lo6 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



was here so steep that the highest house was fully 500 feet 

 above the lowest. At one of the houses on this road, that 

 of Eduviges and Ramona Brenes, we had our meals. It 

 was situated on a raised bank or terrace on the east side 

 of the road, the terrace having a stone retaining wall bor- 

 dered at one end with clumps of flags {Iris) and purple 

 lilies. This terrace was nearly level on top, the bare earth 

 hardened and flattened by long use. On this terrace, at 

 perhaps twenty feet from the retaining wall, stood the two- 

 roomed, one-storied house with thick whitewashed adobe 

 walls. It had the usual tile roof, gabled at each short side 

 and the eaves projected over the front or west wall of the 

 house nearly four feet. At one end under the projecting 

 roof were two cement sinks fitted with brass spigots and 

 supplied with water piped (in galvanized iron pipes) from 

 the mountain above. Each of the two rooms had one door 

 but no windows and no ceiling, for, looking up when inside, 

 one saw the slanting roof beams which supported the tile 

 roof. The floor was the same hard beaten earth as the ter- 

 race and on the same level. 



The room nearest the sink was the kitchen; it had no 

 chimney — these houses rarely do. The smoke finds its way 

 out by such holes, accidental or otherwise, as may exist near 

 the roof and incidentally filling the room and blackening 

 the interior. All the cooking was done with wood of course. 

 I saw an Iron coffee mill, used not only for grinding coffee 

 but also maize for the making of tortillas. The darkness, 

 the smoke and my own disinclination to intrude, however, 

 prevented my seeing many details of this room, besides 

 which the kitchen was more or less occupied by the persons 

 of Senora Brenes herself — a large motherly woman — others 

 of the family and one or more female neighbors. 



The other room was bedroom and everything else, fur- 

 nished with beds and narrow, backless wooden benches. On 



