The fitting shield of Honduras would be one bearing as motto that monotonous phrase which greets the traveler most frequently along her trails, "No hay." The country is noted chiefly for what "there is not." Everywhere one has the impression of watching peculiarly stupid children playing at being a republic. The nation is a large farm in size and a poorly run one in condition. The wave of "liberty" that swept over a large part of the world after the French Revolution left these wayward and not over-bright inhabitants of what might be a rich and fertile land to play at governing themselves, to ape the forms of real republics, and mix them with such childish clauses as come into their infantile minds. The chief newspaper of the republic resembles a high-school periodical, concocted by particularly thick-headed students without faculty assistance or editing. A history of their childish governmental activities would fill volumes. In 1910 all the copper one-centavo coins were called in and crudely changed to two-centavo pieces by surcharging the figure 2 and adding an s, a much smaller one-centavo coin being issued. The "government" may have made as much as $50 by the transaction. Not long before my arrival, the current postage-stamps, large quantities of which had been bought by foreign firms within the country, were suddenly declared worthless, and the entire accumulated correspondence for the next steamer returned to the senders, instead of at least being forwarded to destination under excess charges. Foreigners established the first factory Tegucigalpa had ever known, which was already employing a half-hundred of the pauperous inhabitants in the making of candles, when the "government" suddenly not only put a heavy duty on stearine but required the payment of back duty on all that had already been imported. An Englishman came down from the mines of San Juancito embued with the desire to start a manual-training school in the capital. He called on the mulatto president and offered his services free for a year, if the government would invest $5000 in equipment. The president told him to come back mañana. On that elusive day he was informed that the government had no such sum at its disposal,