PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY, 819 



As usual after such a trip I was ill for a day or two with fever and 

 dysentery, but after resting Saturday was in condition to take the saddle 

 again at 2 p. m. on Sunday for Bolson and Punta Arenas. 



Early on the morning of March 29, I was called for my trip to San 

 Jos6. I was in a room on the second floor of the hotel at Punta Arenas, 

 sittijig on the edge of my cot when the room began to rock like a boat 

 in a sea-way. The tiles on the roof rattled and danced overhead, and 

 outside the tops of the trees lashed the air as if shaken by a giant hand ; 

 the chickens cackled, and women rushed screaming into the streets. It 

 was the heaviest earthquake of my experience, and I in an upstairs 

 room with the door locked ; but in a frame house built with an eye to 

 resisting just such strains there was little danger of accident. 



The road was along the beach for 8 or 10 miles, then struck inland and 

 began to ascend. By much labor on my lazy mule, I made more thau 

 half the distance, and slept at Aten^. A ride of three hours next morn- 

 ing took me to Alajuela, a town at tlie western end of the valley of 

 San Jos6, from which a railroad passing through the principal towns 

 extends eastward to Cartago. The valley is some 4,000 feet above the 

 sea, and surrounded by mountains rising several thousand more, the 

 peak being feet in elevation. This is one of the finest coffee- 

 growing regions in the world, and the superb plantations, with here and 

 there a town or village, and in every direction a background of mount- 

 ain range or volcanic peak, make up landscapes as fair to view as any 

 beneath the sun. 



On my arrival at San Jos6 I was met by Mr. Minor C. Keith, a youug 

 American, who had been in Costa Eica some ten years, and who had by 

 pluck and jieraeverance at last completed a railroad from Port Limon 

 on tlie Atlantic to a point within 25 miles of the capital. The inter- 

 vening distance was covered by a cart road which he was then finishing. 

 These gave a continuous line from San Jose to the sea with much cut- 

 ting, and I accepted Mr. Keith's invitation to accompany him over the 

 roads. 



One of the ministers, Mr. Sanez, who,in the absenceofthe President, 

 was in charge, received me most kindly, gave directions for facilitating 

 my work, and promised permission for the jefe politico of Kicoya to ac- 

 company me for one month on my explorations. I was also introduced 

 to Don Leon Fernandez, who was in charge of the Government archives 

 and then engaged in his work " Documentos, para la Historia de Costa 

 Eica," the first volume of which was out. * Sehor Fernandez was found 

 an enthusiastic antiquarian and historian. The chapters of his work 

 first came out in the official gazette, in addition to the ordinary circula- 

 tion, of which copies were sent to the officials in all parts of the republic, 

 and everywhere awakened an interest in antiquities and the history of 

 the Indians, which must work valuable results. Eepeatedly I had co- 



* The second Yolume has since appeared. 



