GUANACASTE—SANTA CRUZ 471 



styles of wooden architecture. The plaza had been laid out 

 on a generous scale but was a weedy and stony tract, although 

 possessing a town well with a windmill above it built by the 

 Aermotor Company of Chicago. There were some bare 

 burnt hills to the south of the town from which the ground 

 slopes to a muddy stream emptying into the Rio Bolson. 

 Senora Fonseca's nephew was the President of the local 

 education board and showed us the boys' school, one of the 

 best structures in the little village, although utterly lacking 

 in decoration other than some large palm leaves inside, 

 relics of the last fiestas. There was a small school library 

 in which, as in the school library at Liberia, I noticed Spanish 

 translations of several of Samuel Smiles' works and Bald- 

 win's Pedagogy. Ninety-eight boys attended the Bolson 

 school in the year just finished. The girls' school was in 

 a separate building a short distance away. Both schools 

 were on the high south side of the plaza and were not reached 

 by the inundations. 



Bolson lies on the south side of the Estero, or Rio, Bolson, 

 not north as some maps place it. This river is the contin- 

 uation of the Rio de las Canas after the latter has been joined 

 by the Rio de las Palmas on its left (north) side. Bolson 

 was about one kilometer distant from the port where the 

 Puntarenas steamboat called, the wharf lying opposite 

 Puerto Ballena where we disembarked for Liberia on Janu- 

 ary 8. As the steamer was scheduled to leave at 9 A. M. on 

 the following day we thought it prudent to spend the night 

 at Bolson rather than at Santa Cruz. 



At daybreak, between five and six o'clock, the cocks as 

 usual set up their tremendous crowing. Rarely have I 

 heard them make such a din as here in Guanacaste. The 

 morning of January 19 at Filadelfia will remain in mv 

 memory as possibly producing the greatest gallinaceous 

 racket I have ever listened to, although some days at Santa 



