The afternoon preceding our arrival at Puerto Limon, the captain of our steamer called our attention to a wonderful mirage due south of us. High above the water—apparently midway between the sea and the sky—was suspended one of the islands of the Caribbean that stand off from the Panama coast. So far away was it from our course that, had it not been for the peculiar atmospheric conditions then prevailing, it would have been quite invisible, even with the aid of the most powerful glass. A beautiful, fantastic shape it exhibited as, seen through the trembling and shimmering air, it seemed to float in the hazy atmosphere. At first it was of a pearly-gray tint, then of a fustian-brown, and finally, as it became more distinct in outline, it shaded into a dark olive green. The apparition lasted for nearly an hour, when it gradually disappeared.

“The Vanishing Island of St. Brendan,” exclaimed a young Celt who had been admiring the scene. And then he read for us what John Sparke, a companion of Hawkins in the voyage of 1564, writes:

“Certaine flitting ilands, which haue beene oftentimes seene, and when men approched neere them they vanished, ... and therefore it should seeme hee is not yet borne to whom God hath appoynted the finding of them.”1

The flitting islands that Sparke refers to were, it is true, supposed by him to be in the neighborhood of the Azores. But their location was uncertain, at least the one named after the seafaring Irish monk, for divers positions have been assigned it by cosmographers and mediÆval writers. Among other peculiarities possessed by this island was that it had an apparent motion towards the west—a motion that was quite sufficient to have carried it at the beginning of the twentieth century to the westernmost part of the Caribbean.

“In this motion westward,” said C.—as our representative of classical lore—“the Island of St. Brendan would have but followed the example set by the Elysian Fields and the Isles of the Blessed. Pindar and Hesiod placed them in the Western Ocean, but much farther west than Homer had located his Elysium. As the years rolled by, the Fortunate Islands and the Gardens of the Hesperides, for these were but synonyms of the Isles of the Blessed, were also found, like St. Brendan’s, to have moved towards the region of the setting sun. Subsequently, birth was given to legends respecting a Transatlantic Eden and a Mexican Elysium somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico or among the beauteous isles of the Caribbean Archipelago.”

“Very true, very true,” said one of our party, a good-natured German privat-docent, who was perched hard by on what seemed to be the first reclining chair ever devised. It was a cumbersome structure about four feet high, apparently modeled after one of those lofty bedsteads once the vogue in certain parts of the Vaterland, and vastly different from the modern reclining chair so popular with ocean travelers, and so rickety that it threatened every moment to collapse and deposit its portly occupant—for he was a man of weight, physically as well as intellectually—on the hard floor of the hurricane deck. “You are quite right, Sr. C. The Isles of the Blessed, like the Island of St. Brendan, are quite as ubiquitous and elusory as is the Terrestrial Paradise described in Genesis. For learned men who have written about it have located it, at one time or another, in almost every part of the earth’s surface. Some maintain it was somewhere in the valley of Mesopotamia, others that it was east of the Ganges, or near the head waters of the Nile. Columbus imagined it was nigh the source of the Orinoco, while an American author—a Bostonian, I believe—some decades ago published a work in which he endeavoured to prove that the seat of Paradise was the North Pole. As for myself, I have never ventured to formulate a theory on any of these interesting subjects. They are out of my line. Davus sum non Œdipus.”

Just then there was a crash. Like the “wonderful one-hoss shay,” the tottering old chair had collapsed and the docent lay sprawling under the ruins.

“Caramba, donnerwetter!” These two exclamations, so dear to the Spaniard and the German, when they wish to express surprise and disgust, were emitted with an explosive violence that left no one present in doubt as to what thoughts were uppermost in the mind of our friend as he was endeavoring to extricate himself from the entangling frame. With the aid of some of the bystanders he finally regained his feet, but he manifested no desire to continue the conversation so suddenly interrupted.

“Carajo, donnerblitz!”—two expressions even more vigorous than the preceding—constituted the finale to the performance that afforded amusement to all except the leading character, who disliked exceedingly the undignified position in which he had momentarily been placed. Fortunately, the last call for dinner had been given just a few moments previously, and we accordingly adjourned to the dining saloon, where other matters absorbed the attention of the unlucky docent as well as the spectators of his ungainly tumble.

The morning following the little episode just referred to, we were in sight of Costa Rica2—that rich coast—discovered by Columbus during his eventful fourth voyage. The wooded lowlands, bordering the sea, are clothed in a mantle of rich tropical verdure. A short distance behind them arise the escarpments of the Central American Cordillera, that is the scene of the activity of such noted volcanoes as Poas, Irazu and Turialba. Owing to the proximity of the Sierra to the sea, it appears much higher than it really is, and, when the weather is clear, it presents a picture of rare magnificence. This is particularly the case when it is seen at sunrise, the time it first met our view. Then we had before us the violet expanse of the summer sea canopied by the splendid azure vault of heaven, while before us stood up in all its majesty the gentian blue peak of the Cordillera that gradually melted into crimson and then into gold.

