SANTA CLARA 283 



footed as goats, and we had no trouble in getting over or 

 through these bad places. La Emilia, the starting and re- 

 turning point of this second expedition to the Florida Road, 

 was a cattle farm one mile east of Guapiles belonging to the 

 United Fruit Company, where we were the guests of Mr. 

 R. E. Woodbridge, the manager. We had left Cartago on 

 November 15, on the "passenger" train for La Junta, where 

 we waited for the Old Line train. The fine new bridge over 

 the Reventazon at La Junta was completed but there was 

 still no station there and we spent the time (nearly an hour) 

 sitting on a bench on the little porch of a negro commissary, 

 "restaurante y cantina" that stood on one side of the track 

 near the switch. The heat was not at all noticeable as the 

 day was cloudy and it was fairly comfortable there. We 

 watched the Reventazon tearing along, a big swift stream, 

 much nearer to the shop and cabins than would be agree- 

 able to us if we had to live there, and the cocoanut palms 

 and breadfruit trees made the place somewhat picturesque, 

 otherwise it was simply a collection of negro huts, railway 

 tracks, bananas and plantains. 



We left La Junta about three o'clock, having planned the 

 trip so that we should not go up the Old Line on a freight 

 day. We therefore did not stop at every possible station 

 and the delays were not long, but the train was exceedingly 

 slow and jerky and it was six o'clock when we reached La 

 Emilia. 



The "stations" along this line were simply sheds built 

 over the path leading up from the track to the company's 

 farmhouse of that particular district, and clustered around 

 the "station" were the cabins of the negroes who worked 

 on the place. There were no roads except the railroad and 

 the footpath along it and no villages except these clusters 

 of cabins. This region was all forest until the Fruit Com- 

 pany cleared it for bananas or pasture land and it had been 



