434 ^ YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



rado of the map of 1865 which latter agrees with the local 

 usage as we found it at the time of our visit. Von Seebach's 

 map, however, represents Cerro San Vicente as south, instead 

 of north, of the Rio Blanco. The sketch map accompanying 

 this book has been drawn to agree with our findings. 



The Hacienda, which stood on the top of a small hill, was 

 L-shaped, the inner angle of the L with a southerly exposure. 

 Its walls were built of wide boards and the roof was partly 

 of tiles, partly of corrugated galvanized iron. The front 

 or south side had a veranda to which one ascended by some 

 tumble-down tile steps; the floor of the veranda was likewise 

 tiled while the house within had wooden floors. There were 

 three rooms in the main part of the house and a kitchen in 

 the shorter arm of the L. The main room opened both at 

 front (south) and back (north) with rather heavy wooden 

 doors; here we ate and here our host and Padilla slept, 

 while Professor Tristan and I slept in a little west room. The 

 windows had wooden shutters but no sashes and of course 

 no glass — only the better and more recently built houses 

 in the towns have glass windows. Every now and then a pig 

 ran in at one door of our dining-room and out of the other; 

 two cats regularly came to beg at our table at mealtime, 

 but the three or four dogs were less frequent visitors. 



This first morning we walked along the wide grass-covered 

 road that ran northeastwardly from the Hacienda, paral- 

 leling the Rio Blanco and in places within a few yards of 

 the stream. Its clear cold water flowed swiftly between 

 banks of conglomerate — boulders embedded in a red clay. 

 Between river and road was a strip of dry woods, having 

 very few epiphytic plants. At places fairly large trees stood 

 within the road itself and the trail used by men and horses 

 wound among them. On the opposite side of the road were 

 mostly charral and low trees. We walked but a short dis- 

 tance, a mile or so, up to 1900 feet. Individual grasshoppers 



