40 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAX NATURAL HISTORY 



walled, roofless, stone building, apparently without foun- 

 dations as there was no excavation within the walls for a 

 cellar so that foundation walls could not be seen. There 

 were the bases of the usual two towers, two chapels on 

 each side, a curved chancel, and down the interior two rows 

 of bases for the columns that will divide the nave from the 

 aisles. Around the inner sides of these towers ran stone 

 steps up which we climbed for the sake of the fine view from 

 the top of the walls. 



In the southwest part of Cartago a large square was oc- 

 cupied by the "Central American Court of Justice," erected 

 in great part at Mr. Andrew Carnegie's expense for the peace- 

 ful arbitration of subjects of dispute among the republics 

 of Central America. When we arrived in Cartago the 

 "Peace Palace," as it was familiarly called, was up to the 

 level of the first floor and work progressed steadily though 

 slowly during the year we lived there. It was practically 

 finished by May, 1910, and was a very handsome building 

 of brick and plaster, with some beautiful carved marble 

 statues. The dedication was planned to take place in June, 

 1910, but the Peace Palace was absolutely wrecked by the 

 earthquake of May fourth. 



"Cartago" is the name of one of the five "provinces" of 

 Costa Rica, of the "canton central" of that province and of 

 the town which is at once the capital of the province and 

 head of the canton. Every canton is divided into "dis- 

 tritos." In this case the chief villages of several distritos 

 are not only adjacent to Cartago but perfectly continuous 

 with it — a geographical fact which is difficult for strangers 

 to appreciate, but which explains the widely different es- 

 timates of the size of Cartago. Thus the villages of Carmen 

 on the north, San Rafael to the northeast, Los Angeles to 

 the east, San Francisco to the south and Guadalupe on the 

 west are to the visitor absolutely undistinguishable from 



