Mexico weekly ledger., 1889-07-04
IN AMERICA.
Some of the H%ardships Experienced by
Travellers in Costa Rica.

Some of the Hardships Experienced by
Travellers in Costa Iiica.
Thousands of ox-carts are still employed
between the towns of EzparZa and Alajuela,
the termini of the Costa Rica railway, car
rying freight over the mountains, and it u.s.
ually takes a week for them to make the jour-
ney of thirty-ive miles, often longer, for on
religious festivals, which occur with sur
prising frequency, all the transportation
business is suspended. A traveller who in
tends to take a steamer at Punt Arenas
must send his baggage on a week in adj
vance. He leaves the train at Alajuela,
mounts a mule, rides over the mountains b
the town of Atenas, where he spends the
night. The next morning at daybreak be
resumes his journey and rides fifteen miles
to San Mateo, breakfasts at eleven, K
his siesta in a hammock until four or five N
the afternoon, then mounting his mule
again, covers the ten miles to Esparza by
sunset, where he dimes and spends the
night, usually remaining there, to avoid the
heat of Punta Arenas, until a few hours be-
fore the steamer leaves; and then, if the OK
carts lave come with his baggage, makes
the rest of his trip by rail.
The Journey is not an unpleasant one.
The scenery is wild and picturesque. This
roads are usually good, except in the dry
season, when they become very dusty, and
after heavy rains, when the mud is deep.
But under the tropic sun and in the dry air
moisture eyaporates rapidly, and in six
hours after a rainfall the roads are hard
and good. The uncertainty as to whether
his trunks will arrive in time makes the
inexperienced traveller nervous. The
Costa-Rican cartmen are the most ire
sponsible and Indifferent beings on earth.
They travel in long caravans or process
sions, often with two or three hundred
teams in a line. When one chooses to stop,
or meets with an accident, all the rest
wait for him if it wastes a week. None
will start until each of his companions is
ready, and sometimes the road is blocked
for miles, awaiting the repair of some
damage. The xen are large white patient
beasts, and are yoked by the horns, and
not by the neck, as in modern style, lash
ings of raw cowhide being used to make
them fast. They wear the Jokes con
tinually. The union is as permanent
as matrimony in q land where divorce
| laws are unknown. b cartmen art
as courteous as they are Indifferent. They
| always lift their hats to a cabalhero as hi
passes them, and say: MAY the Virgin
guard you O your ~journeyp' Thousand.
Of dollars in gold are often intrusted II
them, and never was a penny lost. A
banker of San Jose told me that he usual,
received $4,000 in coin each week during
coffee season by these ox-carts, and consid
cred it safer than if he carried it himself
although the caravan stands in the opel
air by the roadside every night. Highwa.
robbery IS unknown, and the cartmen, wit
their wages of thirty cents a day, would no
know what use to make Of the money l
<l1- eIn-11 -XooI - Na,-nrf1nIa-r fhar a
ways feel at liberty to rob the traveller Q
the straps on his trunks, and no piece 9
baggage ever arrives at its destination 8
protected unless the strap is securel
nailed; and then it is usually cut to piece
by the cart1nen as revenge for being de-
prived of what they considered their pc,
Quisite.-W. E. Curtis. in RarpsT's Aagazin,