202 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. io, 1898. 
In Costa Rica Forests. 
(Concluded from fage 1.S3.) 
We had stopped to rest, and our guides had gone 
a little way ahead to look for signs of peccary. One 
of the men returned and said he had found a place where 
a droA'e of peccaries had been feeding that very morning. 
We lost no time in following him, and presently he 
stopped and asked if we could smell them, and sure 
enough we could smell a strong odor like that of musk. 
We all proceeded now very slowly, with guns at full cock. 
"'Stop! What was that?" From the dense underbrush 
right in front of us came a sound as if ivory billiard 
balls were being struck together. A low underbrush 
rose waist high, so that we could see nothing, yet we 
knew that a drove of wild hogs were there, and might 
run off or charge us, as the mood pleased them. Sud- 
denly, without a moment's warning, every little bush 
in front of us swayed back and forth, and such a snort- 
ing and grunting and rushing it had never been my 
fortune to hear. It was as if the whole woods were 
alive with peccaries, and as if they were all tumbling 
over each other to get away. How many did we shoot 
out of that drove? Literally none, yet there must have 
been 200 or more pigs within gunshot; but owing to the 
thickness of the bush we had not even set eyes on them. 
I for one was disgusted, and concluded from remarks 
made that the sentiments of the rest of the party re- 
sembled my own. But w-e were out for pig meat* and 
were bound to get it, if we hunted all day. After cross- 
ing a little stream, we came to the edge of a swamp, 
which was evidently a favorite resort for the wild hogs, 
as it was all cut up with hoof marks; the signs were 
very fresh, and our guides told us to keep a sharp look- 
out. Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when the 
German, who was in the lead, threw his gun to his 
shoulder and fired twice in succession. Mr. B. also 
emptied his gun, fairly riddling to pieces a large boar, 
the patriarch of the drove. I only made one shot at a 
small pig, but was lucky enough to bring him down, so 
that Mr. B. and I both had our hog. Our German 
friend had made a bad miss of it. but explained that 
when he made his shot the pigs were within 12ft. of 
where he stood, and he was disturbed to find the game 
so near him. However, two pigs were all we needed to 
supply the camp with meat, so we were all in a good 
humor once more. The big fellow, which the English- 
man shot, had tusks that would tear a man's legs all to 
pieces. Quite often they charge a hunter, when the only 
thing to do is to climb the nearest tree, and quickly 
too, as no man could withstand their charges. The 
guides cut long, slender vines, which are used in place 
of ropes, and slung the hogs over their shoulders, and 
we reached camp just in time to escape a heavy shower. 
That, afternoon we had a visitor — a German orchid 
hunter, who, like most Germans, spoke fairly good 
English. He had spent the last two months, with the 
assistance of two Indians, in making up a shipment of 
orchids to send to England, and told us one experience 
he had had with wild hogs. He was alone some half- 
mile from camp ; his gun was leaning against a tree, from 
which he had just descended to the ground with some 
orchids. Hearing the hogs, he reached for his gun, and 
as the peccaries came to a little place in the woods shot 
two of them, one with each barrel. Instead of frighten- 
ing them, this had exactly the opposite effect, and the 
whole drove, 300 or more, charged him. He sprang 
for the tree near by, but had to leave the gun on the 
ground. In a moment they had the trunk of the small 
tree he had climbed all torn away with their tusks, and 
the ground was packed as hard as an asphalt pavement. 
The brutes seemed to be in no hurry to leave the sport, 
and when he tried to come down they charged him 
once more. 
After an hour of this performance they left him, and 
when he got down in safety he told us he made a bee- 
line for camp. He said that when following in the wake 
of a drove of peccaries one would often see a tiger cat 
on the lookout for stragglers from the drove, but he 
had always found the tiger, or jaguar, a great coward. 
The black panther was the only exception, and would 
track a man, so he told us. He said he had shot one 
that came near getting him. He was resting after a long 
walk, and was sitting on the ground with his back 
agamst a log. He had been sitting very still for some 
time, occupied with his thoughts, when out of the 
corner of his eye he caught sight of something crawling 
toward him on the log. He quietly reached for his shot- 
gun, which was on the ground by his side, while inch 
by inch the big black panther crawled toward him. The 
creature crouched for a spring, when quick as a flash 
he threw gun to shoulder and gave it both barrels at a 
distance of about 15ft. from where he was sitting, and 
killed it. 