Owing to the reports that had been received at Limon regarding the plague at Trinidad, and the fear that it might already have reached the Spanish Main, none of the passengers were allowed to land until they had passed, on the part of the health officers, an examination of more than usual strictness. Fortunately, we had provided ourselves with a health certificate before leaving Barranquilla and were permitted to land after but little delay. Those, however, who could not exhibit such a document were at once ordered off to quarantine. Everyone, however, had to be vaccinated, unless one could produce evidence that he had been vaccinated only a short time before. As very few could present such evidence, the great majority had to submit—many of them much against their will—to being inoculated with the virus that is supposed to render one immune against smallpox.

While these operations were going on, we had an opportunity of getting a good view of the coast in front of us. It had a special interest for us, for it was the favored land along which Columbus sailed in his last voyage in 1502. Here, before us, there is reason to believe, was the land of Cariari, and, just a stone’s throw from our steamer was the charming island of Quiribri, which, on account of its beauty and the lovely trees with which it was adorned—palms and bananas and platanos—the Admiral called El Huerto—the orchard. To-day it is known as the island of Uvita, and is used for quarantine. As we gazed on this exquisite spot, provided with cozy cottages nestling among clumps of stately palms, and decked with beauteous flowers of every hue, we almost regretted that we could not spend a few days there. Had we been sent there with the others we should certainly not have complained.

So fascinating was this place that Columbus anchored here between the island and the mainland to give his crew an opportunity to refresh themselves after their arduous voyage. And so fragrant were the groves on the mainland that their perfumes were wafted out to the ships. This, we have noted, was also the experience of the early explorers of Florida.

While here, Columbus held frequent converse with the Indians, whom he found intelligent and well disposed. They brought him gifts of cotton, cloth and gold and evidently were inclined to enter into friendly relations with their strange visitors. In his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, referring to this land, he writes: “There I saw a tomb in the mountain side as large as a house, and sculptured.3 This is remarkable as being the only passage in all the Admiral’s writings which could warrant us in concluding that he ever set foot on the mainland of the New World.

Until the middle of the last century Port Limon was but a small rancheria—it did not deserve the name of village—of poor fishermen. Now it is the chief port of the republic and a flourishing town of 6,000 inhabitants. Its present importance and prosperity are due to the completion of the railroad from this point to the capital, San JosÉ, and to the fact that it is the principal centre of the rapidly-increasing banana industry controlled by the United Fruit Company.

The place is quite modern in appearance, and were it not for its exuberant tropical vegetation, might easily pass for one of our enterprising Gulf Coast towns. It boasts of all modern improvements, has good sanitation, broad streets, comfortable homes and a delightful park that, for wealth and variety of tree and shrub and flower, looks like a well-kept botanic garden. While the white race is well represented, the majority of the population is made up of West Indian negroes.

During our travels among the Antilles and on the Spanish Main, we frequently had occasion to note the importance of the banana and the platano as articles of food, but it was not until our arrival in Limon that we had an opportunity of observing the extent to which the cultivation and shipment of these fruits have been carried. Here are two long iron piers at which one will occasionally find as many as six or eight large steamers being freighted at the same time with the golden fruit of Costa Rica, preparatory to distribution among the leading ports along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

The culture of the banana in Costa Rica on an extensive scale is of recent date. In 1880 but three hundred and sixty bunches were sent to the United States. Now the amount shipped from Limon alone averages more than a million bunches a month. During the year 1908 the number of bunches that left Port Limon aggregated more than thirteen million, and the amount shipped is rapidly increasing. In addition to the daily shipments made to the United States weekly cargoes are forwarded to France and England.

But great as are the proportions which the banana trade has already assumed, it is safe to say that it is as yet but in its infancy. What in most parts of our country and Europe has hitherto been practically unknown, or been regarded as a luxury beyond the reach of the poor, is now rapidly finding its way among all classes and at such prices that even those of the most limited means can have it on their tables.

That which first impresses the visitor from the North is the large number of species of the Musa and the extraordinary number of uses made of them. Already fully forty species have been described and nearly a hundred varieties. Most of these bear fruit which is as agreeable as it is nutritious, and which is often of a flavor of the utmost delicacy.

Reference has already been made in a previous chapter to the extensive and varied use made of bananas and platanos by the peoples of tropical climes, but even they have still much to learn regarding the food value of their great staple. Recent investigations have revealed the fact that the fruit of the Musa is henceforth to be regarded not only as one of the most wholesome and nutritious of foods, but also as one of the most important means of subsistence for the world’s rapidly increasing population. Even now it is felt that the supply of flesh meat and cereals is rapidly becoming less than the demand, and too expensive for the poor, and thoughtful men have already set to work to devise ways and means to meet the emergency. And one of the means suggested is a more extensive cultivation of platanos and bananas, as well as a more general use of their manifold products.

Humboldt long ago pointed out the great economic value of the banana and the platano as sources of food supply.4 But he did not have the data we now possess for arriving at just conclusions. As the result of numerous experiments it is now known that bananas afford per acre one and a third times as much food as maize produces, two and a third times as much as oats, three times as much as buckwheat, potatoes and wheat; and four times as much as rye. Then the labor involved in the cultivation of the banana is far less than that demanded for our northern crops. No skill is required, and unlike many of our northern fruit-bearing trees, the banana and the platano are entirely exempt from insect pests and diseases.

