HARRY TRUMAN LIBRARY Papers of NATHANIEL DAVIS Despatch no. 69, February 16, 1949 American Embassy, San José, Costa Rioa UNCLASSIFIED Enelogur, no. hair without one with aurprisingly creditablo results. alao begged a cup o coffee which at that hour in the morning was already cold. The Lord only know when it The children wao had been our constant audienca the night before had reappeared at daylight. Louise had given each of thera a pencil which was accepted and guarded as a prisod possession. Beveral of the brought their pencila with then this morning to show that they st111 had thon. While waiting for breakfast, Louise had a lot of fun with a group of tha ohildren reading from their primers. They were amused by her send for spectacles and highly entertained by her Spanish. should say hera that except for WJarras all of the places we visited were Spanish speaking The people of Ujarraa are almost pura Cabocar. Those at the other towns ara wixtures of varioua tribes, while each family or group of families apouka one or another of the Indian languages, the common language is Spanish and spoken quite clearly. We had little difficulty understanding Before we left in the morning two of the Indiana draw mo aside and asked if 16 was true that had come froni the United States. After comugenting on the fact that It must be a long and probably bad trail they said they were appealing to me because the United States was the Great Protector. They said a number of Panamanian fugitives from justice had arossed the border into their part of da and are bad people. They had myrdered the son of one of my lotorants and they robbed and oppressed the people. They haped the United States would send them back to Panana. explained that while could not do that would bring the matter to the attention of the proper Costa Rican authorities. reported the conversation to don Porfi 10 who said he already know about it.
The people at Tarraba had been anxious for an air.
field as without air transportation there is no way for them to ship their crops to market and so no incentive to produce more than their own needs. They told us that there was an ideal spot for a landing field just a short diatance over the hill and requiring only a little detour from the diroct trail to boruca. They thought and landine field could be built there to serve both places and urged us to visit it. When we mounted our rules a number of the local people went with us to the airfield. Their short distance turned out to be two good hours hard riding up and down terrifically ateap hill, through the forest. At last we came out on a bare hilltop sabana, but the area much too small for the landing 11eld for anything UNCLASSIFIED