should be 
 selected even though one of the parties should 
 lose some territory, because it is justly permitted 
 in this case to the surveyors and experts to give 
 and take from one or the other of the parties." 
 
 Further along Marure and Larreynaga recommend 
 {Ihid, pp. 251-252): 
 
 "There oral information will be taken of the 
 most reputable residents that should be found, 
 as to which is the boundary between the two 
 States, known and reputed as such, and they 
 
64 
 
 shall be asked where did they receive the admin- 
 istration of the sacraments and of justice, be- 
 cause these two points must establish the rule, 
 and in case they vary they shall state cases and 
 facts. If they should agree, and also the two 
 commissioners, that boundary will be considered 
 as fixed. This shall be understood in the case 
 that residents of places on both sides of the 
 frontier shall have been examined, or if that 
 should not be possible, when the commissioners 
 shall have arrived at a decision as to what is 
 the truth. If the boundary reputed to be such 
 should be a range of mountains, hills or hillock 
 of a hill or highland, height or some large prom- 
 inent river, or a deep stream or ravine, they shall 
 be selected preferably even though they do not 
 run in the very center. But if it should be level 
 land in which there are none of these monu- 
 ments, there shall be taken the middle distance 
 between the two border towns, one from each 
 State . . . The important thing is to fix 
 and set out well and most precisely the first 
 monument, because upon it will depend in great 
 part the other ones and nearly all of the opera- 
 tions to such an extent that with the first line 
 at times one can ascertain the series of other 
 lines. One line determines the others, say Gre- 
 gorio Lopez (GL 8, L. 10, Tit. 15, p. 6). So 
 that the first point having been fixed at one end 
 and knowing as it is known that the other end 
 is the mouth of the Motagua, a straight line 
 could be drawn which would form the entire 
 boundary in case the intervening points should 
 not be known. The investigation having been 
 
65 
 
 made as previously stated, a record of it shall 
 be made by writing it in a book which shall be 
 carried for that purpose, wherein there shall be 
 noted from day to day the progress that may be 
 made in the manner of a legal proceeding, as 
 was done by the ecclesiastical visitors as bishops, 
 and intendentes magistrates in the visits which 
 they used to make; and all the more should the 
 commissioners do so now, because this operation 
 is to decide many doubts which in the future, 
 one or two hundred or more years from now, 
 when the present and succeeding generation 
 shall have passed away, will rise upon the ruins 
 of time, which swallows up everything. Hon- 
 duras, perhaps, in days to come, will grow so 
 much that it will no longer fit within its boun- 
 daries, and Guatemala may want to increase its 
 present boundaries. 
 
 "In the above manner you shall continue 
 successively along the frontier line between 
 State and State, seeking on one side and the 
 other either a village or a hamlet or an estate 
 marking the division. A sketch or draft of a 
 plan shall be prepared wherein there shall be 
 noted daily the observations in order to make 
 the final copy subsequently . . ." 
 
 In this aspect of his labors, the Honorable Media- 
 tor also has the valuable data and recommendations 
 provided by the Report of the Economic Survey, with 
 which Honduras is in accord, subject to the qualifica- 
 tions herein expressed. 
 
66 
 
 VIII. 
 
 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS TO BE TAKEN INTO AC- 
 COUNT BY THE HONORABLE MEDIATOR IN HIS RECOM- 
 MENDATION OF A COMPROMISE LINE. 
 
 In the light of the observations set forth herein- 
 above, Counsel for Honduras, with the approval of her 
 Representative, submit to the Honorable Mediator the 
 following considerations : 
 
 1. It has been the common understanding between 
 Counsel of the parties, as well as between the respective 
 Representatives of the two countries, that this case 
 must be decided according to the iifi possidetis of 1821, 
 de jure and not de facto. It follows that the Honorable 
 Mediator should, according to that rule, ascertain the 
 line which in his judgment must have divided the two 
 countries at the time of their emancipation from the 
 Spanish Crown. Counsel for Honduras entertain the 
 hope that to this end the Mediator will begin by exam- 
 ining the cedillas of 1563 and 1564, and will conclude 
 therefrom that they do not sustain Guatemala's claim 
 to the Ulua River-Fonseca Gulf line; that upon the 
 evidence submitted by Honduras, the ccditla of 1563 
 was repealed by that of 1564, or if not, that it was 
 necessarily derogated by later cedillas of the Spanish 
 Crown produced by Honduras, — at least by those of 
 1791 and 1818, if not by the other legislative acts of the 
 King of Spain; that Honduras upon achieving inde- 
 pendence inherited the jurisdiction of her Governor- 
 Intendente over the unorganized coastal territory east 
 
67 
 
 of Golfo Duke (Lake Izabal) as far as Belize; that 
 Guatemala never for an instant prior to 1821 possessed 
 the region east of the Motagua River and up to Golfo 
 Dulce, as Honduras had been in possession of it; and 
 that the Guatemala occupation up to the Motagua River 
 dates from very recent years. 
 
 2. If the Honorable Mediator should adopt the sys- 
 tem followed by the Mixed Boundary Commission in 
 1908-1910, and that of the Economic Survey in 1919, 
 of dividing the disputed territory into sections or dis- 
 tricts, he should commence by determining as his start- 
 ing point, Cerro Brujo, — the common boundary-point 
 of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, — and Cerro 
 Obscuro as the terminus of the first district. The 
 latter point, with an inappreciable difference, was 
 accepted by the Mixed Commission, as a boundary 
 point between Guatemala and Honduras. Then in 
 order to fix the de jure line connecting these two points, 
 the Mediator should adopt the actual line of possession 
 drawn by the Mixed Commission, which is substantially 
 the same as that followed in the title deeds issued in the 
 two countries. Having thus fixed the de jure line for the 
 first section, if it should prove objectionable as a com- 
 promise line, it could be rectified by finding the most 
 direct line between these two mountain peaks, or else 
 by running it along those streams which should most 
 nearly approximate the legal frontier. 
 
 3. For the second section or district the starting 
 point would be Cerro Obscuro above mentioned, thence 
 
68 
 
 along the Cerro Las Flores to Llano del Jicaro. This 
 point is suggested as the terminus of the second sec- 
 tion as being more definite than the parallel of Copan 
 fixed by the Mixed Boundary Commission as the 
 terminus thereof, and because Cerro Llano Grande 
 indicated by the Economic Survey is in the center of 
 lands surveyed during colonial times as in the Province 
 of Honduras. Besides, Llano del Jicaro is fixed as the 
 dividing line of the two provinces in the Honduranean 
 titles to the lands of Tapesco y Leona and Jutes and in 
 the Guatemalan title to the Ejidos de San Juan Camo- 
 tan, measured respectively in 1752, 1722 and 1743 (Hon- 
 duranean Exhibit, printed vol. HI, pp. 99, 101, 102, 
 111, 200 and 201 ) . There is the further important cir- 
 cumstance that Surveyor Vicente Ruiz Machorro, who 
 measured the first mentioned of these titles had been 
 commissioned a Subdelegate of Lands (Land Commis- 
 sioner) by the colonial authorities of the two Districts 
 of Gracias a Dios (Honduras) and Chiquimula de la 
 Sierra (Guatemala), to measure the border lands of 
 both Districts and furthermore that Llano del Jicaro 
 is a boundary easily identified because it runs in the 
 vicinity of the confluence of Quebrada Caparja and the 
 Copan River, near the place where the latter makes a 
 sharp turn to the east. 
 
 Counsel for Honduras feel certain that the Mediator 
 will find abundant proof that the District of Gracias 
 a Dios, at present composed of the Departments of 
 Ocotopeque, Copan, Santa Barbara and Cortez, be- 
 longed to the Province of Honduras from the time 
 of the Conquest, in conformity with the cedillas of 1563 
 
69 
 
 and 1564 (as construed by Honduras) ; that it continued 
 to belong to Honduras at the time of Independence, 
 according to the evidence submitted; that the Copan 
 Valley formed a part of this province and constituted 
 its boundary with Guatemala, and has belonged to Hon- 
 duras during the same period and since then to the 
 present day, according to the documentary evidence, 
 particularly the judicial evidence {Ibid, pp. 211 to 
 255); that the best means of determining the pre- 
 cise boundaries between Chiquimula de la Sierra and 
 Gracias a Dios, are the title deeds issued respectively 
 in Honduras and Guatemala, where the lands abut 
 on the frontier, principally those antedating 1821, and 
 those subsequent as evidence of continued possession, 
 such title deeds having been issued by the superior 
 authorities of each Province and confirmed either by 
 the King in person or by the Captain General of the 
 Kingdom or by the Royal Audiencia in the King's 
 name, and, after Independence, by the Governments of 
 the States or Republics. 
 