Chemical analysis discloses the curious fact that bananas and potatoes are practically identical in composition. As compared with the principal vegetables and fruits consumed in the United States and Europe, the food value of the banana and the platano stands in the ratio of five to four in favor of the latter. Comparing banana flour, a new product of this remarkable fruit, with the flour made from sago, wheat and maize, it is found that the nutritive value of all four is about equal—the banana product being slightly in the lead.

As a consequence of recent researches the commercial products obtained from the banana and platano have been greatly increased, while some of them are vastly different from anything that people who have been living on them for thousands of years have ever dreamed. Among these are meal in the starchy state for making superior kinds of bread and porridge, flakes and meal in a dextrinous condition for the preparation of nourishing soups and puddings, sauces and fritters.5 In dried slices it is used in the manufacture of beer and alcohol. Bananas are also employed in making marmalades, for the manufacture of glucose and syrups for confectionery, and, dried entire without the peel, they are put up in boxes like figs. Dried and roasted they afford a nutritious beverage that is said to be a valuable substitute for coffee and chocolate. Even the stems and leaves of the banana are put to use, for from them are manufactured paper and cordage.

These facts open up a splendid vista as to the future food possibilities of the tropics. They demonstrate also the wisdom of giving more thought to this neglected part of the world, for it is to tropical America that the teeming millions of coming generations will be obliged to look for much of their sustenance. Our northern climes will be unable to meet the demands that will eventually be made on them.

Before we boarded the train at Limon for San JosÉ, the capital of the little republic, a young German, who had visited the lowlands through which the railway passes, said that we would there see the most remarkable exhibition of vegetable growth in the world. “It is,” he declared, “the Urwelt”—the primeval forest—“in all its luxuriance and glory.”

As he had never seen any tropical scenery outside of Costa Rica, and very little of that, we, who had just come from the exuberant forest regions of the Magdalena and the Orinoco, were disposed to give little heed to his statement. Compared with Germany, the floral display of Costa Rica was doubtless something really marvelous in the estimation of our untraveled Teutonic friend, but it could not compare, we said to ourselves, with the wonders of plant life on which we had been feasting our eyes during our journey among the Antilles and through the Northern part of South America.

Our conclusion, however, as we very soon discovered, was quite unwarranted. The vegetation of the lowlands and of the foothills of the Costa Rican Cordillera, as we noted on our way to San JosÉ, was really something wonderful. It was the Urwelt in very truth, and exhibited a wealth of plant and tree, foliage and bloom such as must have characterized the foreworld during its richest period. For miles upon miles along this picturesque railway, we reveled in the glories of the virgin forest at its best—a dense, complicated mass of verdure, a tousled, world-old jungle, surmounted by giants of the forest, loaded down with festoons of countless creepers and bound together by innumerable cable-like lianas, each of the richest hues. At one time we were passing through valleys of enchantment, valleys pervaded by a languorous haze of lilac and indigo, like the smoke of incense, valleys rendered musical by scores of hidden streams and tumultuous torrents bridged over by an entanglement of green fathoms in depth. At another we were winding around rugged crags and inaccessible peaks, not bald and barren, as in our temperate climes, but covered to their very summits with a tapestry of leaf and flower of the most vivid tropical tints, that at times resembled a cascade of palpitating color, of emerald foliage and glowing bloom. Here it was the crimson bouganvilla, there lovely aroides with spathes of delicate purple or immaculate white, while hard by, fanned into motion by the trickery of the shifting breeze, were the slender tufts of the bamboo or the tenuous fronds of the ever-graceful fern tree. On all sides was a parade of foliage and blossom, a bravery of color to be found only in the tropics and then only in its most favored regions.

The astonishing variety and richness of the flora of Costa Rica is due to the fact that it is the connecting link between the floras of the two great continents of the North and the South. Besides exhibiting species peculiar to itself, it presents an infinitude of others found in North and South America. Those, however, of South America predominate, the reason being that Costa Rica was connected with the southern continent long before it was united with that to the north.

It is a hundred and three miles from Limon to San JosÉ by rail. The road, a narrow-gauge one, was constructed by an American, Mr. Minor C. Keith, and compares favorably with our narrow-gauge roads in the Rocky Mountains. Many difficulties were encountered in laying the track, some of which, especially those caused by landslides and the overflowing rivers, seemed at times insuperable. The most serious impediments, however, were due to the steaming, sweltering, putrid, fever-laden swamps between the coast and the foothills of the Cordillera. So great was the mortality among the workmen on account of pernicious fevers that it is stated that this section of the line cost a human life for every tie that was laid. Like the valley of the lower Magdalena, this part of Costa Rica is habitable only by negroes. The white men who are called there by business make their sojourn as brief as possible.