Our German friend told us of an adventure he had 
with a leopard while surveying for the Costa Rica Rail- 
Road Co. He was making a trial survey through a 
jungle, when without any warning he came face to face 
with a leopard. Both were too much astonished to 
move. The surveyor was frightened pretty badly, as 
he had no gun nor a knife of any kind, only his survey- 
ing instruments, which he made up his mind lo use as 
a club if necessary. They eyed each other for what 
seemed to him at least five minutes. Some move had 
to be made, so he threw his arms in the air, and let 
out such a warwhoop that the leopard made one bound 
for the woods and was seen no more. After that ex- 
perience he said he always wore a revolver. 
ihe following day, the San Carlos River having risen 
considerably, the orchid hunter, who was glad of the 
swift current, which would keep him on his way to the 
San Juan, set out; and we bade him good-by with regret, 
as he was a very interesting character and had an inex- 
haustible supply of stories. That day we had pig roasted, 
stewed and fried, and found it good eating. It has 
rather a strong, gamy flavor, and is not so tender as 
our domestic pie; but it forms the main meat supply of 
rhe natives of this valley. 
One of our guides had Indian blood in his veins, a 
common thing among the natives. The pure-blooded 
Indian of Costa Rica avoids the white man as much as 
possible. He has his thatched ranch way back in the 
mountains, where he grows a few plantains and yams, 
and perhaps a few black beans, and spends most of his 
time hunting with bow and arrows, or a gun, if he can 
afford to buy one. Clothes are not needed in the low- 
lands of this country, so that the men and women alike 
go as nearly naked as they can, putting on clothes only 
when they come out to some settlements to trade. They 
arc very jealous of their women, who as a rule are far 
from good looking, being short in stature and of very 
dark skin. A few of -the Indians have small ornaments 
of pure gold. The king of the Salamanca tribe has a 
gold watch and chain, but they will not tell where the 
gold came from. They know where the mines are, but 
they do not choose that any one else shall know. 
This country is very rich in many ways, but is so little 
known that it will be years before one-tenth of the 
country will ever be explored. Costa Rica is one of the 
first coffee-growing countries in the world, most of the 
crops being sent to England and Germany. Rubber 
grows here in abundance, chocolate, the vanilla bean, 
cinnamon, sarsaparilla, bread fruit, rice, pepper, grapes, 
tobacco, beans, peaches, eocoanuts, bananas, oranges, 
limes, pineapples and numerous varieties of cabinet and 
dyewoods. For a young man with a few thousand dol- 
lars I know of no better country to which he might come, 
provided he did not locate in low swamp lands, but chose 
a situation over 1,000ft. above sea level. 
One of the guides came in with a huge green lizard, 
which he cleaned and cooked for supper. He said that 
it was good to eat, but we preferred to take his word for 
it, and generously told him to eat it all. I was the first 
to awake in the morning, and was startled to see Mr. B.'s 
blanket stained with blood. I awoke him at once. He 
had exposed his foot in the night and had been bitten by 
a large vampire bat, which was still in the tent, and 
which vve killed with sticks. Mr. B. was none the worse 
for his experience, but he lost quite a little blood. The 
bats are common enough here, and trouble the cattle a 
good deal, but seldom molest human beings. For the 
remainder of the trip Mr. B. slept with his boots on. 
We now set out on our trip down stream, and after 
an hour's paddling came to where a clearing had been 
made along the east bank. We went ashore to buy some 
plantains and ripe pineapples, and in all my life I never 
tasted such delicious fruit! The pineapples seemed to 
have no hard core at all. The owner called them sugar 
loaf pines, and said he had so many he did not know 
what to do with them, as he could only sell a few. He 
told us that the deer were plentiful about his place, and 
invited us to stop a day with him and he would go for a 
hunt with us. His ranch house was a large one, and 
very well made, so we did not bother to put up our tent, 
but slept in the house. 
That afternoon while fishing from the bank we saw 
the fin of a good-sized shark, and as it must have been 
seventy miles from tidewater we were somewhat sur- 
prised, but our host told us he had seen them quite 
often. The shark must have come up the San Juan 
River and then up the San Carlos. 
Next morning we had our coffee by 5 o'clock, and 
quite a party of us started out. The ranchman had a 
banana patch within a half-mile of the house, and Mr. 
