Costa Rica

“ In weighing existing data there seems to be no room for doubt that the highlands of Costa Rica once formed part of a vast archipelago extending from Panama to Tehuantepec. The lowest inter-oceanic depressions between the Arctic Ocean and the Straits of Magellan are the divide between the two oceans at Panama which is 286 feet above the sea-level, and the narrow strip of land separating Lake Nicaragua from the Pacific, which has only about 150 feet elevation. ”

“ THIS monograph treats of the topography, geology, mineral wealth and soils of Costa Rica; it describes its climate and presents the details of its flora and fauna with reference to their economic value; it displays the distribution of population according to race, wealth, communities and social conditions; it examines the agricultural development of the Republic, including its live stock and forests ”

“ Costa Rica was peopled largely by Spaniards from Galicia, but the bulk of the folk are to-day Ladinos or Mestizos, and, where the native tribes have not been exterminated, there are Indians still in complete savagery. The land is one of the healthiest in the region we are treading, and its products of fruits and foods, of timber, tortoise-shell, rubber, cedar, mahogany, ebony, and great stores of bananas, give to the land a further claim to the name of the Rich Coast. ”

“ To-day, when one passes the black fringe of the Caribbean coast, one finds neither the Indian population of Guatemala nor the mixed-breed population of the other countries, but a race eighty per cent. Spanish, even among the lowly peons.
Not being troubled by recurrent civil war, Costa Rica has made progress. It is not an astounding country, for most of its 23,000 square miles of territory are still clad with jungle, and its population of 400,000 people live mostly in one mountain district, where the four principal cities are connected by a wagon road not more than thirty miles in length. ”

“ On the central plain of that portion of Central America which is called Costa Rica stands the city of San José. It is the capital of the Republic,—for Costa Rica is a Republic,—and, for Central America, is a town of some importance. It is in the middle of the coffee district, surrounded by rich soil on which the sugar-cane is produced, is blessed with a climate only moderately hot, and the native inhabitants are neither cut-throats nor cannibals. ”

“ Costa Rica is a peace-loving little state, prosperous, and enjoying a delightful climate. Much coffee and cocoa is grown, shaded by the Bois immortel or madre de Cacao. The live-stock industry is also a large one, and the animals seen on the high grassy plains are well grown [Pg 275] and apparently well bred enough. I visited Cartago, a city which soon afterwards was destroyed by an earthquake.
On the railroad trip up to and back from the capital we passed through lovely and romantic scenery, high hills, deep ravines and virgin tropical forest. ”

“ Costa Rica is a Central American success story: since the late 19th century, only two brief periods of violence have marred its democratic development. Although still a largely agricultural country, it has expanded its economy to include strong technology and tourism sectors. The standard of living is relatively high. Land ownership is widespread. ”

“ Among the twenty-four presidents and dictators who have governed Costa Rica since 1824, several have been men of marked intelligence and devoted patriotism, and under their administration the country has slowly emerged from its former depression, until to-day it may be said to be in a healthy political and commercial condition. ”

“ COSTA RICA AND PANAMÁ.
Costa Rica produces indigo and sugar of excellent quality, and some of the best cacao in the Matina Valley. [XXXII-19] Wheat, potatoes, and other vegetables, apples, and other fruits of the temperate zone are also found; but the republic's chief staple and source of wealth is coffee. [XXXII-20] The plantations are small and looked to with the utmost care. The largest one of Costa Rica 654 would be considered small in Guatemala; but on the other hand, men and women find occupation, and there is no actual poverty. ”

“ Costa Rica.—The fifth and most southern republic of Central America has an area of only twenty-one thousand square miles. The Atlantic coast is low, and the country is covered with a dense forest, while the Pacific slope is characterized by wide savannas, or llanuras. Between these borders are high volcanoes and an elevated table-land three to four thousand feet above the sea,—the latter almost the only cultivated land in the State. The forests are largely composed of very valuable trees,—mahogany, ebony, brazil-wood, and oak; and the usual tropical fruits grow well. ”

