266 COSTA 11ICA. 



Plate XIY. shows Trevithick's route across Costa 

 Eica. 



A memorandum in Trevithick's writing, apparently 

 a diary, says : 



" From where we returned our mules to the place where we 

 commenced to make our rafts and hoat was eleven days' journey, 

 a distance of 50 or .60 miles. The first and second days after 

 parting with the mules we passed some soft ground, with three 

 or four rivulets of water in narrow vales, about 10 miles on the 

 side of the decline of the high ridge on our left. It could easily 

 be made passable for mules, as the bad places where they could 

 not travel did not exceed two or three miles ; and had we kept 

 a little more to the left above the soft ground, probably they 

 could have passed. The next bad place was about a mile after 

 the second pass across the San Jose Kiver, being a very deep 

 and abrupt vale. Had we never passed the San Jose River, but 

 left it on our right hand, the road would have been much 

 shorter, and we should have avoided this deep vale, and also the 

 three other vales, and their three rivers of Montelegre, Juan 

 Mora, and Ajerbi. They were, however, small, not more than 

 half the leg in water, which is a proof that their source was not 

 above 10 miles off and must have originated in the side of the 

 high ridge on our left. None of the vales were impassable to 

 mules, except that between the second passing of the river San 

 Jose and the river Montelegre, which was about a mile, and 

 might be made passable for mules by a diagonal road to be 

 made in the side of the hill a little higher up. 



" Only five or six miles of road would require to be made for 

 mules on the whole of the way we came, to where the river 

 Serapique is navigable. We observed that we should have 

 avoided those vales by passing a few miles more to the left, 

 where we saw one continued high ridge running from the 

 highest ridge of the continent, commencing at the volcano and 

 terminating in a point near to where the Serapique River is 

 navigable. 



"On a regular decline for perhaps 7000 or 8000 feet in 

 height, down to near sea-level, which would in that distance 



