340 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



built into the top of a long brick furnace containing a wood 

 fire. As the heating progressed a scum arose which was 

 skimmed off and eagerly swallowed by some men and chil- 

 dren, though it was evidently hot and dirty. Finally, when 

 sufficiently thick, the brown liquid sugar was poured into 

 large wooden moulds where it crystallized. The mandador 

 mixed up and cooled some for us in water. It had the con- 

 sistency and taste of soft caramel, as it had burned slightly. 

 Nearly all the product of this trapiche went to the Govern- 

 m.ent Fabrica de Licores to be made into rum. In the mar- 

 kets, at Cartago and elsewhere, there were always great 

 quantities of brown sugar, moulded into truncated cones 

 about six inches in diameter at the top. Moulds for pro- 

 ducing it in this size and form were also here, a single piece 

 of wood having two rows of pockets of this shape, perhaps 

 ten pockets in each row. The power for operating the ma- 

 chinery of the trapiche was obtained by bringing water from 

 a little higher up the river through a ditch running through 

 the cane-field. 



From the trapiche we walked down the river until we came 

 to a fine waterfall of the Caracha, one hundred and thirty- 

 five feet high, Mr. Clark said. At this fall the Caracha 

 empties into the Rio Poas, which also has a fall, of less 

 height but greater volume. Both falls are visible at once 

 from below or from the top of either one, but we saw them 

 from the top of the Caracha fall only. My aneroid read 

 3300 feet at this point, 3350 feet at the trapiche. 



A rather long and tiresome climb back to the farmhouse 

 succeeded, through newly planted cane and coffee, or old 

 coffee with young plants between the old. It was 1.30 when 

 we reached the farmhouse and had breakfast, of soup that 

 looked like tomato, tasted like chicken and contained three 

 balls of beef something like Hamburg-steak, a fried egg (eggs 

 were scarce just now everywhere), frijoles, mazamora (a 



