30 ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND ETHNOLOGICAL 



the value of a pound of coffee is only one-half that amount. Although the char- 

 acter of the greatest portion of tlie inhabitants has been changed, fortunately some 

 few have still preserved their simplicity and kindness. The greatest change of 

 character took place in that region where the mania of planting coffee most pre- 

 dominates. It is calculated that on a manyanu, one hundred and fifty feet square 

 of land, the coffee-trees planted will produce three hundred and seventy-five dollars 

 a year, while sugar-cane planted on an equal area will bring a thousand dollars, 

 and cacao trees the enormous amount of two thousand and five hundred dollars a 

 year. Nevertheless the culture of cacao is entirely neglected, and the sugar-cane 

 is attracting only moderate attention. 



With the exception of Nicaragua the culture of cacao is neglected all over Cen- 

 tral America. The people content themselves with the imported bean, while the 

 native product is superior ; or if the foreign is equally good, as, for example, that 

 grown in Tabasco, they have to pay for it as much as half a dollar a pound, and 

 then it is scarce in the market. One of the few men whom I met Avith, who per- 

 ceived the importance of the culture of cacao to those countries, was the governor 

 of the department of Sensunat, in San Salvador. He planted some trees himself, 

 and passed an ordinance compelling every pater-familias in his department to plant 

 at least five cacao trees. 



Instances of kind-heartedness I experienced in places remote from the prevailing 

 desire after gain. Lorenza Ximenes, the woman in whose house in Los Frailes I 

 took refuge from a shower, brought me, immediately after entering, a wliuacal with 

 corn-starch boiled in milk. In Corallio, in the house where I went to buy some 

 maize for my horse, 1 was served with chocolate and biscochos, sweet rice-cakes, hot 

 from the oven ; and was asked but half the usual price for the maize. The next 

 morning, when I went to bid the kind people good-bye, the man came out with a 

 cigar and a glass of brandy. Excusing myself for not accepting these articles, 

 he went in and came back with some markisottes, sweet maize-cakes, which I had 

 to accept. In Santa Maria, a new settlement with many discontented people, I 

 was refused quarters in two houses, and in the third received permission to take 

 my night's lodging on the maize in ears in the small barn. The next morning 

 when I was starting, one of the men who refused to admit me in his house the 

 night before came to invite me to drink some milk, undoubtedly repenting his un- 

 kindness. In Guacas I received the most sympathetic attention from the man and 

 his wife from whose house I started in the morning, after having slept there the 

 night before, to ascend the volcano of Irazu, and returning in the evening half-sick 

 from being poisoned by some kind of whortleberries. 



Indolence, the characteristic trait of all inhabitants of a tropical clime, is like- 

 wise to be seen in Costa Rica. Bagazes was the only place where I found dried 

 plantains, which are most delicious ; although the demand for them is extensive, 

 and they bring a high price, there is no person who will produce enough of them 

 to supply the local demand. The drying of the fruit does not require any outlay 

 of money, nor any other trouble than to expose the perfectly mature fruit to the 

 sun. 