B. and I concluded to go with him, our German friend 
striking off in a different direction with the two guides. 
The deer of this country are very fond of ripe bananas, 
and they are quite often shot in banana plantations. We 
followed the little path to the bananas, all the time keep- 
ing a sharp lookout for game. On reaching the culti- 
vated fields we skirted the edge of the woods, and I took 
a stand by a clump of bananas, the Englishman and our 
host taking station about 100yds. to my right and left. 
Then we sent a peon with his dog around to the other 
side of the plantation to drive toward us any deer that 
might be feeding there. While we were waiting the 
small flies or midges proved a dreadful pest, biting with 
a zest and spirit that reminded me of the Maine woods 
in July. We could not have been at our stations more 
than ten minutes when we heard the barking of the 
dog, and almost at the same instant I caught sight of a 
deer bounding through the high grass and making 
straight for the Englishman. The deer must have been 
within 15yds. of him when he gave him a charge of buck- 
shot, which brought him down at once. The Spaniard 
also had a shot at a fawn, but made a clean miss. 
Glancing at my watch, I found that vve had not been 
away from the ranch an hour. We did not cut the deer 
up. but took the carcass back to the house as it was. 
The other party had not yet returned. Eleven o'clock 
came, with no sign of them. 
About 11:30 we heard several shots fired off in the 
direction in which they had gone that morning, so I 
concluded to take my gun and a man and go out to meet 
them if possible, and to see what had kept them so long 
away from the house. They had gone on a rubber cut- 
ter's "picket" or trail, so that it was an easy matter to 
follow them. 
Of the other party, the German had killed a danta, or 
tapir, and the two guides were loaded down with 
meat. My friend told me that he had hunted until 10 
o'clock without seeing any game, and was on his way 
back to the ranch when he had come face to face with the 
tapir. The big animal had not offered to charge him, 
but had made off to a little swamp, but not before it 
had received three rifle balls in his body. It went 
crashing through the forest and they followed; and after 
it had gone a couple of hundred yards it had dropped 
dead. As I had never seen a danta, one of the guides 
went with me to show it. When we reached the spot 
the animal was lying on its side and was one mass 
of woodticks. I should think the body would have 
weighed at least ooolbs. The guides told me that some- 
times they were very dangerous, and would charge a 
man at sight, and the man would have to be quick or he 
would be trampled to death. At other times they were 
harmless enough. The animal's hide Avas almost an 
inch thick on top of the back, but on the sides and body- 
much thinner. I do not doubt that that night half the 
tiger cats in the woods enjoyed a rich feast. Some 
of the Costa Rica natives eat the meat. They told us 
it was tender and very much like beef, but we preferred 
to take their word for it. 
I reached camp that afternoon, tired out. One cannot 
exercise in these hot countries without feeling the effects 
of it more readily than in a cool climate, and one very 
unpleasant feature of hunting in these tropical forests 
is the quantities of ticks one gets all over one's body. A 
rub down with rum or kerosene will take most of them 
off. The poor cattle suffer dreadfully from this cause; 
and it is necessary to wash them at times with a solution 
of carbolic acid and tar or tobacco water. 
Our host had a pretty nice little place of some eighty 
acres, and raised almost everything he could wish for. 
He grew his own coffee, rice, beans, plantains, yams, 
bananas, pineapples, bread fruit, pepper and sugar cane, 
from which he made his sugar. He had also cows for 
milk, butter and cheese; and there was ahvays the forest, 
where he could go for game. If he wanted fresh fish 
he could get it from the river at any time. Yes, a pretty 
nice little place, and his wife and children seemed to 
be contented with their lot. 
We bade the good people good-by and were off once 
more on the smooth water of the San Carlos. There 
was hardly any current at this part of the stream, so that 
it was necessary to keep the paddles going at a lively 
pace. The dugouts are very clumsy indeed, and heavy 
affairs compared with a birch bark or canvas canoe. 
