300 MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



presented by the mainland itself between Lake Nicaragua and the Gulf of Panama. 

 The highest crest of this outer Costa Rican coast-range appears to culminate 

 towards its southern extremity in a peak not more than 2,000 feet high. 



Rivers. 



The strips of coastlands on both sides of the central uplands are too narrow 

 for the development of any large fluvial basins. Even the most copious streams, 

 the San Carlos and Sarapiqui, become merged in the San Juan before reaching the 

 Caribbean Sea. The Colorado, which, on the contrary, now receives nearly the 

 whole discharge of the San Juan, flows entirely in Costa Rican territory, where its 

 waters are intermingled by lateral channels with those of the Sarapiqui. From 

 the north-east slopes of the uplands, exposed to the moist trade winds, flows the 

 Parismina, or Reventazon, which has a much larger volume than might be supposed 

 from the length of its course. On the same side follow several other rios, such as 

 the Sicsola, and the Tilorio, or Changuinola, which Peralta identifies with the old 

 Rio de la Estrella, famous in the local legends for its auriferous sands. The same 

 name of Estrella has also been given to another less copious stream, which flows 

 farther north near Cahuita Point, and where the alluvia are still washed for 

 gold. 



On the drier Pacific slopes the watercourses are less copious in proportion to 

 their length. Nevertheless three of them bear the name of Rio Grande : the Rio 

 Grande de Terraba, which reaches the coast at the head of the Golfo Dulce ; the 

 Rio Grande de Pirris, which flows south of the mountains terminating in the 

 western headland of Herradura, and the Rio Grande de Tarcoles, which rises at 

 the Ochomogo Pass, and which, after its junction with the Tiribi, the more copious 

 of the two, enters the sea opposite the southern extremity of the Nicoya peninsula. 

 Farther north the Tempisque flows to the head of the Gulf of Nicoya after travers- 

 ing the low-lying isthmus which was formerly a marine channel between the 

 Nicoya peninsula and the mainland. 



All these streams tend by their alluvia to raise the bed of the gulf ; but a more 

 potent cause is the south-east marine current which sweeps into the basin all the 

 organic refuse collected on the neighbouring coast. 



The Gulf of Nicoya, so named from a chief whom the Spaniards converted 

 with 6,000 of his subjects, rivals the Bay of Naples, the Bosphorus, or the 

 Strait of Simonosaki in the rhythmical contour of its shores and encircling hills. 

 Its waters are studded with islands of all sizes, whose deep green forest vegetation 

 contrasts with the azure hue of the distant mountains. San Lucas, one of these 

 islands, resembling Capri in outline, is famous throughout Central America for 

 the legendary reports of the vast treasures here deposited by shipwrecked corsairs. 

 But nothing has ever been brought to light, despite the numerous expeditions 

 equipped to discover these treasures. 



The Golfo Dulce, that is, "Freshwater Gulf," is much deeper than Nicoya, 

 and entirely destitute of islands. 



