[XXVIII-34] For examples, in Nic., Gen. Corral, Walker's victim, Gregorio Juarez and Rosalío Cortez, ministers of state, were mulattoes. Anselmo Rivas, also a minister, resembled an Abyssinian; Fruto Chamorro, the conservative president, showed evidences of many mixtures. Belly, Nic., i. 255.
[XXVIII-35] The whites in their social intercourse maintain a certain exclusion, but in other respects equality prevails. Knowing their numerical inferiority, they have followed the policy of concession. Squier's Travels, i. 268.
[XXVIII-36] According to Trollope, pure Spanish blood is an exception. He thinks there must be a great admixture of Indian blood with it. The gen. color is that of a white man, but of a very swarthy one. W. Ind. and the Sp. Main., 275.
[XXVIII-37] Belly, Nic., ii. 132. Trollope, West Ind., 275-6, speaks disparagingly of Costa Rican women's personal appearance. Another Englishman treats them with more gallantry: 'Blonde hair, gray eyes, and red cheeks are rare in no class; and many a pretty face may be seen on market-day, scarcely darker or more Spanish-looking than a west-country girl's. Boyle's Ride Across a Continent, 225.
[XXVIII-38] Being a compact population, and constantly thrown into the company of one another through family or business relations, a certain fraternity became established, and the practice obtained of calling each other hermano and hermanitico at every meeting. Astaburuaga, Cent. Am., 52-3. Owing to that practice, the Costa Ricans have been nicknamed hermaniticos.
[XXVIII-39] That is to say, they are not given to stealing or barefaced cheating; but at a bargain they will take all the advantage they can; and if a lie will help, their conscience is elastic enough to use it. In this they are neither better nor worse than other nations claiming a high standard of honesty. Their sense of morality, in sex relations, is not what it should be. Divorces and separations are common, and concubinage quite prevalent. The superintendent of the census for 1864 recorded '1,200 separados de hecho, quienes sin equivocarme puedo decir que viven en concubinato, sin contar la frecuencia de este entre solteros y solteras.' Costa R., Censo, 1864, xxv.
[XXVIII-40] They dislike wasting their resources in wars or war material, preferring the arts of peace, and to welcome those bringing them wealth from other countries. Laferrière, De Paris à Guatémala, 45-6, 57.
[XXVIII-41] A large number of houses in Cent. Am. are made with tapial, which is common earth put moist into boxes of the dimensions of the walls, and beaten with mallets. Another sort of building is made by driving a number of poles into the ground at a yard or two from each other, to which long canes are tied, the space between the canes being filled up with mud, or with mud and stones. When dry, the outside is plastered over with mortar. The houses are protected by projecting roofs. There are likewise many houses built with thick adobe walls, covered with concave tiles.
[XXVIII-42] Dirty and slovenly. Trollope's W. Ind., 260, 268. The only articles of furniture in them are a hammock, a table, a bedstead without mattress, and two or three of the commonest wooden chairs.
[XXVIII-43] Belly, Nic., i. 367-8.