820 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



operation wbicli was due to the interest excited by these papers. In 

 company with this gentleman I called on the bishop of Costa Eica, 

 who, while interested in anthropology, was especially fond of ornithol- 

 ogy. In his collection were jadeites, one very fine, and several speci- 

 mens in argillite and marble. These two gentlemen were to start in 

 about a week on a Government expedition for exploration in the country 

 of the Guatuso, or Eio Frio Indians, and kindly invited me to join them. 

 Here was a rare opportunity, but on consideration I concluded to stick 

 to my instructions and give my time to the department of Liberia. * 



April 4, we (Keith, some half-dozen Costa Kica gentlemen, and I) left 

 San Jose for Port Limon. We crossed the ridge between the central 

 valley or ijlateau and the Atlantic slope, and took breakfast at one of 

 the stations of the parties building the cart road. This was a graded 

 road which followed a stream in its rapid but tortuous descent through 

 the mountains to the point where the railroad entered the gorge and 

 crossed the Eio Lucio. An extra train was made up in the evening, and 

 we made a night trip of a few hours to Port Limon, distance 71 miles. 

 At the upper end of a curved beach is a promontory formed of coral 

 rock, and off this an islapd making a very beautiful harbor. There 

 were no antiquities found in this neighborhood, but in the storehouse 

 of Mr. Keith was a collection made along the line of the railroad, and 

 several people in the town had very pretty specimens from the same 

 source. Mr. Keith agreed to send his to the Smithsonian by his brig 

 Nile on her next trip to New York, so I spent the 6th hard at work 

 packing. 



We were back in San Jos6 on the 8th, and in San Mateo, on the road 

 to Punta Arenas on the 10th, and sailed in a dug-out for Puerto Jesus on 

 the 11th at midday. The first showers of the coming wet season had 

 been at Alajuela as I passed on the 9th, and I found the road from Jesus 

 to Nicoya in some places miry from the heavy shower of the evening of 

 the 12th. The ride was made at night, and progress in the intense 

 darkness was only made practicable by a lantern carried by my com- 

 panion. Three o'clock the morning of the 13th found me at Nicoya. I 

 had not had a night's rest for six nights, aud the well-deserved fever 

 promptly made its call. The northeast wind came up strong again and 

 blew the wet season back for another two weeks. 



The leave of absence for the jefe politico, Don Juan Jos6 Mata-Eita, 

 not having arrived, he and I went to Santana on the 20th to make some 

 investigations in the huacas of that place. As around Nicoya and Ca- 

 nillas, they were indicated by low piles of stones, principally limestone 

 from the neighboring hills. These piles only rose 1 or 2 feet above 

 the surface. Commencing excavation in one, the stones were found for 

 first 3 feet, at the bottom of which were human bones and some frag- 

 ments of Chorotega pottery. Lower still was the hard clay of this sec- 



* lu November, Don Leon wrote me a most interesting letter informing me of their 

 success. 



