The Press., 1892-04-07

without congregation. A truly typical,
 tropical family, for there is something in
 the climate here promotive of fertility. I
 have heard of Nicaraguan family num-
 bering twenty-four children. Interesting and beautiful!
 We spent few days in Kingston, which
 place, to my mind, is far worse than this
 place, it is so insufferably hot and dusty.
 The heat was like that of August. stOh. no" they said in answer to our complaint,
 it is not hot now, but it gets pretty
 warm in summer.n
 Fancy! Everything is thoroughly En- gilsh, and the whole city was in mourning for the Duke of Clarence, who had died the day preceding our arrival. Some of the stores exhibited only black and white goods. Could fiunkyism go farther? It seems to me all this talk about the over throw of the throne andthe establishment Of republic in England, in the event of the queens death, is bosh, for the English are so intensely, narrowly loyal to the government and to all the royal family, good, bad and indifferent, His Royal Nibs among the lot.
 Of course Jamaica is a far more civil lized land than this, but should detest the heat, dust and ubiquitous negro.
 l don't expect to be believed when &C., quaint you with the fact that, although San Jose is about eight degrees from the equator, it possesses one of the finest cli- mates in the world, pure mountain air, never hot, never cold, and your doors and windows are all wide open the entire year, and not house in town has any method of artificial heating.
 You wear woolen dresses all the year around, except few hours in the middle of an exceptionally warm day, and sleep under pair of blankets every night.
 Imagine waking every day for six months to see the sun shining brightly at you, for it never rains during half the year, you know, thus depriving you of the most useful subject for the promotion of conversation. It would be too absurdly trite to say, "What lovely day." when one hundred and eighty-two just like it have preceded it, but 1t is great strain on the feeble intellect to invent substi- tutes. The usual formula is "How do you do ?" with very tender infection, as if the condition of your system were a matter of the deepest import to them and they always stop when they meet you in the street, shake halids in greeting, and repeat the ceremonyi in parting, if you have not exchanged i've words even. They are forever shaking hands, and I consider it bore.
 To return to the weather. During the rainy season the mornings are clear, and you get your shower, laaing one or two hours, in the p. m., at A fixed hour, so you know when it is safe to go out. As the season advances the showers increase In length, until, during thelast two weeks, ltrains Always ; The sun sets the year round at 6. 30, and it gets dark inn ediately, there being almost no twilight.
 The universal idea that Central Ameri- ca is land teeming with anacondas, and reptiles of all kinds, is delu- sion. This week I was talking with a civil engineer from Mississippi, who is an enormous extent of land through the painless mountain jungles, eighty miles from here, who assures me he does not see three snakes month, the argest yet seen being harmless black specimen, only seven feet in length.
 The government is already starting it's collections to Chicago, via the exposition It Madrid, and it numbers seven thousand md twenty-five distinct species of birds rom this little republic alone, more than s found in all Europe. But we donB see my of these in the city. Like all trop- cal birdss they are of brilliant plumage, put songless.
 The birds residing in San Jose are