Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-11-24
ON THE IsFEMUS.
LIFE AND DEATH IN THE aHERI-
CAN TROPICS.
Gruesome Stories Of the Plague in
Costa Rica's Capitol-Sights
in San Jose.

| Special Correspondence of the REcoRD-UNIoN-l |
san JOSE COSTA Rica), November IA, 1888.
Being again in the bright little Capital,
probably for the last time, let us devote
day to looking up the various attractions
neglected in previous visits. Suppose we
begin with the Campo de Marie, the most |
popular resort of the vicinage, which is to
San jose what the Bots de Boulogne is to |
Paris, Central Park to New York, or Fair |
mount to Philadelphia. 1t lies mile |
and half from the city, reached by a
broad and well-paved avenue, drained by |
deep trenches running parallel with it, and
shaded by lofty hedges of cacti and euca-
lyptus, behind which thousands of coffee
trees haunt their scarlet berries and breathe
forth fragrance.
The Campo itself is perfectly level
plain, several hundred acres in extent,
carpeted with greenest grass and intersected
by lines of thrifty fig trees. 1t is sur
rounded on all sides by wealthy haciendas,
with their orange groves, partieres, and
plantations of pineapple and sugar cane
j little beyond the white walls of Heredia
glitters against the bare, brown slopes of the
Sierra Barba; and behind that huge vol
cauo-whose fire have long been extin-
guished in lake of unknown depth
the azure peaks of Poaz sparkle in
the sun, Swallowed on the southern side by
the loftier mountains OF San Miguel.
Every afternoon the Campo de Marie is
the resort of carriages and the scene of
fashionable equestrianism; and here may
be seen the beauty and the chiyalry Of
Costa Ricau society, in their best clothes
and company manners" The annual
flower show is held here, and occasionally
some patriotic celebration or religious
fiesta; and twice every year it is the arena
in which military encampments and re-
views take place. These aforementioned
occasions are momentous, and call out the
entire population of the city Then the
troops are handsomely uniformed, the
officers especially being perfectly heart
smashing in the bravery Of blue frocks
faced with red, their swarthy faces and
flashing eyes, well set off by the red shabos
topped with scarlet pompoas The
remainder of the year, however, the only
regulation in force concerning the cos
tuning of the Costa Rican army seems to
be the clean-shirt-on-Sunday ordinance
Among the handsome villas close at
hand, one of the prettiest is called "The
Labyrinth" and is open to the public.
The roomy casa is backed by luxurious
garden, and in the garden a sparkling
fountain throws its waters into three res
ervoirs. These tanks, faced with cemented
brick, serve for baths, the first, nine feet
deep, being for the use of gentlemen; the
second, seven feet deep for ladies, and the
third, only three feet deep, for children.
Walls of DESTROYS height surround them,
and there are shady corridors wherein the
bathers may lay aside and resume their
habiliaments and be served with cups of
coffee or chocolate.
Between this Labyrinth" and the Campo
de Marie lies the only Protestant burial
ground in Costa Rica Its consecrated
quarter-acre is snugly walled, and screwed
TO the wicket of the iron-barred gate is
metal plate bearing this inscription:
THIS CEMETERY
Was granted by the Government of Costa Rica
In February, A. D. 1850
At the request of Senior Frederick Chatterfeld
Charge d Affaires of Her Britannia Majesty
"For know that my Redeemer liveth and
that He shall stand in the latter day upon the
earth. And though after my skin worms destroy
my body, yet in my flesh shall see God Whom
l shall see for myself and mine eyes shall be-
hold. and not another, though my veins be con-
sumed within me"
Though nearly forty years old, the little
cemetery is not crowded, nor is it likely to
be within the present century. Most of
the grass grown and bramble- covered graves
being those of wandering strangers, have
no heaestones and though record of all
interments is kept in the chapel, it is so
obscure that the most diligent search fails
70 identify one of them
Even sadder than those neglected
mounds-since the dead do not need our
tears-are some of the carefully tended
plots, which speak.of buried hopes and
tender remembrances. One in particular,
in a secluded corner, hidden from the main
pathway by interceptlng trees tells its own
story CT love and grief. The closely cut
sod above "the lone green tent, whose cur
tain never outward swings" is fringed with
wide border of blue forget-me-nots, and
upon the spotless shaft appear these words:
MARY
and our infant sou.
Though life and love make fearful interces-
slons, death conquers after all
Close beside the Campo de Marie, on the
side opposite this Protestant Gods acre, is
the old Catholic burial place, which for
more than thirty years has been closed as
forbidden ground. Here, for more than
two centuries, bones have been piled upon
bones, and collins above cofiins-so long
that all the earlier inscriptions upon vaults
and headstones have been eaten away by
the insidious tooth of time. When the
great cholera epidemic swept the country,
several thousands of its victims were
buried here, heaped together in great
trenches that were dug among the already
pvercrowded graves Immediately after
the subsistence of the plague, new Cath
ole cemetry was opened on the other side
of the town, but those who had relatives
previously inferred in the old one were
not allowed to remove them flor fear of
disseminating cholera), and the rusty iron
gates are never unlocked.
Peering between the bars, we see nothing
but mass of vegetation, possibly suggest
i've in its rankness, and here and there a
skull. OF rib, or marrow-bone, whitening
in the sun, which has been evicted from
some crowded tomb to make room for a
later tenant. Listen moment and you
are sure to hear the scamper of a lizard
or the rustic of d snake in the green depths
of this dead sea. From thelsunny Campo
and nearby Labyrinth come light laughter
and snatches of song and murmurs of ten
derness; while the vegetation deepens I'M
disturbed above these poor, forsaken dead.
whose nameless graves are unvisited by
any but loathsome reptiles. With shud-
der we turn away, hoping in our hearts
that God remembers
Blood-curdling tales are told of that
fearful time when the scourge walked
abroad in Costa Rica, and his victims lin
many of whom, doubtless, the breath of
life yet lingered), were hurried by hun
dreds into the trenches. They tell us that
one of the pits became so heaped with
bodies that the sexton was obliged to jump
upon the last layer, to level it with the
ground, and as he did SO, more than
one faint moan was distinctly heard. 1t
was impossible to tell from which OF the
supposed corpses the cries proceeded, and
ne did not dare unpack the ghastly heap I;
so he kept on with his work until his boot
heel happened to strike the stomach of
one bodv-which instantly doubled up and
began to swear in good round Spanish
And the man is still living, to tell of his
Ii ~ a.