COSTA RICA is the most southern of the states of

Central America, the smallest in respect of population, and, next to San Salvador, the least in territorial extent. It lies between the Caribbean Sea on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west. Its boundaries on the south, long in dispute with the Republic of New Granada, have been settled by treaty, bearing date June 11, 1856, as follows: Commencing at Punta Burica, on the Pacific, in longitude 83° 13′ west of Greenwich, thence in a right line to the head of a stream called Agua Clara, thence due northeast to the Mountains of Cruces, and along their crest to the source of the Rio Doráces (or Dorado), and down the principal channel of that stream to the Atlantic, at a point some distance above Boca del Toro, or Chiriqui Lagoon. Previous to the negotiation of this treaty, Costa Rica claimed that her southern boundary was a right line drawn from Punta Burica to a point on the Atlantic south of Chiriqui Lagoon, and opposite the island called Escuda de Veragua.* The boundary

* The boundary, as finally defined by treaty, coincides precisely with that laid down in an original MS. map in the possession of the author, by Don Juan Lopez, Geographer Royal, dated Madrid, 1770.

of Costa Rica on the north is in dispute with Nicaragua. The Costa Rican claim, which is utterly without foundation in fact, is the south bank of the Rio San Juan from the port of the same name to Lake Nicaragua, in a right line through the lake to the Rio Flores, a few miles to the southward of the town of Rivas or Nicaragua, and thence a little south of west to the Pacific. The true boundary, however, and that claimed by Nicaragua, as set forth by the historian Juarros, and as laid down in a MS. map by Colonel La Cierra, engineer of the crown of Spain, dated 1818, is a line extending from the principal or Colorado mouth of the River San Juan, following the crest of the mountains which throw their waters northward into that river and Lake Nicaragua, to the mouth of the Rio Salto de Nicoya or Alvarado, on the Pacific. Such is the boundary as defined in Chap. ii., Art. 15, of the Constitution of Costa Rica itself, dated January 21, 1825, and as laid down on all maps of Central America prior to the year 1830.* In other words, Costa Rica lies chiefly between 8° 30′ and 10° 40′ N. latitude, and 82° and 85° W. longitude, and has an area of about 23,000 square miles.

The political divisions and the population of the

* The claim of Costa Rica is founded upon an act of the Federal Congress of Central America, dated December 9th, 1826, as follows:

"For the present, and until the boundaries of the several states shall be fixed, in accordance with Art. 7 of the Constitution, the Department of Nicoya [Guanacaste or Liberia] shall be separated from Nicaragua and attached to Costa Rica." This decree was framed in order to give Costa Rica a larger and more respectable representation in the Federal Congress; but as the boundaries of the several states were never fixed in accordance with Art. 7 of the Constitution, and since the people of the department protested against the change, as did also the authorities of Nicaragua, it was justly claimed that this conditional decree could not affect the sovereign rights of the latter state, and that when, on the dissolution of the republic, she resumed her independent position, she was also entitled to resume her original limits. For a full discussion of this question, see American Whig Review for November, 1850, article "The Great Ship Canal Question."

state, according to a census made in the year 1849, are given on the authority of Don Felipe Molina, in his "Bosquejo de Costa Rica," published in 1851, and are as follows:

COSTA RICA.-CAPITAL, SAN JOSÉ.

The Department of Guanacaste, now called Liberia, of which the principal towns are Guanacaste, Bagaces, Santa Cruz, and Nicoya (stated by Molina to contain 9112 inhabitants), is in dispute with Nicaragua, and is consequently omitted from the above table. Including this department, the total population at the time of the census was 100,174. Taking the ratio of increase, as established by an enumeration of the births and deaths for the year 1850, at 3000 annually, the present population of the state may be calculated approximately at 135,000. This population, however, is not diffused over the state, but confined almost exclusively within the valley of a stream called Rio Grande, which flows down the western slope of the great volcano of Cartago into the Gulf of Nicoya. Fully seven eighths of all the inhabitants are here concentrated in a district not exceeding 50 miles in length by an average of 20 in breadth.* To the north, east, * "Costa Rica is divided administratively into five provinces: San José, He

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