It is along this route that are found the best and most extensive platanales—banana plantations—of the country and, as a consequence, there are many settlements and villages all along the railroad. And what banana plants are seen here! In height they resemble trees rather than plants. We saw some that were thirty-five feet high, bending under golden clusters of fruit weighing at times nearly a hundred pounds. While sailing along the Orinoco and the Meta we thought that the platanales we saw on their banks were unrivaled for magnitude of plants and wealth of fruitage, but they were fully equaled if not surpassed by those of Costa Rica.

Most of the labor connected with the cultivation and shipment of bananas is performed by negroes from Jamaica and other West Indian islands. One sees their little frame houses, or shacks, scattered all along the road in the banana region, and their occupants have the same jovial, happy-go-lucky disposition that characterizes the negro the world over. Crowds of them, old and young, are always assembled at the station on the arrival of every train—attracted thither by apparently the same reason that causes their brethren of the North in the cotton belt to flock to the depot when they hear the whistle of the locomotive—childlike curiosity and a desire to get the latest news at the earliest possible moment.

Quite a number of the female portion had sliced piÑas—pineapples—for sale, but they asked as much for a single slice as a whole piÑa would cost in our markets, while for an entire pineapple they expected four or five times the price of this fruit in New York, and that in the land of the piÑa. They demanded extravagant prices because, I suppose, they took it for granted that those who were able to travel in a Pullman car, as our party did, would not, if the fruit was really wanted, begrudge paying the amount asked, however exorbitant. But high as the price was, the fruit was worth it and far more. It was the most luscious and fragrant fruit we had ever tasted, and incomparably excelled the best that ever reaches our markets. It was so soft and juicy that it could be eaten with a spoon, and contained all the fabled virtues of nectar and ambrosia combined.

Incredible as it may seem, where there were train loads of bananas at every siding, we were unable to get even a sample of edible fruit anywhere between Limon and San JosÉ, although we asked for it at every stopping place. All that was destined for shipment was unripe, and, while there were several other kinds of fruits for sale, there was not a single ripe banana.

The negroes we saw along the railroad, as well as those observed in Limon, were a constant study for us, especially when congregated in large numbers in halls or churches. Like the negroes of Martinique they are, in the words of Lafcadio Hearn, “A population fantastic, astonishing—a population of the Arabian Nights.”6 They exhibit the whole gamut of skin tints from the milk-white of the albino to the coal-black of the Nubian.

Some of the women are remarkable for beauty of form and delicacy of features. Lissome, statuesque, and of graceful bearing, they are Juliets in ebony, who exhibit the classic proportions of “ox-eyed” Juno or of the Venus of Milo. As simple as children, they, like their sisters in the Antilles, are as talkative as parrots and their laugh is as hearty as it is spontaneous.

But it is the dress of the Costa Rican negress that arrests attention, especially when she is seen in public gatherings of any kind. Then the design and color of her attire is bizarre in the extreme. She selects by preference the most flaunting and garish colors, and, when she appears in her Sunday costume, one would declare that she had tried to combine the hues of tropical birds, and to mimic the gorgeousness of the blue-red-yellow macaw.

The description given by Sir F. Treves of the dress of the negress of Martinique, sums up in a few words the salient features of the Sunday costume of her sister in Costa Rica. “The headdress,” he writes, “is very picturesque. It consists of a ‘madras,’ an ample handkerchief wound about the head turban fashion, and finished by a projecting end, which stands up like the eagle’s feather in an Indian’s hair. The color of the madras will be usually a canary yellow striped with black. The hues of the dress are bewildering. Here are a skirt of roses and a foulard of sky-blue, a gown of scarlet and yellow with a terra-cotta scarf across the breast, a dress of white striped with orange below a foulard of green, a frock of primrose spotted with red and completed by a scarf of mazarine blue. Add to this the necklace of gold beads, the heavy bracelets, the great earrings, and the ‘trembling pins’ that fix the madras, and then realize over all, the white light of a tropical moon.”7

The two places along our route in which we were specially interested were the village of Matina, in the fertile valley watered by the river of that name, and Cartago, which was founded by the Spaniards in 1563, and was, during colonial times, the capital of the country.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century Matina was a port of some importance and the centre of the largest and best cacaotales—cacao haciendas—in Costa Rica, but owing to the frequent incursions of pirates and Mosquito Indians, this fertile territory had to be evacuated. There was also another reason for abandoning it and that was the hot, enervating, pernicious atmosphere, and the torrential rains, which were the causes of malaria and malignant fevers from which the district was never exempt. So bad was the reputation of the Matina valley in this respect that people, as the Costa Rican writer, Don Ricardo F. Guardia, informs us in his Cuentos Ticos, “used to confess and make their wills when they went to Matina, to the famous Matina which inspires fear in men and madness in mules,8 as they used to say in those days when men were braver and mules better.”—

Cartago—how often this Carthaginian name recurs in this part of the world!—is a delightful place nearly a mile above sea level, with a population of about seven thousand souls. It was founded in 1562 by Juan Vazquez de Coronado, the real conqueror of Costa Rica. It has a very salubrious climate with a mean annual temperature of 66° F. In 1841 it was almost entirely destroyed by an earthquake caused by a violent eruption of the volcano of Irazu, at the foot of which the town is situated. It is noted as the seat of the Central American Court of Justice, which was inaugurated here as one of the results of the Peace Congress held in Washington in 1907. In consequence of the establishment of this tribunal here, the town has been called the “Hague of the New World.” Mr. Andrew Carnegie has contributed $100,000 for the erection of a suitable edifice in which to hold the sessions of the court. The site selected for it is the most beautiful in the city, and the structure, on which work was begun without delay, promises to be the most attractive feature of Cartago.

