818 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



At 6.30 A. M. we started again, and in two hours of more pleasant 

 travel reached the Eio Oro at the mouth of the Eio Medio, where we 

 breakfasted in style on pavo and camerones. Between noon and 5 p. 

 m. the descent of the Oro was made to the head of tide-water, within a 

 mile of the sea. 



The valley of the Rio Oro was narrow, with hills or mountains close 

 up on either side. As with all these streams during the dry season, the 

 water occupied but little of the broad bed, and we had rather a good 

 roadway and excellent sites for camps, the banks furnishing grass for 

 the horses. 



The tide was low enough at 10 o'clock on the 22d, and we went to the 

 mouth of the river. On the beach were a few pebbles of argillite as the 

 nearest approach to jadeite. I had made the trip across the peninsula 

 of Nicoya, carefully examining the rock at every opportunity, follow- 

 ing the bed of the stream almost continuously from the divide to the 

 sea, only to be disappointed once more. 



A guide from ]!ficoya, who was to pilot us from this point, arrived 

 about noon, but as the route lay for some distance mostly along the 

 beach, we were constrained to return to our camp and pass another 

 night there. A start was made at 6.15; at half past 11 we arrived 

 at the Rio Buena Vista, some 2 miles above its mouth. The road was 

 along the beach most of the way, and at several places we passed snug 

 little harbors like that at San Juan del Sur Nicaragua. While the 

 horses were resting, I took the guide and, wading down the river or 

 scrambling through the thickets for about a mile, reached a point 

 about 40 yards from the river where was a bank some 7 feet high, 40 

 yards long, and 20 wide, formed apparently almost entirely of fragments 

 of red-j)ainted pottery of large and small vessels. This was in a man- 

 grove swamp, and the water at high tide came up to the foot of the bank. 

 It looked as if thousands of vessels had been collected here and deliber- 

 ately broken. No shells were mixed with the fragments, but most prob- 

 ably they were relics of repeated encampments here during the dry 

 season for people from inland who came to feast on fish, turtle, &e. 



We went a few miles up the Buena Yista and camped for the night, 

 that is, we cut some palm leaves on which our blankets were spread, and 

 we considered ourselves in camp. We had not killed any game since 

 the morning before, and our commissary stores were running quite low. 

 Sardines and the tender buds of a small variety of palm made our din- 

 ner. Next morning a small allowance of the same luxuries, and we 

 started on a forced march for Nicoya and something to eat. At noon 

 we stopped on a small stream for lunch, my j^ortion of which consisted 

 of half a sardine and a palm bud. The trail all day lay over rocky hills 

 where the vegetation showed that the soil was unusually poor for that 

 country. Late in the afternoon we reached the small collection of 

 houses at Lazartito, within 10 miles of Nicoya, where was the first hut 

 we had seen since leaving Las Huacas. 



