In addition to this, there is bad feeling between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, which may break out into war at any moment.

As this last quarrel concerns the Nicaraguan Canal, in which our country is so much interested, it is perhaps better to tell you about it before we speak of the more serious troubles in Guatemala.

The cause of the unpleasantness between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is the boundary line which divides them.

This boundary question involves the mouth of the Nicaragua Canal.

In 1858 it was agreed between the two countries that the channel of the Rio San Juan del Norte at its exit into the ocean should be the dividing line between them.

Owing to changes of current and other causes, the course of this river has changed, until it is now several miles farther south than it was in 1858.

Costa Rica claimed that the boundary should be the spot where the old channel was; Nicaragua, that the treaty called for the channel of the river where it emptied itself into the sea, and that therefore the new mouth of the river is the boundary.

It is a serious matter for Nicaragua, for the opening to the Nicaragua Canal on the Atlantic Ocean side is through the Rio San Juan del Norte.  If Costa Rica were to own the mouth of the canal while Nicaragua owns its body, there would be no end to the complications and troubles which would arise.

The matter was therefore submitted to arbitration, President Cleveland appointing the arbitrator.

The decision has just been rendered, and is against Costa Rica.  The arbitrator decides that the old treaty holds good, and that the boundary line of Nicaragua is the channel of the river as it flows into the ocean, and that no matter how far the Rio San Juan del Norte creeps down into Costa Rican territory, Nicaragua will always own to the channel where it flows into the sea.

Costa Rica is of course angry that the decision was against her, and she may try to secure her lost territory by force of arms.

This is the Nicaraguan and Costa Rican trouble.  The disturbance in Guatemala is in the shape of a revolution, which, if the accounts we hear are true, is of a serious nature.

We have told you before of the many revolutions that are constantly taking place in South America, and that the people have become so accustomed to them that they take very little notice of such things, and no one regards a Central American revolution as a serious affair.

Now while it is amusing to make fun of these toy revolutions, some of the best people of the country suffer severely through them, and to these people they are very real and terrible.  Those who suffer most are the merchants.  During the disturbances caused by constant changes of government, trade cannot properly flourish, and many of the merchants of Central America wish heartily that a means may be found to restore order and give them a government which will be likely to last.