TURRIALBA AND PERALTA 245 



gone away for over Saturday night so that we were given 

 their room; on Sunday, the politicians having departed, we 

 obtained a room for ourselves — with, so far as I was con- 

 cerned, the most uncomfortable, broken-down bed that I 

 have yet occupied. Our meals, which were very good, we 

 had at the little house of a Nicaraguan woman named Si- 

 mona; the fare was Costa Rican but suited me perfectly, 

 and Simona seemed much pleased that I ate her tortillas. 



Through the little town flowed the Rio Colorado, empty- 

 ing a short distance below into the Rio Turrialba lying to 

 the east. The latter was a very rocky stream with heaps 

 of rounded boulders along its bed. The railroad crossed it 

 on a stout iron bridge, dated as having been built by an 

 English company in 1889. Its ends rested on heavy con- 

 crete piers but the floods of the preceding December and 

 January tilted the eastern end pier so much out of per- 

 pendicular that the bridge was now being lengthened and a 

 new concrete pier sunk in the soil some distance east of the 

 tilted one. 



Each morning at Turrialba was clear and usually it was 

 possible to see the summit of the Volcano of Turrialba dis- 

 tinctly; later in the day it was apt to be cloud-covered. It 

 is a more imposing mountain than Irazu, whether seen from 

 the northern side as at Guapiles or Guacimo, or from the 

 south as here at Turrialba. Its more imposing appearance 

 is due not only to its greater apparent height, for Turrialba, 

 Guapiles and Guacimo are much lower than Cartago from 

 which we commonly saw Irazu, but also to the more conical 

 shape of its upper portion. Looking at Irazu from Cartago 

 one cannot see the cinders above the tree line, but Volcano 

 Turrialba, seen from Turrialba town, shows the upper limit 

 of the forest clearly and above that, at the western end of 

 the summit, reaches upward a cone whose sides are deeply 

 fissured and ridged, so as to form veritable caiions. Pro- 



