94 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



which flew screaming over my head. In time I came out on 

 the Carretera Nacional which I followed for the rest of my 

 journey, but long before I reached El Alto I could see the 

 train ahead of me. So I reached Weldon's Hotel on foot 

 about five o'clock, decidedly tired. 



On March 17, 1910, we started on horseback from Car- 

 tago, along the Carretera Nacional. Before reaching Tres 

 Rios itself we turned south into a road running toward Car- 

 pintera. The carretera was not particularly attractive, 

 being hot and dusty, but this side road was pretty, winding 

 about among coffee fields and In places grassy and shady. 

 After a pause for breakfast we rode on up until the road 

 became so steep, rocky and slippery that we thought it in- 

 advisable to take the horses farther and therefore tied them 

 in a grassy place and finished the climb on foot. 



The road was still prettier in the upper part, where it was 

 always shady and in places thickly overgrown. At intervals 

 were beautiful clumps of large white begonias in flower and 

 early fruit, with less frequent pink begonias having narrow 

 pointed leaves. On one of the trees we saw among many 

 other epiphytes a large and curious orchid with long narrow 

 white petals. A pretty violet mallow with flowers over an 

 inch across grew by the fences and there were numerous 

 fruits we did not know at all — clusters of oval red berries 

 and of stiff papery balloons resembling the fruits of a 

 *' balloon-vine," but this plant was a shrub. The savagely 

 thorny "HorquetlUa" {Xylosma salzmanni) used In Cartago 

 as a hedge plant, had been planted for the same purpose 

 along this road but had been allowed to grow up into trees, 

 pretty to look at but not always easy to "duck" under 

 where they hung low. 



After climbing about an hour we crossed a gate and entered 

 an open potrero at 5730 feet, near the top of the spur visited 

 on December 4. (This altitude, furnished by our aneroid, 