 If the Honorable Mediator should come to this con- 
 clusion, then in order to draw the line connecting these 
 termini of the second section of the de jure line, he 
 could take the boundaries mentioned in the land titles ; 
 but if he should feel that this might give rise to dif- 
 ferences and considerable expense, he could adopt the 
 line of possession traced upon scientific considerations 
 by the Boundary Commission acting by common accord 
 in 1908 and 1910. The result of their labors is clearly 
 set forth in the minutes of their meetings ; and has been 
 marked out on the respective maps submitted by the 
 
70 
 
 parties to this mediation. The Hne of possession fol- 
 lows in general along the line of the title deeds, and 
 where it departs therefrom it is clearly to the detriment 
 of Honduras, because it leaves in Guatemala a part of 
 Sitio del Potrero and the greater portion of Tapezco 
 y Leona, both of which lie legally in Honduras. 
 
 Having declared the above de jure line, there would 
 be a basis for determining compensations, if, as seems 
 probable, the Mediator should consider this line too 
 irregular, and in parts not sufficiently visible to the 
 inhabitants, and should therefore deem it advisable to 
 suggest a compromise line, either following the course 
 of streams or of clearly distinguishable mountains 
 which should approximate the declared line. The maps 
 filed with the Honorable Mediator by the parties pro- 
 vide sufficient data for the purpose. 
 
 4. In order to fix the de jure line for the third 
 section, the Mediator might commence with the end 
 of the preceding section (Llano del Jicaro) ; thence to 
 Cerro Chaguite, recognized as the boundary line in the 
 title deeds to Ejidos de Camotan in Guatemala and 
 Jutes and Chaguites in Honduras; thence to Cerros 
 Barbasco and Tizamarte, recognized as boundaries be- 
 tween Chaguites, Jute and Pexja (the latter in Guate- 
 mala) ; and from this point, which is also the boundary 
 of the Hacienda of Managua, to the junction of the 
 Quebradas of Sururuin and Las Vegas, where the 
 Sitio Pexja terminates. This is the last tract of land 
 measured on this line prior to Independence, Chaguite 
 having been measured in 1736 and Pexja in 1741 (Hon- 
 duranean Exhibits, printed vol. Ill, pp. 202-210). 
 
71 
 
 From said junction the Honorable Mediator has the 
 choice of taking the Sierra Copan to the Motagua 
 River, as mentioned and recommended by Larreynaga 
 and Marure; or of following the boundaries of the 
 Managua Hacienda measured in Honduras in 1885, up 
 to the Managua River, which line Honduras has 
 accepted although more favorable to Guatemala, and 
 thence along said river to the Motagua. 
 
 5. In their Brief (point VH), Counsel for Hon- 
 duras have set forth the grounds on which they based 
 their conviction that the de jure line of 1821 continued 
 thence to Lake Izabal or Golfo Dulce, and from there 
 along its border and outlet to the sea. 
 
 In view, however, of the course of events since In- 
 dependence, and more particularly of the effect of long- 
 continued effective occupation in the adjustment of 
 American boundary disputes (as candidly considered in 
 the present Memorandum), Counsel for Honduras 
 appreciate that in the third section, the Honorable 
 Mediator may feel impelled here to depart from the 
 line de jure, so that Guatemala may obtain sovereignty 
 over the territory covered by its railroad and ports, — 
 always provided that Honduras shall receive equitable 
 compensation. But it is expected by Counsel for Hon- 
 duras, that on the considerations of justice and equity 
 discussed hereinabove, he will recommend the line along 
 the Motagua River to its ancient mouth. Only thus 
 can Honduras utilize the eastern bank on which to 
 prolong its railroad line to the Copan Valley and thus 
 bring about the development of her territory. 
 
72 
 
 6. For further data as to the detailed meander of 
 the Hne dc jure, the Honorable Mediator is referred to 
 the final memorandum of the Honduranean Represen- 
 tative (Note of Aug. 27, 1918, Mediation Record, vol. 
 I, pp. 223-227). 
 
 7. In conclusion, Counsel for Honduras deem it 
 advisable to draw the attention of the Honorable 
 Mediator to the following practical considerations : 
 
 (a) In order that the joint use of the Motagua 
 River to the sea may be harmoniously enjoyed, the two 
 countries should under his auspices enter into a special 
 protocol regulating the use of the river for customs, 
 police and navigation and of its waters for agricultural, 
 industrial and municipal purposes, following the ex- 
 perience acquired in connection with other international 
 rivers (supra, p. 22). 
 
 To the extent that the Honorable Mediator should 
 recommend the Alanagua or Copan Rivers, the regula- 
 tion of these streams should also be provided in the 
 special protocol. 
 
 In addition, if the Mediator should recommend the 
 old mouth of the Motagua, — as urged by Counsel on 
 the established principles of international law (Brief 
 for Honduras, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 464- 
 465), — this protocol should make provision for the 
 execution, at the joint expense of the parties, of the 
 works necessary to restore the waters of the river to 
 its old bed. 
 
 (b) In order that Guatemala may have the exclu- 
 sive control of the Interoceanic Railroad, which, cross- 
 
73 
 
 ing the Managua River, penetrates Honduras as far 
 as Puente de los Amates, it is suggested to the Honor- 
 able Mediator that a protective zone of one kilometer, 
 west of and and parallel to said railroad, up to one kilo- 
 meter below the bridge, may be granted to Guatemala. 
 
 (c) The compensation which Honduras should 
 receive for the territory thus surrendered by it on the 
 western side of the Motagua River and along the Man- 
 agua River, in order to provide a protective zone for the 
 Interoceanic Railroad, could be granted in all three 
 sections. This will facilitate the selection of nat- 
 ural, stable and easily discernible boundaries. If com- 
 plete compensation could not be made in lands, the Hon- 
 orable Mediator should devise other equitable forms of 
 compensation, to make up for the difference in the area 
 and the quality of the lands allotted respectively to the 
 parties. 
 
 {d) One item of the compensation which the Hon- 
 orable Mediator could grant to Honduras would be the 
 territory comprised between the Managua and Pexja 
 Rivers, in this case extending the protective zone of the 
 Interoceanic Railway to the latter river. The boundary 
 could then continue along the Pexja River up to the 
 junction of the Quebradas Sururuin and Las A'egas, 
 which form two of the head-waters of the Pexja and 
 also an old recognized boundary, as stated hereinabove 
 with reference to the third section. 
 
 (e) In order the better to determine the proper 
 reciprocal compensations, it would seem advisable, once 
 the line de jure from Cerro Brujo to the sea is de- 
 
74 
 
 dared, to trace the compromise line, beginning at the 
 sea and proceeding then inland. 
 
 (/■') If the recommendations of the Honorable 
 Mediator are accepted by the two Governments, stipu- 
 lations of course must be inserted in the resultant con- 
 vention for the actual demarcation of the boundary- 
 recommended. On account of the great expense which 
 would be entailed in following either of the programs 
 alternatively suggested by the Economic Survey for 
 the demarcation of the frontier {Report, nos. 146-151), 
 Counsel for Honduras believe that it would be suffi- 
 cient that the work of demarcation be effected by not 
 more than four engineers, two named by each of the 
 two Governments, these engineers to work under the 
 supervision of an engineer appointed by the Honorable 
 Mediator, his appointee to be given authority to make 
 final decision in the field of any differences which 
 should arise between the engineers of Guatemala and 
 Honduras. It would tend to celerity in the demarca- 
 tion if the American engineer were authorized by the 
 Convention thus to preside over the labors of the new 
 Boundary Commission. 
 
 New York, January 28, 1920. 
 
 Root, Clark, Buckner and Howland, 
 
 Attorneys for the Republic of 
 Honduras. 
 Emory R. Buckner, 
 Edward Schuster, 
 Augustine P. Barranco, 
 
 Counsel. 
 
