Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

268
S A N —S A N
in alternate prose and verse tlie scenes and occupations of pastoral
life are described. His now seldom read Latin poem Da Partu
Virginis, which gained for him the name of the “ Christian Virgil,”
appeared in 1526, and his collected Sonetti e Canzoni in 1530.
SAN REMO, a town and seaport of northern Italy, at
the head of a circondario in the province of Porto
Maurizio on the Western Riviera, 16f miles by rail east
of Mentone and 84£ south-west of Genoa. Climbing the
slope of a steep hill, it looks south over a small bay of the
Gulf of Genoa, and, protected towards the north by hills
rising gradually from 500 to 8000 feet, has the reputation
of being in climate one of the most favoured places on the
whole coast. The narrow stair-like streets of the old
town, with their lofty houses, arched gateways, and flying
buttresses, form a fine contrast to the modern districts of
villas and hotels which have sprung up since about 1860.
Besides the Gothic cathedral of San Siro, the buildings
of most interest are the Madonna della Costa, crowning
the highest part of the old town, the town-house, and
the hospital for cutaneous diseases founded by Charles
Albert. The port, formed by two moles, both lengthened
since 1880, was at one time much more important, its
annual movement having sunk from about 1000 in 1866
to 388 small vessels in 1884. The population of the
commune (10,012 in 1861) was 16,055 in 1881,—12,285
in the city proper, and 1717 in the suburbs Poggio and
Yerezzo.
See
vol. xi.
Plate III.
San Remo, identified by Girolamo Rossi (Storia della Cittd)
with a Greek Leucothea and a Roman Matistra, was Christianized by
St Ormisdas and his pupil St Sirus. Rebuilt after the expulsion
of the Saracens from Liguria, it took the name of San Romolo from
its 6th-century bishop whose death-day, 13th October, is still a local
fete. In what way Romulus was supplanted by Remus is not
clearly ascertained. In 1544 the town was attacked by Barbarossa,
and in 1625 by the French and Savoyards. The Genoese, against
whose encroachments it had long defended its independence, sub¬
jugated it in 1753 ; and in 1797 it wTas incorporated in the district
of Palms of the Ligurian republic.
SAN SALVADOR, or Salvador (Republica del Sal¬
vador), the smallest but most densely peopled of the
• republics of Central America, has a coast-line of 160
miles along the Pacific from the mouth of Rio de la Paz
to that of the Goascoran in the Gulf of Fonseca, and is
bounded inland by Guatemala on the west and Honduras
on the north and east. Its length from east to west is
140 miles, and its average breadth about 60 miles. Its
area is estimated at 7225 square miles, and in 1883 it
contained 613,273 inhabitants (290,870 males, 322,403
females). With the exception of a comparatively narrow
seaboard of low alluvial plains, the country consists mainly
of a plateau about 2000 feet above the sea, broken by a
large number of volcanic cones, geologically of more recent
origin than the main chain of the Cordillera which lies
farther to the north. The principal river of the republic
is the Rio Lempa, which, rising near Esquipulas in Guate¬
mala and crossing a corner of Honduras, enters Salvador
north of CitalA After receiving from the right the
surplus waters of the Laguna de Cuija, a vast lake
belonging partly to Guatemala and partly to Salvador, it
flows for nearly a degree of longitude eastward through a
magnificent and luxuriant valley between the plateau and
the Cordillera, and then turning somewhat abruptly south
sku-ts the base of the volcano of Siguatepeque and reaches
the Pacific in 88° 40' W. long. Among its numerous
tributaries are the Rio Santa Ana, rising near the city of
that name, the Asalguate, which passes the capital San
Salvador, the Sumpul, which forces its way like the
Lempa itself athwart the mountains from Honduras, and
tbe iorola, draining the north-eastern corner of Salvador
and part of Honduras. The Lempa is even in the dry
season a considerable river with a rapid current, and for
two-thirds of its course it could easily be made navigable
for steamers. The Rio San Miguel drains the country
between the Gulf of Fonseca and the basin of the Lempa.
The volcanic mountains do not form a chain but a series of
clusters :—the Izalco group in the west—including Izalco
(formed in 1770), Marcelino, Santa Ana, Naranjos, Aguila,
San Juan de Dios, Apaneca, Tamajaso, and Lagunita; the
San Salvador group, about 30 miles to the east; Cojute-
peque to the north-east and the San Vicente group to the
east of the great volcanic lake of Uopango; the Siguate¬
peque summits to the north-east of San Vicente; and the
great south-eastern or San Miguel group—San Miguel,
Chinameca, Buenapa, Usulatan, Tecapa, Taburete. Caca-
guateque and Sociedad volcanoes in the north-east belong
to the inland Cordillera.