Time and time again we passed trees loaded down with 
bright orchids and creepers. Sometimes one will see 
a tree with half its branches loaded down with brilliant 
yellow or purple blossoms, which in shape very Much 
resemble the trumpet flower, and have very sweet fra- 
grance. We saw no game of any kind that day, and 
made camp early in the afternoon on a high bank some 
distance below the River Arenal, where there are a couple 
of small trading stores. There are few plantations in 
this part of the San Carlos Valley, and quite a large 
quantity of rubber is brought down the river from this 
point. As a fruit-growing district it is unsurpassed in 
the world, the only trouble being lack of means of trans- 
portation. As a hunting district it is perfect; all the big 
game of Central America can be found here in abun- 
dance, and the place is easily reached from San Jose. 
The river, flowing through the valley, makes it easy 
to change one's camp at pleasure. Nine hours down 
stream from the River Arenal will bring one to the 
San Juan River, the boundary between Costa Rica and 
Nicaragua. At the confluence of the San Carlos and 
San Juan rivers one can take the river to Greytown; 
and so the district can be reached by way of Greytown 
direct. I think the trip by way of Point Simon and 
San Juan is the pleasanter of the two. 
It was fortunate that we had chosen high, dry ground 
for our camp, as it rained great guns that night; and 
if we had been on low ground it is more than likely we 
would have been washed out. By the next morning the 
rain had ceased, and we made up our minds to hunt di- 
rectly back of camp. Our German friend was sick with 
dysentery, and the Englishman and I concluded to try 
our luck alone that morning; the guide we left in 
camp to tidy up and look after the sick man. Five 
minutes after we started we were drenched with the drip 
from the trees. Fortunately this part of the forest was 
comparatively free from vines and tangled thickets, so 
that we stood a good chance of seeing game. My com- 
panion shot a guatusa (a small animal resembling a rab- 
bit in size, only larger and very good eating), but when 
he went to pick it up he almost stepped on the head of 
a huge diamond-back snake that seemed to be after the 
same game. We both shot the snake, and literally blew 
the head off his body we were so close to him. He 
must have been 12ft. long. He would have made a fine 
specimen for a museum. The fact is, one cannot hunt 
in this country without seeing some variety of snake 
on every trip; that is, if one keeps a sharp lookout, which 
I would advise while hunting here. The bite of most 
Central American snakes, particularly the culebra de 
sangre, or blood shake, means death in a few hours. 
After going about a quarter of a mile further, we came 
to a small brook, the banks of which were cut up like a 
cattle yard, where the wild hogs and danta had been. 
We concluded to follow the stream up a little way, and 
went very carefully, expecting to see game at any time. 
The brook widened out, forming quite a good-sized pool. 
Parting the branches aside, we looked out, and there 
on the opposite side of the pool was a danta lying on his 
side in the mud. I threw my gun up and fired two shots 
into him, but what was my surprise to see that he did 
not move. We went over and found that he was stone 
dead, and had been so for some time, although there 
were no marks on his body save where the two bullets 
had entered his hide. Probably the danta had been bitten 
by some snake and had gone into the brook to die. We 
concluded to go no further, but turned and struck back 
to camp in time for our 11 o'clock breakfast. That 
proved to be our last hunt, as we found our poor friend 
quite sick; and as we had no medicine with us we decided 
to break camp at once and start up stream. In two day?' 
time we reached Muelle, where we had nired our guide 
and canoe, and the next day started back for San Jose 
and civilization. We rode mostly at night, as there was 
a good moon and no dust, whereas in the day the roads 
were hot and dusty. The third day after leaving San 
Carlos Valley we reached San Jose; we drove to the 
French Hotel, where we drank each other's health and 
said good-by; and so ended a very pleasant trip, and 
one long to be remembered by each of us. 
I may add that a very good hunting district can be 
reached by going to the village of Jimenez, about fifty- 
six miles from Port Simon, and then striking off for 
the foothills of the volcano of Turrialbe; and in one 
day's journey from Jimenez a district teeming, with wild 
turkeys, tigers and danta can easily be reached. 
Salamanca is also a good country for game, and 1 
believe the largest tigers are shot there; but the district 
is inhabited by the Salamanca Indians. They are, how- 
ever, a very peacable tribe, and there are also there a 
few white settlers. 
Costa Rica is rich in game, and there is no closed sea- 
son; but the months of January, February and March 
will be found to be the most agreeable for life in the 
bush, as at that time there is less rain than at any other 
season of the year. Frederick S. Lyman. 
■ Costa Rica. 
The Forest and Stream is put to press each week on Tuesday. 
Correspondence intended for publication should reach us at the 
latest by Monday, and as much earlier as practicable. 
