2 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



book was our introduction to many things which we saw in 

 Costa Rica. 



Six hours later, in the early morning, we reached Limon. 

 The doctor's inspection was over by nine but the steamer did 

 not dock until noon. The dock room was limited by the 

 breaking of the largest pier a few weeks previously and two 

 steamers were already tied up, obliging us to wait until 

 one of them could move. At the custom house, thanks 

 to the arrangements made for us by the late Senor Calvo, 

 then Costa Rican Minister at Washington, our luggage 

 was not even opened, a courtesy which we greatly appre- 

 ciated. All the luggage — five little trunks, a canvas carry- 

 all, a wooden box of bottles and a large parcel — was handled 

 by one porter or "faquin" (not "cargador" as in Mexico) 

 and all at the same time, on a small freight truck. 



The pier at which we landed extended some hundreds of 

 feet outward from the shore with the custom house near its 

 sea end. At its land end was the station of the railroad to 

 San Jose and the interior, and opposite the station stood 

 the building of the United Fruit Company. Immediately 

 north of this last was the principal plaza or public square, 

 planted with many kinds of trees and shrubs. As usual in 

 Costa Rican plazas, the outermost trees were nearly all 

 figs or "higuerones," here of great size and beauty, which 

 formed impressive aisles with their long, rather slender, 

 compressed and subdivided branches. Their foliage is very 

 dark green and produces a deep shadow. The inedible 

 figs had fallen to the ground under some of the trees and were 

 half an inch in diameter, pale yellow in color and stuffed 

 with small pale fruits. One peculiarity was the abundance 

 of aerial roots, as thick as whipcords, dark in color except 

 the pale yellowish tips. These roots hung in profusion from 

 many of the branches, often at heights of twenty or thirty 

 feet above the ground and were sometimes more than a yard 