The volcanic forces in Salvador have not as yet spent themselves.
The Izalco yent still acts as a safety valve, and the neighbourhood
of the capital is so subject to tremblings and rockings of the
earth as to have acquired the name of the swinging mat or ham¬
mock. The city itself has been destroyed by earthquake in 1594,
1658, in 1719, and in 1854. San Miguel is described as one of the
most treacherous burning mountains in America, sometimes several
years in complete repose and then all at once bursting out with
terrific fury (Scherzer). Tn 1879-1880 the Lake of Ilopango was
the scene of a remarkable series of phenomena. With a length of
5| miles and a breadth of it forms a rough parallelogram with
deeply indented sides, and is surrounded in all directions by steep
mountains except at the points where the villages of Asino and
Apulo occupy little patches of level ground. Between 31st Decem¬
ber 18/9 and 11th January 1880 the lake rose four feet above its
level. The Jiboa, which flows out at the south-east corner, became,
instead of a very shallow stream 20 feet broad, a raging torrent
which soon scooped out for itself in the volcanic rocks a channel
30 to 35 feet deep. A rapid subsidence of the lake was thus pro¬
duced, and by the 6th of March the level was 34|- feet below its
maximum. Towards the centre of the lake a volcanic centre about
500 feet in diameter rose 150 feet above the water, surrounded by
a number of small islands. A number of villages were ruined by
the accompanying earthquakes. The lake, originally stocked by
the early Spanish settlers, had become the great fish-pond of the
republic. On the outbreak of the volcanic forces, the fish fled
towards the sides, and on the receding of the waters their dead
bodies were left behind in such quantities that at Asino several
hundred men were employed for days burying them to avoid a
pestilence.
It is less to these natural catastrophes than to political
instability that the comparative backwardness of Salvador to
develop its resources of soil and minerals must be ascribed ; and
considerable progress has in many respects been made since the
middle of the centurv. Coffee is now the principal export (to the
value of $1,056,000 in 1873, $3,416,104 in 1883). Indigo, for along
time the staple of the country and exported to the annual value
of $20,000,000, is still extensively cultivated (exports in 1883
$1,812,594). As this indigo is generally quoted in the market as
Guatemalan, so another valuable product of Salvador is always
designated Balsam of Peru (see vol. iii. p. 293), though the tree
from which it is obtained grows naturally nowhere else in the
world except in a limited part of the Salvadorian seaboard known
as the Balsam coast. It was exported in 1883 to the value of
$53,612.. Other productions of less importance are tobacco,
sarsaparilla, india-rubber, and sugar. The silver mines have been
and may again be of some account; and coal has been discovered
inland. On the whole the trade of the country has greatly in¬
creased : the imports and exports, $1,306,378 and $1,991,650
respectively in 1859, were $2,401,463 and $5,861,053 in 1883.
At the time of Dr Scherzer’s visit, there was not a bridge in the
country ; there are now a considerable number of good iron bridges
on the new roads between the principal cities. The first railway, that
from Acajutla to Sonsonate (15 miles) was opened in 1882, and has
since been continued in the direction of Santa Ana, the chief
commercial town. Telegraphic communication has been estab¬
lished between the more important towns, and in July 1882 the
Central and North American Company landed its cable at La
Libertad. Acajutla, La Libertad, and La Union or San Carlos
de la Union (in the Gulf of Fonseca) are the principal harbours.
Besides the capital San Salvador, with 14,059 inhabitants, there were
m 1878, according to the census, 68 places in the republic with
over 2000 each—Santa Ana (29,908), Nahuizalco (9988), San
Vicente (9957), San Miguel (9842), Metapan (9782), Chalchuapa
(81/1), Ahuachapan (7930), Nuevo San Salvador (7337), &c.
There are three universities—San Salvador, Santa Ana, and San
Miguel, with funds partly provided by a quarter of the customs,—
a girls. college at Santa Ana, and a fair number of secondary
and primary schools. Salvador received this name from Pedro
Alvaredo, who, when he conquered it for Spain in 1525-26, found
it a rich and populous country. Its independence of the Spanish