400 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



should certainly have taken many more species, for when- 

 ever the sun did shine a number of dragonflles appeared, 

 only to be Invisible again when the clouds once more ob- 

 scured the sun. 



Professor Tristan's leave of absence having expired, he 

 was forced to return to San Jose on the twentieth of October, 

 but we remained two days longer with Senor Bonnefil. We 

 left Surubres at 7 A. M., our kind hosts furnishing us with 

 horses to go to Orotlna. We had stayed with them a week; 

 they gave up their best room to us, entertained us with the 

 best they had of everything, made chocolate especially for us 

 because they discovered we liked It, sent the small Jose with 

 us as path-cutter almost every day, supplied us with horses 

 for our return, — and all this because we were strangers to the 

 country and friends of a friend of their niece's husband! 

 They were most delightful people to visit, too, for they loved 

 country life, loved and knew the trees and plants and beasts 

 and gave us much information about these things. 



Owing to the temporal the roads were much worse going 

 back to Orotlna, and the hill up from the Surubres was really 

 terrible. It was so steep, so deep In mud and so slippery. P. 

 rode a mare with a colt at home, and she had to be forced the 

 whole way. The main carretera was unspeakable. Partly 

 from these delays, partly because of a difference in time- 

 pieces, we missed the daily train at Orotlna. This meant 

 staying all night there, which was not In our plans at all. 

 However the Hotel Internaclonal might have been worse. 

 The temporal continued all day and night and we sat on the 

 balcony — luckily the hotel was two-storied — reading Cym- 

 beline. (We tried to carry something to read and something 

 to eat wherever we went.) 



Most of Orotlna (called Santo Domingo until recently — 

 the railroad tickets still bore that name) was along two 

 streets; one was occupied by the railroad, the other was at 



