34 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



a novel method of sprinkling the dust was employed on these 

 streets. By temporarily and partly damming a gutter where 

 it passed under the stone slabs, considerable water was soon 

 accumulated behind the dam and a troop of small boys, 

 straddling the gutter, scooped up this water with tin basins 

 and dippers and threw it out on the roadway until the dusty 

 surface was well dampened. Then the temporary dams of 

 boards and cloths were removed to the lower end of the next 

 square. The poorer streets displayed various degrees of 

 paving from stone blocks to soil, but in these cases there was 

 a gutter down the middle one to two feet wide, well defined 

 by stones and carrying a stream of water several inches deep. 

 Clear water was constantly rushing down these gutters of 

 the north-south streets from the mountain, and in addition 

 the surplus water from the town reservoir, three-quarters 

 of a mile above the town, was turned into the streets every 

 night carrying off any surface drainage. Water for domestic 

 purposes was not taken from these streams but was piped to 

 the houses. Even far out of the town it was common to see 

 a water-pipe, tap and cement sink outside the house door. 

 Neither did Cartago depend upon surface drainage but had 

 an excellent sewage system and during our stay there was 

 planning the installation of a sewage disposal plant. 



It was a common thing to see women washing clothes in 

 the stream flowing down the middle of the street, rubbing 

 and soaping them on the large stones forming the edge of 

 the channel and later, following the invariable custom, 

 hanging them up to dry on the nearest barbed wire fence. 

 The barbs were a most convenient form of clothespin, always 

 at hand when needed, and as barbed wire has been used in 

 amazing quantities all over Costa Rica the washerwomen are 

 never at a loss and greatly prefer to hang the wash on the 

 fence rather than to follow their own native custom of dry- 

 ing clothes on the ground. 



