But, like its neighbours, Costa Rica stands perennially in awe of the volcanoes which top the summit of the Cordillera. Turialba, ever hot and angry, and Poas are among these, pouring forth smoke and vapour.
Let us take our stand a moment on Irazu, 11,000 feet above the sea—we may reach it on horseback—higher than the summit of the Pyrenees, and looking east and west remark the vast horizons which unfold below: on the one hand we see the gleaming waters of the Atlantic, on the other those of the Pacific, whilst, between, the whole expanse of the country unfolds. Here, indeed, may the inhabitant of Costa Rica cast a glance over the whole domain of his patria, and let fancy wander over the realms of ocean towards Europe and Asia.
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.
And now our vessel floats upon the beautiful Bay of Panama, studded with verdant isles, and if perchance it be the sunset hour the flashing colour of the sky may light up the towers of the old colonial city near its shore, a romantic haven, whose memories of Drake and of the cruel Morgan, of Nuñez de Balboa, of Pizarro, and all that gallery of bygone adventurers who made the history of the New World upon these tropic shores. The sun does not rise, however, in the Bay of Panama, but sets, for the curvature of the isthmus has disoriented us, at Panama.
A COFFEE ESTABLISHMENT IN CENTRAL AMERICA.
Vol. I. To face p. 86.
This independent Republic of Panama threw off its allegiance to Colombia, whose heritage the isthmus was, in a grandiloquent manifesto after the—alleged—machinations of the Americans, who, wearied of the dilatory tactics of the parent State, laid hands on the isthmus to carry out their cherished plan of making the Canal. "Just as a son withdraws from his paternal roof, so the isthmian people, in adopting the destiny they have chosen, do so with grief, but in compliance with the supreme and inevitable duty the country owes to itself. Upon separating from our brethren of Colombia, we do so without hatred and without joy." So ran the manifesto.
But the people of Bogata, of Colombia, consider that an unspeakable outrage was perpetuated upon them, and regard the United States and its then President, Roosevelt, as its author—an outrage which time will take long to heal.