75 
 
 HONDURANEAN EXHIBIT XXVI 
 (Filed with Mediator, Nov. 26, 1919.) 
 
 (TRANSLATION) 
 
 To THE Superior Board of the Royai, Treasury of 
 G0ATEMAI.A. 
 
 CEDULA 
 
 approving the incorporation in the 
 Intendencia of Comayagua which 
 [said Superior Board] ordered, 
 of the Alcaldia Mayor of Teguci- 
 galpa and all the Territory of its 
 Bishopric, except the Port and On July 24, 1791 
 Military Post (Plaza) of Omoa, 
 and that the Treasury Branch 
 should remain subject to the 
 Superintendency General for the 
 reason stated. De Officio 
 
 The King to the President and Ministers of the 
 Superior Board of the Royal Treasury of the King- 
 dom and City of Goatemala. By letter of April 2, 1788. 
 you gave account with certified copy of the appeal which 
 Don Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada, being Governor- 
 Intendente of Comayagua, made to your Superior Gov- 
 ernment, setting forth that through what is provided 
 in articles 8 and 9 of the Royal Ordinance of Inten- 
 dentes to the effect that the several officials of each 
 Province should be considered Subdelegate Vice- 
 Patrons of the Principal official, and that after its pub- 
 lication the Corregimientos and Alcaldias Mayores 
 
76 
 
 should be suppressed as they should become vacant, it 
 appeared to him that in this number should be compre- 
 hended the Alcaldia Mayor of Tegucigalpa, whose 
 Province was subordinate to that of his command, and 
 that it was so united with his Province as well in Eccle- 
 siastical matters as in the collection of Tribute, pay- 
 ment of salaries and other matters relating to the Royal 
 Treasury, that the Royal intentions detailed in the said 
 Royal Ordinance could not be entirely obeyed, if all 
 were not subject to the Order of the Intendencia, and 
 that for the same reason he considered that the occa- 
 sion had arrived of reuniting also with the Intendencia 
 the District of San Pedro de Sula, which by special 
 order of the late President-Governor of your Kingdom, 
 Don Matias de Galvez, was added to the Commandancy 
 of Omoa, but with the proviso that this should only be 
 for the time that the war should endure ; since although 
 the war had ended, he did not represent it [the District 
 of San Pedro de Sula], believing that said Command- 
 ant did so in order to have said District more in view, 
 at the present day he was forced to request that its 
 reunion be considered as indispensable for the collec- 
 tion of Tribute in accordance with the method estab- 
 lished by said Ordinance, declaring also whether the 
 Treasuries of Omoa should be considered subject to 
 the Intendencia as established in the District of the 
 Province, in order with this knowledge to make the 
 distribution of the towns and Valleys which should pay 
 tribute into the said Treasuries, and into those of Coma- 
 yagua, or whether all should go to these Treasuries. 
 
77 
 
 That the docket having been brought to your 
 Superior Board with the docket relative to the sup- 
 pression of the Corregimientos of Sitiava, Nicoya and 
 Matagalpa, at the meeting held on January 9 of said 
 year 1788 you ordered the incorporation in the In- 
 tendencia of Comayagua of the said Alcaldia of Teguci- 
 galpa with all the Territory of its Bishopric, with the 
 exception only of the military post (plaza) and port 
 of San Fernando de Omoa, where its Political and 
 Military Governor should remain as it had up to then, 
 the Treasury Department continuing subject to the 
 Superintendency General and separated from the Prov- 
 ince of Comayagua, in consideration of the fact that 
 said military post (plaza) and Government had always 
 corresponded to the Superior Government of the King- 
 dom and of the fact that its ties with Golfo-dulce, Bode- 
 gas Altas and the Royal Customs of your Capital would 
 not suffer its separation from the said Superintendency 
 without leaving exposed to many complications mercan- 
 tile operations and the operations of the Royal Treasury 
 which daily occurred in the said Port, which Order 
 (Providencia) you hoped would merit my Royal 
 approval or that I should be pleased to decide what 
 should be my Royal wish. 
 
 Said order having been considered in my Council of 
 the Indies, with what my Solicitor General (Fiscal) 
 stated as to its meaning and as to what was reported 
 by the Office of the Auditor General, and I having been 
 consulted thereon on May 27 last past, I have resolved 
 to approve (as by this my Royal Cedula I approve) 
 
78 
 
 in all its parts your said order in respect of being in 
 due form, and in conformity with what is provided in 
 article 3 of the Royal Ordinance of Intendentes of New 
 Spain, and of being thus my will, and that note be 
 taken of this Cedula in the said Office of the Auditor 
 General. Done in Madrid, July 24, 1791.— I, the King. 
 -—By mandate of the King, our Lord.— Antonio Ven- 
 tura de Taranco. — Three flourishes. — Note was taken 
 in the Office of the Auditor General of the Indies. 
 Madrid, July 30, 1791.— By reason of the occupation 
 of the Auditor General, Don Lorenzo de Usoz. — ( A 
 flourish). 
 
 A copy in conformity with the original existing in 
 this General Archive of the Indies, in Shelf 100, Box 2, 
 Bundle 9. 
 
 Seville, Septem.ber 19, 1919. 
 Approved.— P. Torres Lanzas, Chief.— V. Llorens, 
 Secretary. — A seal number A. 9344919. 
 
79 
 
 REPLY BY DR. MARY W. WILLIAMS TO REMARKS 
 MADE BY COUNSEL FOR GUATEMALA IN HIS 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE ECONOMIC SURVEY 
 REPORT, OF DECEMBER, 1919, REGARDING 
 CARTOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE SUBMITTED BY 
 . HONDURAS. 
 
 Messrs. Root, Ci.ark, Buckner and HowIvAnd, 
 Attorneys for the Republic of Honduras. 
 
 Emory R. Buckner, Edm^ard Schuster and Augus- 
 tine P. Barranco, of Counsel, 
 
 31 Nassau Street, New York City. 
 
 Dear Sirs : 
 
 The Counsel for the Guatemalan Special Mission, 
 in his Memorandum of December, 1919, relating to 
 the Economic Survey Report, makes certain statements 
 intended to discount the evidential value of my report, 
 dated September 15, 1918, upon the Cartographical 
 and Geographical Data bearing upon the Hondura- 
 nean-Guatemalan Boundary Question. In consequence, 
 I have prepared the following memorandum by way 
 of reply, and hereby submit it for your consideration 
 and the consideration of the Honorable Mediator. 
 
 MEMORANDUM. 
 
 After presenting arguments for a mountain rather 
 than a river boundary between Honduras and Guate- 
 mala, the Counsel for the Guatemalan Special Mission, 
 in his Memorandum of December, 1919, on the Econo- 
 mic Survey Report, calls attention to certain alleged 
 
80 
 
 and actual topographical omissions and inaccuracies 
 connected with some of the maps filed by Honduras, 
 as well as with the map made by Byrne in 1886. The 
 deficiencies in the maps by no means escaped the atten- 
 tion of the author of the Cartographical and Geo- 
 graphical Report. In some instances they were spe- 
 cifically pointed out in the description of a given map, 
 and in all cases they were taken into consideration. 
 
 The explanation of the inadequacy of the maps as 
 a representation of the topography of the southwestern 
 frontier of Honduras is that this section is mountain- 
 ous. It is virtually impossible for a traveller, whether 
 from official or private life, to form a correct mental 
 picture of a whole mountain system after traversing 
 merely a small part of it ; and the broken ranges which 
 in the region in question, run to the north-east, at 
 right angles to the Sierra Madre, as the Continental 
 Divide is called in Central America, tend to make such 
 an undertaking particularly baffling. The mountains, 
 being largely found in the interior of the land, would, 
 furthermore, be studied by only the occasional traveller 
 forced to cross them; and to him they proved an 
 obstacle to progress. 
 
 Rivers, on the other hand, are by their very nature 
 simple and comprehensible; and the streams of Cen- 
 tral America were from the earliest times used as 
 highways by Government agents or residents who 
 wished to go from the coast to the interior. The 
 mouths of the rivers also became very familiar to the 
 mariners who visited the coasts ; and the upper waters 
 
81 
 
 of many of the streams were for long intervals occupied 
 by camps of log-cutters. 
 