“ The population of Costa Rica is nearly all white and mostly descendants of Spaniards from Galicia. The Indians are not numerous and are completely distinct from the civilized race. The Negroes and mixed breeds live almost exclusively on the coast-lands. ”

“ On entering the first town I had visited in Central America, I had of course looked about me for strange sights. That men should be found with their heads under their shoulders, or even living in holes burrowed in the ground, I had not ventured to hope. But when a man has travelled all the way to Costa Rica, he does expect something strange. He does not look to find everything as tame and flat and uninteresting as though he were riding into a sleepy little borough town in Wiltshire. ”

“ They are quite up to our standard of intelligence, and although education is not so universal as in this country, the leading families of Costa Rica are as cultivated as our own. They surpass us in social graces, in conversational powers, in linguistic and other accomplishments. They have keener perceptions than we, are more carefully observant of the nicer proprieties, can usually speak one or two languages besides their own fluently, and have a cultivated taste for music and the arts. ”

“ Costa Rica is also very rich in Fishes. Those in the Pacific are almost entirely different from those of the Atlantic Ocean. Also its tributary waters have more varied species than those of the Atlantic slope. ”

“ Costa Rica, owing to her geographical position, was almost isolated, politically, from the rest of Central America. It would be wrong, however, to infer that her participation in the general affairs of the republic had been one of mere formality or policy for her own convenience or safety. Nowhere had the idea of a union been more warmly embraced. Four months only had elapsed after the bases for the organization of the state had been adopted by the national constituent convention, when Costa Rica's first assembly met, [IX-53] 179 and on the 21st of January, 1825, decreed a state constitution. ”

“ Colombia to within a few miles of Brito. The entire country may properly be divided into two distinctive groups by a natural line running between the mouths of the Reventazon and Rio Grande de Pirris; groups which can be called “volcanic mountains” or “mountains of the northwest,” and “Talamanca mountains” or “mountains of the southeast.” It is clear that the Caribbean Sea once joined the Pacific Ocean through this valley of the river Reventazon in which the Costa Rica Railway now climbs to reach Cartago. ”

“ The Mangues, or Chorotegas, at the time of the Mexican invasion, occupied the peninsula of Nicoya and all the lands surrounding the gulf of that name. They were then, no doubt, the most powerful and advanced people in Costa Rica, and carried some of their arts, such as pottery, sculpture, weaving, and tilling the ground, to greater perfection than any people occupying the region between their territory and that of the Chibcas on the table-land of Colombia. ”

“ Important agricultural districts are, besides the Central Highlands about one hundred and fifty kilometers in length by sixty kilometers in width, the great valleys of Talamanca, Santa Clara, Tortuguero, San Carlos and Rio Frio. Along the Pacific the great valley of Térraba and the plains of Golfo Dulce and Guanacaste are fertile regions, which, if properly tilled, would offer advantages equal to the Central Highlands, where nearly the entire population of Costa Rica is concentrated. ”

“ Considering the future of Costa Rica, the question of farm labor is of vital importance. There are only a few Indians, and they are rapidly decreasing. It looks as though the fertile lowlands on the Atlantic and Pacific sides, as well as those in the extensive and fruitful San Juan valley, must be turned over to the Negro race as the only one capable of enduring so inhospitable a climate. These regions are the richest of all and could sustain a large population. ”

“ A report, which the King ordered to be made about that time for purposes of taxation, stated: “In Costa Rica no mines of any metal are worked; no gold-washings, no [126] indigo cultivation, no sugar-mill exist. The people cultivate only maize and wheat. ”

“ The lands are extremely fertile. El Muelle Nuevo is the head of navigation, forty-five miles from the River San Juan and sixty-six miles by the road across the mountains from San José.
From the Sarapiqui River to the River Colorado, a branch or bayou of the San Juan, the banks of the latter in Costa Rica are but slightly elevated. The lands are low and swampy, but occasionally a hill is found from fifteen to eighteen feet high. ”