Costa Rica is justly celebrated for its coffee. In the London market it has long been a favorite brand and always commands a high price. It has a delicious aroma scarcely inferior to that of the best Java or Mocha berries. We preferred it to any we had found elsewhere in our tropical wanderings. The haciendas devoted to the cultivation of coffee—especially those in the vicinity of Cartago and San JosÉ—are kept in splendid condition, and the trees are of exceptional vigor and productiveness.

Next to bananas, coffee constitutes the most important export of the republic. It was introduced from Havana about a century ago, and one may yet see in Cartago the centenarian trees that supplied the seeds for the plantations of Costa Rica and other parts of Central America. The value of the coffee and bananas annually exported from the republic is much greater than that of all the other commodities combined. Indeed, these two staples are to the commerce of Costa Rica what tobacco and sugar are to Cuba. Columbus and his followers searched these countries for gold and spices, but they found but little of either. If they could return now to these favored lands they would discover that their real treasures, more precious far than gold mines and groves of spice trees, lay in the indigenous banana and tobacco plants, and in the two exotic growths, coffee and sugar cane.

The schedule time of the train from Limon to San JosÉ, although only one hundred and three miles, is about seven hours. This is due to the numerous stops made and to the heavy grades up the flanks of the Cordillera.

Our arrival at the capital was signalized by a genuine tropical downpour, such as we had not seen elsewhere during our journey. For a while it seemed to justify the Spanish expression—llover Á cÁntaros—to rain bucketfuls. But the aguacero—the name given these short, heavy rainfalls—was of short duration. It was but one of those daily afternoon showers that characterize the plateau during the winter season—invierno, our summer—which extends from the month of May until the end of November. The dry or summer season—verano—lasts from December until May and is distinguished by absence of rain. The verano is the season of the northeast trade winds, which lose their humidity in crossing the Atlantic Cordillera. The monsoon, which comes from the southwest during the winter, does not encounter on the Pacific side mountains of sufficient height to condense the vapor with which it is charged. Thus it still contains, on its arrival at the central plateau, enough moisture to produce the heavy precipitation just noted.9

But notwithstanding these daily aguaceros, one can always count on sunshiny mornings, except during October, which is the wettest month of the year. It scarcely ever rains before two o’clock P. M., and rarely after five o’clock in the evening.

We were quite charmed with San JosÉ and its hospitable and cultured people. In many respects we thought it the most delightful city we had seen in Latin America—especially for a protracted sojourn. Situated in the smiling valley of the Abra, it is reputed to be the most beautiful city in Central America, while it is the second in extent and the third in population, having about thirty thousand souls. Its altitude is nearly four thousand and seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, and it has a mean annual temperature of 70° F. Foreign residents declare that the climate during the dry season is ideal.

The city counts a number of beautiful churches and public buildings, but the greatest surprise for us was its superb Teatro Nacional. In some of its leading features it is modeled after the Grand Opera House in Paris, and is really a gem of architecture. It cost nearly $1,000,000 in gold, and was paid for by an extra tax on coffee. We have nothing in the United States to compare with it in beauty and artistic finish, especially in the decoration of its sumptuous foyer. In the New World it is surpassed only by the Teatro Municipal of Rio de Janeiro and the Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires.

There are many attractive parks adorned with tastefully arranged flowers and trees and monuments that would be a credit to any capital. The monument that appealed most strongly to us was located in the Parque Nacional, and commemorates the campaign of 1856 against the Filibusters led by that daring adventurer from the United States, William Walker. It is also dedicated to the fraternity of the five Central American republics made one in defense of their independence. Let us hope that this is a symbol of the birth in the near future of a new federation of the Central American republics, similar to the one that was established shortly after they had achieved their independence under the name of the Republic of Central America. Such a republic would have fifty per cent more territory than the whole of Great Britain, and, considering all the natural resources it possesses, it would, under a stable and progressive government, soon take an honorable place among the nations of the world.

We visited a number of coffee plantations, as well as orchards and gardens, in the vicinity of San JosÉ, and were surprised at the variety and luxuriance of every species of vegetable growth.

But it is to the city market that one must go—especially on Sundays and dies de fiesta—holidays—if one would have an adequate conception of the floral and pomonic riches of this favored land.

Here we could easily imagine that we had before us every blossom that blows. Exposed for sale at a nominal price are the most gorgeous of flowers still fresh with the morning dew; roses of every size and color; orchids of the most fantastic forms and of dazzling beauty, to possess which a New York belle, would, if necessary, pawn a favorite jewel.