 Since European cartographers as a rule secured 
 the data which they used in drawing their maps of 
 Central America from persons who visited the region 
 to be delineated, — there were of course no maps and 
 reports of topographical surveys, with the exception 
 of those of the Hydrographic Office of the British 
 Admiralty published in the thirties of the last cen- 
 tury — it must be very apparent that the drainage sys- 
 tem of Central America has since the earliest times 
 been portrayed by the cartographers with much greater 
 accuracy than have the mountains. Even the most 
 modern maps do not depict the latter with accuracy 
 in detail. Therefore, any early mapmaker, who, in the 
 absence of exact knowledge, showed sufficient scholarly 
 discrimination to omit all trace of mountains in rep- 
 resenting a region, or to insert only those ranges with 
 reference to the location of which he felt reasonably 
 certain, is worthy of the highest respect. 
 
 It was because the writer was aware of the much 
 greater reliability of rivers than mountains as land- 
 marks on the maps that in her Cartographical Report, 
 she stressed the position of the former rather than 
 the latter, with reference to the boundary line. Like- 
 wise, since towns make an individual impress upon 
 the mind of the traveller, who is pretty certain to learn 
 what national flag waves over a town through which 
 he passes, a similar emphasis was given in the descrip- 
 tion of the maps to the position of towns with reference 
 
82 
 
 to the boundary. The following extract will illustrate 
 the author's method : 
 
 "This map indicates Honduras' western 
 boundary by means of a dotted line beginning 
 at Bodegas on Pyrats Lagoon and running to 
 the southwest, giving Cape Three Points, 
 Gracias a Dios, and the whole of the Guanacos 
 River Valley, in which are Tencoa and Chiqui- 
 mula, to Honduras" (Note on Bellin, 1754 (?) 
 Map, Cartographical Report, Mediation Rec- 
 ord, vol. n, p. 504). 
 
 Before turning from the question of mountains 
 and their baffling characteristics, it appears relevant to 
 point out that the Counsel for the Guatemalan Special 
 Mission himself was unable to describe correctly the 
 position of these topographical features even after they 
 had been accurately represented by cartographers. 
 Please note the following {Mem., p. 6) : 
 
 "This mountain range at its northern end 
 begins at a point adjacent to the sea coast a 
 little to the westward of Omoa, and extends in 
 a generally southwesterly direction carrying 
 the names successively of Montahas de Omoa, 
 Sierra del Espiritu Santo, Montanas de la 
 Grita, or Montafias del Gallinero, until it turns 
 directly south under the name of Cordillera del 
 ■ Merendon, and continues in that direction be- 
 yond the Salvador frontier, which crosses it 
 near the point on the map called Pena de 
 Cayahuanca." 
 
83 
 
 The fact of the matter is that the frontier of Salva- 
 dor dooes not even touch the mountains in question; 
 and much less does it cross them. The frontier line 
 of the State runs generally parallel with the Cordillera 
 system, and to the south of it; and coincides for some 
 distance with the valleys of the Sumpul and the Lempa 
 rivers. If the Counsel for Guatemala had noted care- 
 fully the excellent maps made by the engineers of 
 Honduras and Guatemala in connection with the Medi- 
 ation, he would have avoided the error. 
 
 The Counsel for Guatemala has alleged further car- 
 tographical inaccuracy of a political nature {Mem., 
 p. 21). Some of the maps of the late eighteeenth and 
 early nineteenth century show Guatemala as bordering 
 upon Nicaragua at the east, through the omission of the 
 Province of Salvador, and, generally the same maps, 
 fail to give Honduras a frontage on the Gulf of Fon- 
 seca. In various instances, the author of the Carto- 
 graphical Report has called attention to this same in- 
 accuracy, and admits that the map in question is weak- 
 ened as evidence because of it. However, she by no 
 means meant to give the impression that all maps in 
 the collection having the above-described character- 
 istics are inaccurate, which the Counsel for Guate- 
 mala appears to believe {Mem., p. 21). Whether or 
 not such a map is inaccurate depends entirely upon its 
 date. It is probable that the Counsel for Guatemala 
 was not aware of the fact — very important in Central 
 American history — that Salvador did not come into 
 existence as a province, and Honduras did not secure 
 
84 
 
 a frontage on the Pacific, until very late in the eigh- 
 teenth century. According to Dr. Santiago I. Bar- 
 berena, the province of Salvador was inaugurated in 
 1788 (Historia de Bl Salvador, II, 397-398, 437-439) ; 
 and the change in the southern boundary of Honduras 
 was made in or about the same year {Ibid., 397-398, 
 434-435). 
 
 The faults of the map-makers are, therefore, simply 
 due to the fact that the latter were in some instances 
 behind the times, and represented as true what no 
 longer was so. An inspection of the maps listed in 
 the introduction to the Cartographical Report {Media- 
 tion Record, vol. II, pp. 487-489) will make it quite 
 obvious that only a very small fraction of the thirty- 
 three — and not sixteen of them as the Counsel for 
 Guatemala implies — are erroneous as regards the 
 points in c[uestion. 
 
 It should be patent in the light of the above-men- 
 tioned facts that though the evidential value of a few 
 of the maps submitted is discounted as regards the 
 southwestern frontier of Honduras, they may, never- 
 theless, throw light upon the boundary line to the 
 northwest, because this section was better known to 
 travellers than the Pacific Coast region, and here also 
 the political units had been established since the six- 
 teenth century. 
 
 A number of the maps submitted with the Carto- 
 graphical Report show no specific boundary line, but 
 the author of the report indicates the approximate posi- 
 tion that the line would take, — were there one, — by 
 
85 
 
 noting the position of the provincial names, particularly 
 "Honduras". The Counsel for Guatemala infers that 
 the decisions of the writer are arbitrary, and endeavors 
 to prove this by methods that are not compatible with 
 even an elementary knowledge of maps. He not only 
 overlooks such matters as the spacing of letters in the 
 designation of provinces, and the position of the name 
 of one province with relation to that of another, on the 
 maps showing no boundaries, but even fails utterly to 
 take note of what is taught by these details on maps 
 showing specific lines of provincial demarcation. For 
 instance, ignoring the fact that on the Jefferys, 1792, 
 map, the name "Vera Paz" is carefully limited to the 
 region west of the Gulf of Dulce, the Counsel for 
 Guatemala declares that since the "H" of the word 
 "Honduras" is placed to the right, or east, of the Rio 
 Ulua, the more legitimate conclusion left for the author 
 of the Cartographical Report was that Honduras was 
 regarded by the cartographer as extending only to the 
 Ulua, and not to the Dulce as the author of the Report 
 suggests. That this conclusion is inadmissible will be 
 evident to the Honorable Mediator if he will glance at 
 the Alzate, 1767, map which gives Honduras a very 
 clear, broad boundary line, but places the "H" of the 
 word "Honduras" nearly one-third of the length of the 
 province of Honduras to the east of the western line. 
 The Counsel for Guatemala was most unfortunate in 
 selecting the Jefferys, 1792, map. Although this edi- 
 tion of Jefferys is unaccompanied by a text, the Jefferys 
 map of 1799 is accompanied by an extensive geographic 
 
8G 
 
 description, from which a quotation is made in tlie 
 Cartographical Report, reading as follows {Mediation 
 Record, vol. II, p. 509) : 
 
 *'The port of St. Thomas [St. Thomas of 
 Castille, mentioned earlier upon the page], we 
 have just mentioned, is in the large province of 
 Honduras, where begins a new Audience . . . 
 
 The Province of Honduras, the most north- 
 ern of its [Guatemala's] government, compre- 
 hends not only all the south side of the Bay, 
 which has given it its name, but likewise a great 
 part of the coast to the south of Cape Gracias a 
 Dios; this, at least, is the pretension of the 
 Spaniards . . ." [Then follow British 
 claims in the name of the King of the Mosquitos, 
 etc.] 
 
 Since the two Jefferys maps under discussion, are 
 identical, — and were doubtless made from the same 
 plate, — it is apparent from the above quoted passage 
 that the writer erred on the side of conservatism when 
 she stated that the Jefferys map of 1792 indicated that 
 Honduras extended only to the Gulf of Dulce. 
 
