The old town of Izabal, once the port and a prosperous place, but now dwindled to a straggling, thatch-roofed village, reposes in perpetual _siesta_ on the southern shore of the lake. Santa Cruz is another village on the north shore, where there is a sawmill and a small collection of native huts and a few better buildings which house the white inhabitant.
A number of small streams pour their waters into Lake Izabal. The principal stream, however, is the Polochic, which is navigable as far as Panzos, a distance of about thirty or forty miles, for light-draught steamers. There is a regular weekly service maintained by a steamer which brings down the mails, passengers and freight from Coban, the capital of Alta Verapaz, to make connection with the weekly steamer sailings for New Orleans. The river is not very wide, the course rather tortuous and the current swift, especially in the rainy seasons, so that boating is quite an exciting experience for the novice. This route was formerly and still is the main trade route for the natives of the Coban and Peten district who bring their produce down the Polochic and Chocon rivers in their dugouts, called pitpans, to the lake and then to the markets of Livingston. It is quite a common sight to pass their boats loaded with cocoanuts, bananas, plantains or other fruits or fish, with the brown native and his wife industriously paddling the same.
There are few places in the world where there is such an abundance of life, both plant and animal, as in the Lake Izabal district. Perennial moisture reigns in the soil and uninterrupted summer in the air, so that vegetation luxuriates in ceaseless activity all the year around. To this genial influence of ever-present moisture and heat must be ascribed the infinite variety of trees and plants. The trees do not grow in clusters or groups of single species as in our northern woods, but the different varieties crowd each other in unsocial rivalry, each trying to overtop the other. The autumn tints of browns and yellows, crimsons and purples, are as unknown as the cold sleep of winter. The ceaseless round of ever-active life might seem to make the forest scenery of the tropics monotonous, but there is such an untold variety and beauty in it that the scene never grows tiresome. The beautiful description of spring with its awakening life by Lowell is applicable every day in the year in this region:—