And here one beholds in lavish abundance citrous fruits of every species, bananas of untold varieties, and scores of other fruits equally common here but scarcely known except by name in our northern latitudes. At every turn we see booths filled with guavas, mameys and mangoes; zapotes, avocados and chirimoyas; papayas, pomegranates and sapodillas; anonas, bread-fruit, mangosteens, and others too numerous to mention, that are prized by the natives for the preparation of dulces—sweets—and preserves.

The avocado, also called avocado pear, on account of its shape, is the fruit of the beautiful tree called by botanists Persea gratissima, after Perseus, the son of Jupiter and DanÆ. The English in the Caribbean Islands name this delicious fruit alligator pear, or midshipman’s butter. It, indeed, somewhat resembles butter in appearance, and, to a certain extent, replaces butter on the table in the tropics, where real butter is difficult to procure and more difficult to keep. Of late years it has been introduced into the North as a salad, and promises, as soon as it becomes generally known, to be one of the most popular of tropical fruits.

Speaking for myself, I prefer it to any other, except possibly the piÑa—pineapple. But one must taste the fresh, ripe pineapple of the tropics to know its full lusciousness. It is incomparably more juicy and fragrant than anything our Northern markets offer. Old Benzoni says of it, “It smells well and tastes better,” and declares it to be “one of the most relishing fruits in the world.” Sir Walter Raleigh was right when he called it “the prince of fruits.” King James thought so highly of it that he remarked that “it was a fruit too delicious for a subject to taste of.” The poet Thomson doubtless entertained a similar view when he penned the following lines:

But delicious as is the pineapple it is, in the estimation of many, surpassed by the chirimoya. This fruit is likened by Paez to “lumps of flavored cream ready to be frozen, suspended from the branches of some fairy tree amidst the most overpowering perfume of its flowers.” Clements R. Markham was so enthusiastic about it that he declared that “He who has not tasted the chirimoya fruit has yet to learn what fruit is.” “The pineapple, the mangosteen, and the chirimoya,” Dr. Seeman writes, “are considered the finest fruits in the world. I have tasted them in those localities in which they are supposed to attain their highest perfection—the pineapple in Guayaquil, the mangosteen in the Indian Archipelago, and the chirimoya on the slope of the Andes, and if I were called upon to act the part of Paris, I would, without hesitation, assign the apple to the chirimoya. Its taste, indeed, surpasses that of every other fruit, and Haenke was quite right when he called it the masterpiece of nature.”

A fruit that always appealed to us was the papaya, or pawpaw. It grows in clusters on a tree about twenty feet high. In taste and appearance it closely resembles a good-sized muskmelon. It is surprising to see such large fruits growing on so small a tree. It flowers and fruits at the same time.

The fruits, however, that are the mainstay for the greatest number of people in the tropics, are, as has already been stated, the banana and the plantain. The former is known to botanists as Musa sapientum, because sages have reposed beneath its shade and eaten its fruit. The latter is called Musa paradisiaca, on account of a certain tradition that it was the forbidden fruit in Paradise.10 Both the banana and the plantain number almost as many varieties as the apple. The bananas are smaller than the plantains. The former range from one to six inches in length, while some varieties of the latter attain a length of fifteen inches. They are eaten raw, boiled and roasted and as preserves. A few trees will supply a whole family with the means of subsistence during the entire year.

The banana and plantain are just the kinds of plants that specially appeal to the natives of the equatorial regions, for they give at all seasons a never-failing abundance of nutritious food, and that, too, without any more labor and care than are entailed by clearing the ground and placing them in the ever-productive soil.11 Sir Charles Dilke, however, regards these food producers in quite a different light. In his estimation, the banana is the curse of the tropics. Their very abundance, and the little care they require, constitute, according to him, a bar to progress and to civilization of the highest kind in the tropics, for the reason that all true civilization necessarily presupposes labor and effort. It is for this reason that the highest faculties of man are most conspicuous in the temperate zone, where there is a constant struggle for existence.

Before leaving Barranquilla we met a gentleman who had just completed a tour of all Latin America and he declared that San JosÉ was the most beautiful city he had seen in all his travels.

At the time we gave little credence to what seemed a very exaggerated impression, but after we were able to judge for ourselves, we were forced to admit that Costa Rica’s fair capital is, indeed, a most delightful place.

In a charming, secluded vale near the city, where stood the country seat of a wealthy merchant of the capital, was a particularly romantic spot. The only places I could recall that could fairly compare with it were certain upland valleys in the larger islands of the equatorial Pacific. Hidden away in the luxuriant tropical forest, alongside a broad mountain torrent, where fruit and flower and foliage vied with one another in delicacy of fragrance and richness of hue, it required but little strain of fancy to imagine that we were gazing upon the wonders of the enchanted isle of Armida and Rinaldo; for here,

Whilst gazing in silent rapture at the incomparable beauty of the scene before us, and carried away by the matchless exhibitions of Flora and Pomona, we were suddenly transported on the wings of memory back to the beautiful plaza of Ciudad Bolivar, where, some months before, we had heard a happy, enthusiastic fiancÉe declare that she considered the lower Orinoco, aboard a yacht or a steamer, an ideal place to spend one’s honeymoon. With no claim to the power of mind-reading, or to the spirit of prophecy, we assert, without fear of erring, that if she had the opportunity of choosing between the Orinoco valley and this beauty spot near San JosÉ, as a place to spend her honeymoon—her luna de miel, as the Spaniards phrase it—it would not be to the Orinoco that Don Esteban would take his bride, but to this Edenic spot on the charming Costa Rican plateau.