 In this connection it is well to note also that the 
 text accompanying the Laet, 1625, map (Cartog. 
 Report, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 496-497) and 
 that of Blaeu, dated 1664-1665 (Ibid., p. 498), support 
 exactly the interpretation of the appertaining maps 
 made by the author of the Report, as regards the ex- 
 tent of Honduras. And a study of the other maps, 
 which show no boundaries and are accompanied by no 
 text, in connection with the author's notes, will make 
 
87 
 
 it quite evident that her interpretations in the latter 
 cases are quite as valid as in the preceding. 
 
 Another criticism made by the Counsel for Guate- 
 mala is that on some of the maps submitted, "Guate- 
 mala is not shown at all." Presumably, the map which 
 is the special offender in this regard is that accompany- 
 ing Bryan Edward's History of the British West 
 Indies, 1793. The photographic reproduction sub- 
 mitted includes the whole map as far as it runs to the 
 left hand ; and this part plainly shows the dotted boun- 
 dary line as starting from the coast between Amatique 
 and the Rio de Guanacos (Motagua) and running 
 south, giving to Honduras that river as well as the 
 Cape of Three Points. The writer fails to see why the 
 fact that Guatemala does not appear upon it should 
 prevent the map from furnishing persuasive evidence 
 regarding the northwestern boundary of Honduras. 
 
 In his comments on the writer's fifth group of maps 
 in her Cartographical Report, the Counsel for Guate- 
 mala has been inaccurate in construing her conclu- 
 sions. The passage alluded to is as follows {Mem., 
 p. 22) : 
 
 "As to the eight maps in the final group, 
 however, with possibly one exception, none of 
 them can fairly be said to support the claim in 
 the report that they give the whole of the 
 Motagua River as the northwestern boundary 
 of Honduras:" 
 
 Thei caption appearing over the group of maps 
 under discussion reads : "Eight maps giving the lower 
 
88 
 
 part of the Motagua River or the whole of it as the 
 Honduras boundary in the northwest" {Mediation 
 Record, vol. II, p. 489). Seven of the maps in the class 
 mentioned give the lower part of the Motagua as the 
 northwestern boundary, and only one gives this river 
 as the boundary for the whole of the way. But it is 
 interesting to note that this last map — which the criti- 
 cism implies is the only one correctly classified — hap- 
 pens to be what is probably the most important map in 
 the whole collection, for it is an official map made to 
 accompany the report of Ramon de Anguiano, Gover- 
 nor of Hondiiras in 180-1 — a date but seventeen years 
 prior to the attainment of Central American inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 Notwithstanding the author's statement in her let- 
 ter prefacing her Cartographical Report, that she pre- 
 pared the Report in a broad spirit of historical 
 research, the Counsel for Guatemala implies also that 
 the requirements of the Honduranean case led her to 
 include in her special classification but seventy-four of 
 the eighty-nine maps described in the main body of her 
 Report; and that similar considerations induced her to 
 describe, discuss, and present reproductions of, but 
 eighty-nine of the hundreds of maps that were exam- 
 ined. The fact that the remaining fifteen maps are 
 frankly described and discussed, should have out- 
 weighed any inference of a desire to withhold informa- 
 tion damaging to Honduras. If the Honorable Medi- 
 ator will glance over the descriptions of the remaining 
 fifteen, he will observe that most of them are of a too 
 
89 
 
 early date to throw any direct light on the boundary 
 question. The reasons for the failure to include the 
 few maps of later date that were omitted from the 
 classification will be made clear upon a perusal of the 
 notes accompanying such maps. 
 
 As for the hundreds of unproduced maps, it is 
 clearly stated in the introduction to the Report that the 
 maps presented are representative of the total number 
 examined. Consideration for the Honorable Medi- 
 ator's time as well as the uselessness of virtual 
 interminable duplication made such limitation desirable. 
 It was precisely this desire to make the collection repre- 
 sentative of all Central American maps that led to the 
 inclusion of those too early to be of value as direct evi- 
 dence to the boundary question, as well as the maps 
 whose evidential value must be discounted because of 
 errors already discussed. Far from selecting only those 
 which were most favorable to Honduras' claims, the 
 writer omitted reproductions of two maps which were 
 particularly strong in this regard because they appeared 
 after the Report had been put in final shape for filing. 
 These two represented types of maps already included 
 in the Report, but had there been any desire to show 
 partiality for Honduras, they would have been sub- 
 stituted for others of a less favorable nature. Fur- 
 thermore, if there exist any maps more seriously 
 unfavorable to Honduras' claims than two or three of 
 those described in the Report, the writer does not know 
 their whereabouts. 
 
 In view of the fact that the Counsel for the Guate- 
 
90 
 
 malan Special Mission laid special stress upon the 
 Byrne, 1886, map, that map should be considered here. 
 In his Memorandum on the Economic Survey Report, 
 is found the following (p. 17) : 
 
 ''From 1886 until 1900 this map stood un- 
 changed, as notice to all the world that the 
 mountain barrier was the western limit of the 
 territorial pretensions of Honduras". 
 
 The Honorable Mediator will doubtless reflect that this 
 map, with equal emphasis, proclaimed to all the world 
 that the Copan and Jupilingo valleys were the posses- 
 sions of Honduras, and that the boundary line of the 
 Republic ran about four leagues to the west of the 
 famous ruins of Copan, just as stated by Colonel Juan 
 Galindo, who examined the ruins in 1835, under a com- 
 mission from the Central American Government 
 (Cartog. Report, Mediation Record, vol. H, p. 522). 
 And it might be added, by the way, that the above- 
 mentioned facts should prevent any surprise that the 
 Economic Survey Commission reported the village of 
 Copan and other neighboring municipalities to be under 
 control of Honduranean officials (Report, No. 129). 
 
 The writer deems it beyond her province to decide 
 whether or not the Byrne map of 1886 is official, as 
 urged by the Counsel for Guatemala (Mem., p. 16). 
 But assuming, merely for the sake of argument, that it 
 received the sanction of the Honduranean Government, 
 the fact still remains that this map comes vastly nearer 
 to coinciding with the extreme claims made by Hon- 
 duras, to a line to the Belize frontier, than do several 
 
91 
 
 Guatemalan maps, whose official character can in no 
 way be doubted, come to coinciding with the extreme 
 Ulua-Fonseca claims. Two of the Guatemalan maps 
 that the writer has in mind may be found in the Map 
 Division of the Library of Congress. The earlier one 
 bears on its face the following legend: "Mapa General 
 de la Republica de Guatemala publicado por Maxmilian 
 Sonnenstern por orden del Gohierno, 1859;" and the 
 later displays an inscription reading thus: "Mapa de la 
 Republica de Guatemala levantado y publicado por 
 orden del Smo. Gobiernopov Herman Au, Ingo., 1876, 
 L. Friedricksen y Cia. en Hamburgo." The boundary 
 lines shown upon these maps are virtually identical, and 
 run from the mouth of the Rio Tinto along the moun- 
 tains approximately as in the Byrne, 1886, map, except 
 that Copan is placed about four leagues to the west of 
 
 the line. 
 
 In fact, so far as the writer is aware, there is not to 
 be found in the whole world a single map indicating 
 Guatemala as extending to the Ulua-Fonseca line; 
 while, as the Cartographical Report, with its illustra- 
 tive reproductions, presented by Honduras, clearly 
 shows, there exist numerous maps of an early date, 
 made by impartial foreign cartographers, which sup- 
 port Honduras' claim to the territory as far as Belize. 
 
 The Counsel for the Guatemalan Special Mission 
 appears to derive comfort from the great diversity of 
 opinion shown by contemporary cartographers with 
 
92 
 
 reference to the Honduranean boundary, and from the 
 fact that the differences in the collection as a whole 
 
 "are so considerable and various that it has been 
 found necessary to separate these maps into at 
 least five different groups, and a more discrimi- 
 nating classification would add several more'' 
 {Mem., p. 21). 
 
 The lack of agreement on the part of contemporary 
 cartographers may be largely explained by the fact that 
 some cartographers were alert and up-to-date and knew 
 well the location of the actual boundary line at a given 
 date, while others tended to copy existing maps which 
 were correct at an earlier time, — a fact already pointed 
 out in another connection. 
 