“ The Rio Grande de Tarcoles, which enters the gulf south of the Barranca, has a dangerous bar, but once inside it may be navigated a few miles. Its upper waters irrigate the table-land of San José, Alajuela and Heredia. In the neighborhood of these towns is garnered nearly the entire coffee crop of Costa Rica. The coast line south is rocky and precipitous [15] until near Punta Mala, or Judas, at the southeastern mouth of the gulf, and is low and surrounded by reefs and rocks. ”

“ Before giving the lists of the woods, tannings, dyeings, gums, balsams, resins, rubber, waxes, textile and medicinal plants, oils and oil seeds, etc., of Costa Rica, it is advantageous to research to name those collectors and scientists who, having traveled through Costa Rica or established themselves there, have especially contributed to the knowledge of the natural resources of the country. ”

“ Immigration to Costa Rica has been small. During the first half of 1897 there entered 1533 individuals by Port Limon and 389 by the Port of Puntarenas; but during the same time 1150 persons left Costa Rica through Port Limon and 344 through Puntarenas. The result is a gain of only 428 persons in favor of the country. In 1896, the excess of registered immigrants over emigrants was 1112 persons, there having entered 3980 and departed 2868 persons. Several times attempts have unsuccessfully been made by foreigners to establish colonies. ”

“ The Atlantic virgin forests, as well as those in the region of the San Juan River and of Lake Nicaragua, which comprise two-thirds of Costa Rican territory, show such a dense vegetation that its interior can be penetrated almost only by way of the rivers, and its general character and its enormous extension be studied only from high mountains. Owing to the very mountainous character of the country, over half of its area lies between 900 and 2100 meters above the sea, and is almost wholly covered with virgin forest. ”

“ Nicaragua presents yet another unique physical feature. Lying between the elevated mountain masses of Costa Rica on the south and Honduras on the north, the average elevation of its own mountain backbone hardly one thousand feet, it is the natural thoroughfare of the beneficent northeast Trades. These winds sweep in from the Caribbean across the Atlantic slopes, break the surface of the lakes into sparkling waves, and then disappear over the Pacific, aerating, cooling and purifying the country, destroying the germs of disease and making Nicaragua the healthiest region in Central America. ”

“ The following year he reported to the King on the condition of Costa Rica, which he pronounced the “poorest and most miserable of all America. The current money is the cacao seed, there not being a piece of silver in the entire country. There is not an eatable sold in street or shop. Every family has to sow and reap what it consumes or expends during the year. Even the Governor has to do this or perish. Meanwhile the inhabitants of the province are contentious, chimerical and turbulent, and among the whole of them there are not forty men of medium capacity.” ”

“ Before many months had passed, Costa Rica witnessed a catastrophe which filled the whole of Central America with sorrow, indignation, and shame. Mora, the deposed president, had solemnly protested against the revolutionary acts which deprived him of his office. There were not wanting men, who, either honestly or with evil intent, beguiled him into the belief that he was wanted back, and would meet with a cordial reception and support. ”

“ The eastern shore is less beset by obstructions, and small craft go along it with ease, and at high tide penetrate a few of its many rivers. It rises rapidly a short distance inland, but is at times bordered by mangrove swamps.
Near the mouth of the river Aranjuez, on a sand spit three miles long, stands Puntarenas, the only port of entry of Costa Rica on the Pacific coast, and which had, from 1814 until recently, nearly the entire foreign trade of the country. Ocean vessels anchor from one to two miles off in the roadstead. There is an iron pier for loading and discharging. ”

“ The government of Costa Rica has often offered inducements, in the way of land grants, for European immigration. [XXVIII-21] It must be said, however, that the 593 Costa Ricans are jealous of foreign influence, and though willing to have the benefits of foreign capital, are not disposed to share with foreigners the wealth which that capital develops. Nevertheless, foreigners are permitted to hold real and other kinds of property, and to become citizens of the country. ”