Costa Rica, despite what has often been said to the contrary, has, for the past half century, been practically free from those fratricidal revolutions that have so characterized the other Central American republics. There have, it is true, been occasional pronunciamientos and periods of excitement about the time of some of the presidential elections, but none of those devastating insurrections that have so long been the curse of her less-fortunate neighbors.

Costa Rica points with pride, and well she may, to the fact that she has more school teachers than soldiers. Everywhere one finds schools for both sexes, admirably appointed and conducted, and constant efforts are being made to have them compare favorably with similar institutions in other parts of the world.

The original Spanish inhabitants of the central plateau were of sturdy Galician stock, and their descendants still exhibit the thrift, industry and enterprise of their ancestors. One meets many families of pure Spanish blood, but the majority are evidently mestizos—the result of the intermarriage of Spaniards with the aborigines. The number of pure-blooded Indians is comparatively small—only about three thousand out of a total population of a third of a million. There are few negroes seen outside of the low coast lands, where they constitute the majority of the inhabitants. We were, indeed, greatly impressed to note the sudden transition from the black to the white race as we ascended the Cordillera. In San JosÉ the number of negroes is astonishingly small, while the complexions of the whites, compared with that of the majority of the people living in the Andean lands we had recently visited, is unusually clear and ruddy.

“How fair and delicate are the features of the Josefinas!”13 exclaimed C., as we took our first promenade in the broad and well-kept streets of San JosÉ. And with the eye of a connoisseur, he continued, “How tastefully dressed they are!”

He was right. The number of beautiful, Madonna-like types one meets with is surprising. This impression is probably enhanced in some degree by the beautifully embroidered paÑolones—large Chinese silk shawls—which they know so well how to display to the best advantage. When to the tasteful costume and delicate features one adds the culture and refinement that often distinguish the Josefina, one can easily realize that she but continues the best traditions for beauty and grace of mind and heart that have so long distinguished her sisters in the land of Isabella of Castile.

After a delightful week spent in San JosÉ we prepared to return to Limon. We then experienced, probably more than at any other place in our long journey,—what all travelers more or less dread in their peregrinations—the pang of leaving places that have especially appealed to one and of saying farewell to newly-formed friends almost as soon as one has learned to know their goodness of heart and nobility of character. To me, I confess, this has always been the greatest drawback of traveling and is something I have never been able to outgrow.

Armed with a certificate from our consul stating that we had spent in San JosÉ the time required of passengers coming from quarantined ports, by the health regulations of Panama, we took our place in a comfortable parlor car, and were soon on our way towards the Caribbean coast, but not before we had taken “a last, long, lingering look,” at beautiful, hospitable, fascinating San JosÉ.

As the train slowly moved eastwards towards Cartago, our attention was directed for the hundredth time to the rich cafetales—coffee plantations—that covered the fertile acres on both sides of the road. Here and there we noted one of those cumbersome ox-carts with solid wooden wheels drawn by a yoke of oxen in charge of an odd-looking boyero. These are rapidly giving way to more modern means of transportation, but the lover of the bizarre and the picturesque will regret their disappearance.

“Observe,” said a Josefino, having some pretensions to physiognomy, “the peculiar features of that boyero on his way to the market. I will wager anything that that man is a firm believer in ceguas and cadejos and lloronas; that he dreams of botijas, even in the daytime, and that he has greater fear of hermanos than any of your countrymen have of ghosts.” He then proceeded to explain the meaning of these terms.

“A cegua,” he continued, “is a monster somewhat like the sirens of old, that assumes the form of a beautiful woman and leads men astray. A cadejos is a fantastic animal, black and hairy, resembling an enormous dog which has resounding hoofs instead of paws. A llorona is a frightful phantom that is sometimes heard moaning in the mountains in such wise as to strike terror into the passer-by.14 Botija—the Spanish for a large earthen jar—is the name given in Costa Rica to a buried treasure. The country people believe that, if one having buried money dies in debt, his ghost—hermano—will haunt the place in great distress until the treasure is found and the debt is paid.”

“I wish I could have the assistance of a few such hermanos,” interposed C. laughingly. “If I had, I should have several thousand dollars more to my credit than I have now. Unfortunately, in my country we have not such aids in bringing our debtors to book.”

On our way down the Cordillera, while crossing one of the numerous iron bridges that span the Reventazon and other mountain rivers and torrents, our Josefino friend pointed to a pier of masonry standing alone about forty feet to one side of the bridge. “That pier,” he said, “was formerly under the bridge, but in consequence of a peculiar landslide or earthquake, it was transported, together with a part of the bed of the stream, to the spot where it now stands.”

