The Press., 1892-04-07

doves in great fOcks and sapalotis. The
 latter gentleman is crow of gigantic
 size, as large as a fully-grown Plymouth
 Rock rooster. of jet black, who serves as Z. the scavenger of these countries. The
 streets are full of them, and there is Q
 fine of five dollars for iniuring them On
 the ground they are the eawkwardest crea.
 lures imaginable, with a jerky, hopping
 sort of gait, that would make you shriek,
 but as they sail in the sky, half-mile
 above the house-tops, they are very grace
 full. The king of the sapalotis Is very
 different sort of bird, bearing no more re.
 semblance to his subjects than exists be-
 tween an eagle and hen. Indeed he
 looks like an eagle. The common saps
 recognize his authority, and when they
 are feeding on a carcass in the woods, at
 his approach, instantly withdraw to the
 branches of the neighboring trees, and re-
 spectfuliy wait until their monarch has
 satisfied his appetite.
 The worlds fair collection includes a
 fine showing of stone gods and clay uten-
 sils, relics of the prehistoric settlers of l c. A.
 Resulting from the pleasing absence of snow and blizzards, there are some an-
 noyances. The all-pervasive dust of the dry season; the price of milk and butter !; the former brings fifty cents per quart, | c0ncouuonflx xuo ,,oo oo,,do,,od o.a xL :.
 butter one dollar per pound, and poor at that.
 l There is the ingenious, malevolent, di- abolic flea, which fourishes in all the pride of his insolence during the dry months. Many people are not molested by these, but MT. Marr prophesied better than he knew, in foretelling that was going to the Fiji Islands to be tattooed by the natives. It is comforting fact that | they are fickle creatures, and, eventually wearying of their allegiance, seek fresher arrivals, so your probation of Purgatory is not permanent. For the customs of the social and confiding digger" you are respectfully referred to the encyclopedia. This engaging pet loves to burrow in the sole of your foot, where, safely sheltered from annoyance, he rears his young be- heath the shade of your cutfcle. If not discovered, in fortnight he leaves quite cavity in your pedal extermity when coaxed by means of pen-knife to change his experiments. You must not fancy cleanliness will avail you aught in escap ing his attentions; but we delay the dreaded hour by never going about our chambers with bare feet.
 About week after our arrival we were greeted with pretty severe earthquake, lasting forty seconds, and you wouldn't believe forty seconds could spin them selves out so. The dangerous shocks only come once in about thirty years Some personally do not apprehend any danger, but all the people are panic stricken at the least tremor since the quake occurring three years ago, when nearly every house in the city was injured, many buildings wrecked, and two people killed. At that period many camped out in the court yards for month, fearing to enter the houses, and they tell us ours was the courage of ignorance, that you get more and more timid
 The countryis passing through dread ful crisis in finance, owing to the failure of the coffee crops, the only article of im- portation from this country except banan- as. The merchants buy their goods abroad with coffee instead of money, and the scarcity of the berry makes the rate Of exchange, and consequently the price of all commodities, ruinously high.
 At present exchange is quoted at 11O, that Is to say it takes $2.20 of this our- rency to buy $1 American or English gold. A few months ago exchange was only 65, so you can see what the country is coming to. The commonest articles of consumption are costly, luxuriant. Ker- osene is $1.5O a gallon; coal, $SO a ton-l yes-eighty! We burn wood, which is dear enough, and havn't seen lump of coal since leaving America. Vinegar is fifty cents quart, salt ten cents pound. | Of course all these articles are imported. | There are no manufactories here, and the | railroad charges are something fabulous, Our freightage from New York to Puerto Limon, distance of 2,OtO miles, was $35 gold. From Limon here, distance of 90 miles, $4OO Costa Ricense currency And yet the railroad does not meet ex- penses. because of the cost of repairs | In any freshet there may be land-slides or | bridges swept away, entailing loss of | thousands of dollars. It is probably one | of the most dangerous roads in the world, | and we shall never go down to the sea again until we shake of the dust of this | land forever from our willing feet.
 The journey requires nine hours. Up, up, up you go, over chasms, gorges, precipices, small streams in dry weather, that become roaring torrents in the wet | months. amid scenery grander, wilder, more majestic than anything in the U. s., unless it be in the Yellowstone Park or the canons of Colorado.
 I had always fancied these lands were fiat, level, monotonous, until L- as- sured me of the contrary. You cannot imagine the difficulties attending the con- struction of the road. It. is only with this year that the road has reached San Jose. Previous to that time you had the last 15 miles to make on mules or in OK carts. 5000 men were employed at 8 time, and perhaps just as great, costly bridge was erected, landslide would demolish it. I believe no man in the country could have put it through but that man of indomitable en- ergy, Myron Keith. He has just taken a million dollar contract for grading the streets of Puerto Limon. Nothing is