 As for the general diversity which made it desirable 
 to group the maps into several different classes, ac- 
 cording to the boundaries shown, this involves what is 
 perhaps the most interesting and significant fact dis- 
 closed by a careful study of the collection of maps; for, 
 as the author of the Cartographical Report clearly 
 pointed out in her introduction, such a study shows 
 that 
 
 ''in general, the earlier maps place Honduras' 
 boundary farther west than the later ones — that 
 with the passage of time Honduras' western 
 boundary, from a purely cartographical point of 
 view, has retreated towards the east" {Media- 
 tion Record, vol. II, p. 489). 
 
 The Counsel for Guatemala has not attempted to ex- 
 plain the phenomenon just alluded to — a phenomenon 
 
m 
 
 that would be likely to lead an observer to infer that in 
 the course of the centuries Honduras' original boun- 
 dary line was gradually pushed east by an aggressive 
 neighbor. 
 
 In view of the story suggested by the maps, the 
 inference made by the Counsel for Guatemala, that 
 Honduras has continually encroached upon the terri- 
 tory of her neighbor to the west, becomes singularly 
 unjust. The historical fact is the reverse. Guatemala 
 has, since early colonial times, been the strongest polit- 
 ical unit in Central America, while Honduras has been 
 one of the weakest, largely because of the persistent 
 interference and encroachments of foreign nations.^ 
 Any inference of Honduranean encroachment is unsup- 
 ported by either the historians or the cartographers. 
 If the charges against Honduras were well founded, 
 the collection of maps would show the boundary line as 
 moving in just the opposite direction, — from the Ulua- 
 Fonseca region towards the west. 
 
 The Counsel for the Guatemalan Special Mission 
 states that he has neither examined nor produced any 
 maps on behalf of Guatemala, because "for the pur- 
 pose of this mediation, the legal boundary claimed by 
 Guatemala was conclusively fixed by the Royal Cedulas 
 of 1563 and 1564, and has never since been changed" 
 (Mem., p. 22). 
 
 May the writer be permitted to suggest that the 
 
 *The encroachments that the writer has especially in mind here are 
 those made by the British upon BeHze, the Bay Island, and the Mosquito 
 Shore. Williams, M. W., Anglo-American Isthmian Diplomacy, 1815- 
 1915, pp. 1-66, passim. 
 
94 
 
 absence of maps substantiating Guatemala's claims may 
 have also proved a persuasive deterrent to the produc- 
 tion of such cartographical evidence ? Furthermore, is 
 it not reasonable to assume that if the two royal cedulas 
 above referred to actually possessed the evidential 
 value claimed for them by Guatemala, at least one map 
 would have been drawn by the ancient cartographers 
 in recognition of the change which it is professed that 
 the first cedula created, and the one of the following 
 year confirmed? Surely, if such a radical and perma- 
 nent political transformation had taken place, this fact 
 would not have been unacknowledged by Spanish his- 
 torians and cartographers, though it might conceivably 
 have remained unobserved by foreign scholars. Yet 
 we find that the eminent Spanish historian, Antonio 
 Herrera y Tordesillas, who was royal historiographer 
 of the Indies, in his Descripcion de las Indias Ociden- 
 tales, 1601, and in the original maps made to accom- 
 pany it, not only utterly ignores the alleged Ulua-Fon- 
 seca line but gives Guatemala no Atlantic frontage at 
 all, and indicates that Honduras at the opening of the 
 seventeenth century bordered on Yucatan (see Cartog. 
 Report, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 494-496, and 
 appertaining maps). 
 
 The Counsel for Guatemala, after considering in 
 some detail the collection of maps presented by Hon- 
 duras, concludes by declaring all such maps to be irrele- 
 vant and immaterial and as without evidential value. 
 In so doing he fails to take account of the fact that 
 in most of the boundary settlements that have taken 
 
95 
 
 place in the New World — and even in such important 
 ones as those involving the Maine and New Brunswick 
 and the British Guiana and Venezuela frontiers — un- 
 official maps have played a part, and in some instances 
 a very important part. It may be added that many 
 of the maps used in such settlements, — e. g., the recent 
 Nicaragua-Honduras arbitration before the King of 
 Spain, wherein the underlying treaty was very similar 
 to that in the present Mediation, — were the handi- 
 work of cartographers represented by the collection 
 submitted by Honduras. In a controversy such as the 
 present one, — in which documentary description of the 
 boundary is lacking — a special importance must be 
 attached to what contemporaries thought were the 
 boundaries of Honduras and Guatemala. This being 
 true, the opinions of cartographers of international 
 fame can by no means be ignored; and much less can 
 charts and maps made in Central America itself, or 
 from data which were, beyond question, gathered 
 there. The Alzate, 1767, map, the Anguiano Plan, 
 1804, and the British hydrographic charts all belong 
 to this type (see Cartog. Report, Mediation Record, 
 vol. II, pp. 505-506, 510, 521, 522). 
 
 Another obtrusive circumstance that the Counsel 
 for Guatemala has failed to grapple with and eliminate 
 is the mere fact that so much cartographical matter 
 ■favorable to Honduras exists. Though it is entirely 
 true that some cartographers copied from others, a 
 large number of original maps are, nevertheless, to be 
 found in the collection presented by Honduras. Where 
 
96 
 
 did the idea originate that Honduras' boundary ex- 
 tended very decidedly farther to the west than it is 
 now acknowledged by Guatemala to do? Why should 
 British hydrographers and Spanish officials, who were 
 familiar with the region, be in general agreement in 
 this respect with professional cartographers of various 
 foreign nations, who, presumably, were not? 
 
 Now, it becomes necessary to point out that the 
 Counsel for Guatemala appears to have labored under 
 the erroneous impression that through his criticism of 
 the maps he has also disposed of the evidential value 
 of the author's whole Report. She is confident that 
 she has shown above that the maps, despite the criticism 
 of the Counsel for Guatemala, are still intact as evi- 
 dence on the boundary question. In addition to the 
 cartographical evidence, there yet remains the very 
 important corroborative and supplementary evidence 
 of the geographical and other writings cited and 
 quoted in the Report, which have not been considered 
 by him. This omission might possibly be explained 
 in the case of some of the extracts from ordinary 
 geographies and gazetteers — which show a relation- 
 ship with the maps — by the assumption that the Coun- 
 sel for Guatemala considered that he disposed of such 
 corroborative material in his discussion of the accom- 
 panying maps ; but this suggestion will not explain the 
 failure to consider the independent non-cartographical 
 evidence of very vital importance included in the Carto- 
 graphical and Geographical Report. 
 
 The material in question includes quotations and 
 
97 
 
 citations from the following writings, listed chronologi- 
 cally : 
 
 (1) Carta dirijida al Rey de Bspana, por el 
 Licenciado Dr. Don Diego Garcia de Palacio, Oydor 
 de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala, 1576 (Cartog. 
 Report, Mediation Record, vol. II, p. 493) ; (2) Alcedo, 
 Diccionario-geografico-historico 'de las Indias Occi- 
 dentales America, 1786-1789 (Jhid, p. 511) ; (3) Juar- 
 ros, History of Guatemala, 1809-1818 {Ibid, pp. 514- 
 515); (4) Diccionario GeogrdHco Universal, Barce- 
 lona, 1831-1834 {Ibid, p. 519) ; (5) Letter from Colonel 
 Juan Galindo describing the Ruins of Copan, dated 
 Copan, June 19, 1835 {Ibid, p. 522) ; (6) Stephens, 
 Incidents of Travel in Central America, 1839 {Ibid, 
 pp. 536-540); (7) Instructions of 1844 to the Guate- 
 malan Boundary Commissioner {Mediation Record, 
 vol. I, pp. 248-257) ; (8) Letter from Hise to Buchanan, 
 1848 {Ibid, p. 529) : 
 
 Since Palacio was a judge who travelled about the 
 Audiencia of Guatemala in obedience to express Royal 
 orders, his statements are of the first importance. It 
 will be noted that in 1576, but thirteen years after the 
 cedulas to which Guatemala attaches such great im- 
 portance were issued, Palacio definitely states that 
 Gracias a Dios and Copan are in Honduras. Antonio 
 Alcedo, a native of Spanish America, must also have 
 known whereof he spoke; and yet he believed that 
 Honduras had a right to the territory even as far as 
 the west shore of the Gulf of Dulce. The importance 
 of Juarros' writings as evidence scarcely needs to be 
 
98 
 
 pointed out. As synodal examiner of the Archbishopric 
 of Guatemala, he not only had access to all of the gov- 
 ernmental records, but had occasion to travel through 
 the Audiencia. For the period just preceding independ- 
 ence, Juarros furnishes even more detailed and illumi- 
 nating evidence for the boundary question than Palacio 
 does for the period following the cedulas of 1563 and 
 1564. It will be noted that Juarros includes in Hon- 
 duras virtually all territory to the east of the Motagua 
 River. 
 