And then he told us of the opposition of the boyeros to the construction of the railroad. They, like ill-advised people in other parts of the world, feared that it would ruin their occupation and reduce them and their families to starvation. The government and railway company cleverly overcame this opposition by employing the boyeros to haul the material used in the construction of the road.

Then, too, there were wiseacres in Costa Rica, as there were in our Rocky Mountain region when there was question of undertaking some of the remarkable engineering feats that characterize several of our transcontinental railroads, who declared that the projectors of the road from Limon to San JosÉ were essaying the impossible. “General Guardia”—the dictator under whose rule the road was begun—they declared “is trying to build a railroad to Port Limon, where the birds themselves can scarcely go with wings.”

And yet, aside from the landslides which occur in all mountainous countries, and the miasmatic climate, there were but few great difficulties encountered. From an engineering standpoint the construction of the road offered far less difficult problems than many of the railroads in Colorado, Peru and Ecuador. The curves are not so sharp and the grades are less, while the altitude attained is less than half of that reached by several Rocky Mountain roads and less than one-third of the height of the celebrated Andean railway which connects Oroya with Lima.

Our first care on arriving at Limon was to have the health officer of that place countersign the certificate we had received from our consul in San JosÉ. We then boarded our steamer and were ready to start for Panama.

The weather was again in our favor, and we had a most delightful sail to Colon, and needless to say, we enjoyed every moment of it. We enjoyed it particularly on account of its interesting historical associations, and the romantic legends that have been woven about every isle and inlet and headland along the coast.

That, however, which appealed most strongly to us was the land of Veragua, near the dividing line between Costa Rica and Panama. It was here that Columbus imagined he had found the Golden Chersonese, the land whence came the gold used in the construction of Solomon’s temple. In the letter to his sovereigns, dispatched from Jamaica, he contends “that these mines of the Aurea are identical with those of Veragua.”15

It was here, too, near the mouth of the river Belen, that the first settlement on the continent of the New World was located. Although it had soon to be abandoned, it was begun with a view of permanent occupancy, and as such is deserving of special notice. A suitable memorial should indicate this spot, as one should also mark the site of Isabella, the first settlement in the New World.

It was while on the coast of Veragua that Columbus heard of the great ocean now known as the Pacific.16 He was not, however, permitted to add its discovery to the long list of his marvelous achievements. That honor was reserved for Vasco NuÑez de Balboa.

About nine o’clock the morning following our departure from Limon we dropped anchor in the harbor of Colon. The sea was so tranquil that there was scarcely a ripple on its placid waters. It was certainly in marked contrast with the condition in which Columbus once found it in these parts; for he assures us, in the oft-quoted letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, that “never was sea so high, so terrific, and so covered with foam.” It seemed like a “sea of blood, seething like a cauldron on a mighty fire.” So continual, indeed, were the shifting winds, and so terrific were the storms, that the coast from Veragua to Colon which we had found washed by so calm a sea was by Columbus and his companions named La Costa de los Contrastes.

Immediately on our arrival our vessel was boarded by the health officers of the port. Those who could not produce a satisfactory health certificate—and many could not—were sent to quarantine. Many of our party, however, did not require any, as they did not purpose landing at Colon. Some of them were bound for Jamaica and for points more distant. Among them was C., my brave and resolute companion across the Andes, the loyal and generous young cavalier who, if he had not been of superior mold, would more than once have lost his heart during the course of our long journey. I would fain have enjoyed his companionship longer while following the conquistadores in lands farther south; but it was not to be. To him, and to other friends, I had regretfully to pronounce the words of parting that had so frequently been addressed to us by the kindly and hospitable people we had met all along our route—Que Uds. vayan bien, y con la Virgen!—A happy journey and with the Virgin Mother!

As I left our good ship and the friends it bore to divers destinations and stepped ashore alone, a stranger in a strange land, I felt, I must confess, not unlike Dante when he suddenly found himself deprived of the companionship of Virgil, who had been his friend and guide during his arduous journey down through the fearsome pits of Hell and up the precipitous ledges of the mountain of Purgatory. But this impression, strong though it was, could not long remain dominant. What had in the beginning of my journey been but “a consummation devoutly to be wished,” had during our wanderings in tropical lands crystallized into a determination to make the desire a reality. The happy termination of our voyage up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena was conclusive evidence that travel, even through the least frequented parts of South America, was far from being as difficult as it has long been depicted. The moment, then, that I stepped from the gang plank that connected our steamer with Panaman soil, the Rubicon was crossed, and I had resolved, coÛte que coÛte,—alone, if necessary,—to realize the long-cherished dream of my youth,—to visit the famed lands of the Incas and explore the fertile valleys under the equator. If my experience in the llanos and among the Cordilleras had not made me “fit to mount up to the stars,” as Dante was when he left the Terrestrial Paradise, it had at least renewed me “even as new trees with new foliage,” and I was ready to undertake a longer and more difficult journey than the one just completed and eager to follow the conquistadores along the Andes and down the Amazon.