Continuing south, we come, south of Cacique Point, to Port Culebra, which is a mile wide, with a depth of eighteen fathoms. At the outlet of this harbor lies Cocos Bay, capacious enough for a thousand ships to anchor in the roadstead. The coast line south of Cocos Bay, bordered by numerous and lofty hills and cut into gorges by small impetuous water courses, presents no harbor as far as Cape Blanco, which is at the western entrance of the extensive Gulf of Nicoya. The gulf extends fifty miles to the northwest and is a magnificent sheet of water, surrounded by green scenery, rivaling, if not surpassing, that of the Bay of Naples, the Bosphorus, or the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. Some twenty islands, large and small, nearly all bold, rocky and covered with vegetation, contribute to its beauty, while many small rivers, draining the slopes of the Miravalles and Tilaran sierras and the mountains of the peninsula of Nicoya, flow into it and diversify the scenery. The principal river, the Tempisque, enters at the head of the gulf, and with numerous small branches irrigates much of the province of Guanacaste. All of the streams have bars at their mouths, composed generally of mud and broken shells, and but few of them are navigable even for a short distance inland, and then by very small craft. The whole eastern part of the peninsula of Nicoya is broken into hills and low mountains, wild and rarely cultivated, although there are many beautiful and fertile valleys. The west side of the gulf is full of reefs, rocks, violent currents, eddies that run from one to three and a half miles an hour, and is subject to violent squalls coming from the northwestern sierras. 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. From Puntarenas southward to the unnavigable Barranca River there is a broad beach lying at the foot of the high escarpment of Caldera. 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 until near Punta Mala, or Judas, at the southeastern mouth of the gulf, and is low and surrounded by reefs and rocks.