 On page 2 of his Summing Up of the Boundary Dis- 
 pute, the Counsel for Guatemala implies that Robus- 
 tiano Vera's Geography, by virtue of its being dedi- 
 cated to Dr. Policarpo Bonilla, — in his capacity of 
 President of Honduras, — is given an official character. 
 If such an inference is sound, the fact that the Diccion- 
 ario Geogrdfico Universal of 1834 is dedicated to the 
 Queen of Spain is of equal importance to the boundary 
 question; and the Honorable Mediator will note with 
 marked interest the significant statement in the Dic- 
 cionario that Honduras, as a province in the Central 
 American Confederation, extended to the Gulf of 
 Dulce. 
 
 The testimony furnished by Colonel Juan Galindo 
 has been mentioned in another connection (see above, 
 p. 90) ; but since it belongs to the class of evidence left 
 out of his discussion by the Counsel for Guatemala, it 
 seems permissible to emphasize it through again point- 
 ing out that Galindo examined the ruins of Copan under 
 a commission from the Government of the Central 
 
99 
 
 American Federation, and that he declared specifically 
 in June, 1835, that they were in Honduras, four leagues 
 to the east of the boundary with Guatemala. 
 
 . The observations made by John Lloyd Stephens, 
 in 1839, while on a special diplomatic mission in Cen- 
 tral America, as agent of the United States Govern- 
 ment, not only corroborate the evidence furnished by 
 Galindo, as regards Honduras' ownership of Copan, 
 but add the valuable information that the Copan River 
 formed the boundary line at one point; and this point, 
 as the study of the question included in the Carto- 
 graphical Report {Mediation Record, vol. H, p. 540) 
 discloses, either virtually coincided with Honduras' 
 "documented line", or lay to the west of it. 
 
 The Instructions prepared in 1844 by the distin- 
 guished Guatemalan publicists, Marure and Larrey- 
 naga, in anticipation of the boundary treaty of 1845, 
 need not be specially considered here. The evidential 
 value of these official Instructions as conclusive upon 
 Guatemala for any boundary farther east than the 
 Motagua River, has been sufficiently discussed and de- 
 fined by the notes filed by the Honduranean Represen- 
 tative and by the Brief submitted by Counsel for Hon- 
 duras. But the writer may be permitted to observe 
 that Marure and Larreynaga were content to argue for 
 the Motagua River as the boundary, not only as a 
 natural frontier furnished by Providence, but as the 
 frontier indicated by the official records extant ; and to 
 remark that they reached this conclusion after an exam- 
 nation and evaluation of the contemporary maps of 
 
100 
 
 Arrowsmith, Brue, Rivera Maestre and the Belgian 
 Colonization Company (Rousseau), which were most 
 favorable to the extreme Guatemalan contention (see 
 their Instnictions, Mediation Record, vol. II, pp. 250- 
 255). 
 
 In 1848, nine years after Stephens visited Copan, 
 Elijah Hise, another diplomatic representative of the 
 United States in Central America, threw valuable light 
 upon the location of the boundary at the northwest. 
 In a letter written to Secretary James Buchanan from 
 "Honduras, Port of Omoa", October 26, 1848, Hise 
 describes the State of Honduras as extending from 
 Cape Gracias a Dios to the Rio Dulce, thus confirming, 
 as regards the latter limit, the evidence contributed in 
 the previous decade by the official Spanish Diccionario, 
 which w^as discussed on page 98 above. 
 
 It does not fall within the limits of a reply to the 
 criticisms offered by the Counsel for Guatemala, on the 
 author's Cartographical and Geographical Report, to 
 comment upon the persuasiveness of his arguments for 
 a mountain boundary as against a river line. But it is 
 pertinent to consider the cartographical, geographical 
 and historical evidence which exists to support the line 
 of the mountains of Omoa, Espirtu Santo, Grita and 
 Gallinero that is urged by the Counsel for Guatemala. 
 
 It may be confidently asserted that there is not a 
 single map or geographical or historical work ante- 
 dating the year of independence of Central America 
 which puts forward this mountain line. All of the 
 geographers or historians, notably Juarros, place the 
 boundary along the Motagua River or farther to the 
 
101 
 
 west. As to the maps, none of them indicates this 
 mountain line as the western frontier of the Province 
 of Honduras; and the most recent official map of the 
 colonial epoch extant — that of Governor Anguiano, 
 dated 1804 — in contradiction, designates the Motagua 
 River. 
 
 Although some maps of the later colonial period and 
 of the early years of the Confederation show moun- 
 tains as marking the boundary along part of the west- 
 ern frontier of Honduras, a careful study of these maps 
 in the light of other evidence of a geographical nature 
 will make it apparent that the mountains represented 
 are not those forming the Gallinero-Grita-Espiritu 
 Santo-Omoa chain, or any part of it. The mountains 
 depicted on the maps in question are quite a different 
 chain. 
 
 To make this fact evident, the writer desires first 
 to call attention to the detailed map made for the use 
 of the Honorable Mediator by the engineers connected 
 with the Honduranean Special Mission. Upon this 
 map, it will be noted, is represented an irregular line 
 composed of ranges of hills and mountains of varying 
 height which extends from Cerro Brujo to Amatique 
 Bay. Its course is as follows: from Cerro Brujo it 
 runs to Cerro Obscuro ; then along the Jupilingo River, 
 in which part of its course it forms the left wall of 
 the Jupilingo valley; next, it crosses the Copan River 
 and proceeds northward to the left of Sesemiles 
 Quebrada (Creek), near the head of which, the Eco- 
 nomic Survey Report certifies (No. 61), there starts a 
 
102 
 
 high sierra which is the divide between the waters of 
 the creek and those of Managua River; the line, here 
 formed by the high sierra referred to, keeps to the left 
 of the IManagua River and proceeds to the northwest; 
 crosses the Motagua a little above the mouth of the 
 Managua : and continues along the left bank of the 
 Motagua under the name of Mico Mountains. 
 
 With the above-described mountain line in mind, 
 it is now desirable to examine certain portions of the 
 Instructions drawn up in 1884 by ^Marure and Larrey- 
 naga for the guidance of the Guatemalan boundary 
 commissioner. It will be noted that the point of de- 
 parture for the surveyors, as suggested by the Instruc- 
 tions in question, was to be Tescatempa, or some near-by 
 point (Mediation Record, vol. I, p. 252). By proceed- 
 ing along the frontier as directed, the commissioners 
 would eventually arrive at the valley of Copan, which, 
 the Instructions state on the authority of Juarros, is 
 "the divisor between Guatemala and Honduras", sep- 
 arating the latter from the department of Chiquimula 
 {Ibid., pp. 250, 252). Farther on, the ]\Iotagua is the 
 dividing line between the two states (Ibid., pp. 250, 
 253). 
 
