268 COSTA RICA. 



the Atlantic ; indeed the mines are on high ground at 

 the foot of volcanic mountains. San Mateo seems to 

 have been the place of importance near the mines, and 

 probably a well-known mule-track was in use through 

 the mountain ridge to San Jose, the capital, once 

 numbering thirty thousand inhabitants; but this line 

 failed to reach a good port on the Atlantic coast. The 

 travellers, therefore, abandoned the known track, and 

 turning to the left, made their way between the volcanic 

 peaks of Potos and Barba, hoping that on the eastern 

 slope of the Cordillera navigable rivers would be found 

 either to the Atlantic or to the San Juan de Nicaragua, 

 which joined the Atlantic at the port of San Juan. It 

 was probably at this volcanic ridge that the precipitous 

 road obliged the mules to be sent back. The track was 

 then due north, towards Buona Yista, below which the 

 river Serapique took its rise, running into the river San 

 Juan. Where they crossed this river was fifty or sixty 

 miles from where the mules had left them. Trevithick 

 marked the river-crossing with a steamboat, indicating 

 its navigability ; but the writer infers that it had so 

 much of the mountain torrent about it, that the 

 travellers took a line still through unexplored country 

 towards the port of San Juan, on the Atlantic, for 

 the track and the description show that the river San 

 Jose was crossed, and also another river running to 

 the Atlantic. They probably were stopped by swamps 

 on approaching the San Juan, and retracing their steps 

 to the Serapique, constructed rafts or canoes, and after 

 hairbreadth escapes sailed down it to the junction with 

 the San Juan, and down the latter to its junction with 

 the Atlantic at Port San Juan, or Grreytown. 



Eleven days were passed from the parting with the 

 mules near the crossing of the highest ground, from 