 Since Tescatempa, as the Rivera, 1832, maps show, 
 is in the neighborhood of Cerro Brujo, three points — 
 Tescatempa, Copan and the Motagua, — closely related 
 to the above-described mountain line, — are frankly ac- 
 knowledged by Marure and Larreynaga to form parts 
 of the boundary line. This fact would, of itself, do 
 much towards identifying the mountains shown as 
 
103 
 
 forming parts of the boundarv' lines on some of the 
 maps of the first third of the last centurv\ But the In- 
 structions to the Guatemalan commissioners make a 
 further and more important contribution in this regard. 
 They state (Ibid., p. 253) : 
 
 "xAJong Copan there passes a cordillera, 
 which commences to the south of Mita, and 
 which is commonly called ^lerendon,- and inter- 
 sects the ^Motagua, and extends to the east of the 
 port of St. Thomas, to enter Cape Three Points 
 called Punta de Castilla or ^lanavique. The di- 
 viding line between Honduras and Chiquimula 
 strikes this mountain before it (the mountain) 
 intersects the Motagua, the line passing through 
 the north of the village or hamlet of Chucuyales,^ 
 and it is a point which should be examined and 
 marked out very scrupulously. This mountain, 
 which the English and French maps call 'The 
 Copan', and which is not marked continuously 
 in that of Rivera, formes a landmark toward Sen- 
 senti, but not in the rest of its course, for which 
 reason it is necessar}^ that the commissioners 
 shall fix precisely the intervening section. 
 
 "From the point at Chucuyales. following the 
 mountain to the ^^lotagua, it forms a boundan.', 
 and also the river to its mouth in the Bay of 
 Omoa or Honduras." 
 
 If the above quotation from the Insfrucfions to the 
 Guatemalan commissioners is compared with the moun- 
 
 - This appears to be an error on the part of Marure and Larreynaga, 
 for the Merendon proper does not start to the south of Mita. 
 
 * This point, so far as the writer knows, has never been identified 
 
 in present-day Central America. 
 
104 
 
 tain line described on the map made by the Hon- 
 duranean engineers and in the Report of the Economic 
 Survey, it will be noticed that both lines start in the 
 vicinity of Cerro Brujo, — which is to the south of 
 Mita, — and that both pass in the vicinity of Copan and 
 cross the Motagua. This seems to prove the lines to be 
 virtually identical as far as the Motagua. 
 
 With this identity in mind, it is well to turn to the 
 early maps showing a mountain chain as boundary 
 for a part or the whole of the distance at the west. 
 Before considering the maps of the nineteenth century, 
 it will be of aid to glance at the following of an earlier 
 date: D'Anville (1731), Hinton (1755), Kitchin 
 (1762),Speer (1771), Jeff erys (1775). Each of these, 
 it will be observed, shows the boundary as running 
 along a clearly-marked range of mountains to the west 
 of the Motagua, and terminating in Manabique Bay, 
 or a little to the west of it. The mountains can be no 
 others than the Mico range above referred to as form- 
 ing part of the mountain line represented on the map 
 made by the Honduranean engineers as starting with 
 Cerro Brujo. From this it is apparent that at the time 
 when the five above-listed maps were made a strong 
 belief prevailed that the boundary followed the Mico 
 range. 
 
 The Brue map of 1816, it will be seen, gives vir- 
 tually the same position for the line as these eighteenth 
 century maps, but it does not represent the Mico moun- 
 tains. 
 
 The Thompson-Arrowsmith-Alcedo map, of the 
 
105 
 
 same date as the Brue just referred to, is not so valuable 
 as evidence, because the positions and proportions of 
 the Motagua and Ulua rivers are inaccurate to a 
 marked degree. It is, nevertheless, of interest to the 
 matter under consideration to observe that this map 
 gives a range of mountains as the boundary for part 
 of the distance at the west. And this range is without 
 doubt intended for the Cerro Brujo-Mico line, as is 
 shown from the point in the main cordillera from which 
 it springs, as well as from the fact that, were the 
 Motagua given proper position and length, the line 
 would cross this river. 
 
 On the Arrowsmith map of 1826, the mountain 
 boundary indicated forms, in broad outline, virtually 
 the same curve as that made by the Cerro Brujo-Mico 
 line shown on the map of the Honduranean engineers, 
 except that it crosses the Motagua too near the mouth 
 of the river. Moreover, it coincides with the cordillera 
 described by Marure and Larreynaga in three respects : 
 it starts to the south of Mita; it crosses the Motagua; 
 and it is called the Mountains of Copan (Mediation 
 Record, vol. I, p. 253). 
 
 The curved boundary line represented on the map 
 made in 1829 to accompany the Narrative written by 
 Thompson is virtually the same as that on the Arrow- 
 smith of 1826; but no mountains are shown on the 
 later map. 
 
 On the Brue, 1832, map is a boundary line which 
 is similar to that on the Arrowsmith of 1826, in that 
 it starts to the south of Mita, crosses the Motagua, 
 
106 
 
 terminates at IManabique, and for part of the distance 
 follows the Mountains of Copan. This line, however, 
 corresponds less closely than the Arrowsmith with the 
 Cerro Brujo-Mico chain repeatedly referred to, for it 
 swings too far to the right and crosses the Motagua 
 considerably too low in the course of the river. 
 
 The Squier map of 1849, shows practically the same 
 curved boundary line as the Brue of 1832. 
 
 So far as the writer is aware, the earliest maps 
 showing a boundary seriously at variance with the 
 curved line just mentioned — or with a line still farther 
 to the west — are the Rivera maps of 1832, which are 
 Guatemalan in origin. These show the boundary cor- 
 rectly in its southern part, as described in general by 
 Marure and Larreynaga; but in its northern part, in- 
 stead of crossing the Motagua, the line runs along the 
 right side of the river and terminates in the Rio Tinto. 
 
 The map facing page 758 of Squier's States of Cen- 
 tral America (1858), shows an error closely akin to 
 that made by Rivera ; and as it gives more detail, espe- 
 cially with regards to the mountains, the error is made 
 more evident. As in the case of the maps by Rivera, 
 this later map by Squier shows the boundary line as 
 starting near Cerro Brujo on the Salvadorean frontier; 
 and it follows the Cerro Brujo-Mico line for a consider- 
 able distance, as is evident from the facts, first, that 
 it includes the Jupilingo River and the Copan ruins in 
 Honduras, and next, that it crosses the Copan River. 
 But in the vicinity of the high sierra described in the 
 Report of the Economic Survey it takes a wrong turn. 
 
107 
 
 Instead of passing to the left and crossing the Motagua 
 and continuing along the Mico Mountains, which are 
 plainly marked on the same map, it deflects to the right, 
 following a mountain chain named Espiritu Santo- 
 Grita, and terminates in the Tinto, on the right-hand 
 side of the Motagua. 
 
 A study of the most accurate topographical maps 
 of the region in question will reveal the fact that such 
 a mountain line as the Squier map of 1858 depicts, has 
 no foundation in fact. The mountain chain beginning 
 at Cerro Brujo, — as the line of Squier does, — does not 
 terminate at Omoa near the Tinto; instead, it crosses 
 the Motagua, as already emphasized, follows the Mico 
 Mountains, and terminates at Manabique Bay. There 
 seems to be no question but that Squier confused the 
 high sierra of the Economic Survey Report with the 
 Espiritu Santo; for he places the latter where the 
 former belongs, and gives the Copan ruins, with 
 relation to the so-called "Espiritu Santo" range, the 
 position that they should have with reference to the 
 high sierra. The chain of which the true Espiritu 
 Santo forms a part is farther to the east of the 
 Motagua, as the best of the recent maps show. 
 
 The writer believes that by the above she has dem- 
 onstrated that there is no just basis for a mountain 
 boundary line along the Espiritu Santo-Grita-Omoa 
 chain, but that, on the contrary, the least favorable 
 mountain boundary that Honduras would be expected 
 to accept is indicated by the curved Cerro Brujo-Mico 
 line. 
 
108 
 
 In conclusion, attention should be called to the fact 
 that although Squier fell into the serious error above- 
 indicated, he was not guilty of the mistake attributed 
 to him in the Cartographical Report {Mediation Rec- 
 ord, vol. II, p. 527) ; for he places Copan to the south 
 of the Espiritu Santo Mountains, and not to the west, 
 as the writer states. The author of the Report re- 
 ferred to was also incorrect in her assertion that Copan 
 is west of the Espiritu Santo range; for it is to the 
 south, as Squier indicates. The mistakes appear to 
 have occurred from confusion of the Merendon range 
 with the Espiritu Santo. Counsel for Honduras, it 
 should be added, fell into a similar error {Mediation 
 Record, vol. II, p. 457, note). 
 
 Mary Wii,hei,mine WiIvUams. 
 Goucher College, 
 
 Baltimore, Maryland, 
 
 January 26, 1920. ' 
 
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