The Costa Ricans were, I found, making one of their periodical but always futile efforts to depose their President, General Tomaso Guardia, and I had no difficulty in disposing of my arms and ammunition, which I exchanged for a cargo of coffee. I might have joined the revolution had I not become convinced that it had no more chance of success than those which had preceded it. Gen. Guardia, who ruled until he died, was one of the few strong men Central America has produced. He was the Diaz of Costa Rica and as much of a dictator as Guzman Blanco, whom he greatly resembled in his friendship for foreigners and his contempt for the natives. When he heard of a political leader, so called, who was trying to stir up trouble, Gen. Guardia would send for him and say: “Your health has not been good for some time. I see that you are failing. You need a long trip. Go to Europe and stay a year,” or two years or five, according to circumstances. A couple of trusted lieutenants were assigned to stay with the politely condemned exile, “to see that he wanted for nothing,” and he never failed to take the next ship for foreign shores. Another presidential method was to summon some discontented one, who was planning an insurrection, and make him a member of the Cabinet. Flattered by this honor the new Minister was easily tempted to come out with exaggerated expressions of confidence in Gen. Guardia and his government. Thereupon the President would kick him into the street. “There,” he would say to the natives, “you see, all that man wanted was money. He is nothing of a patriot.” Guardia always smiled, whether he was sentencing a man to exile or ejecting him from his shifting Cabinet; he regarded the natives as only children. By such methods as these he made himself master of the country, and the little rebellions which sprang up from time to time were quickly suppressed. One of the foreigners for whom he developed a great liking was Dr. W. R. Bross, a New York physician who was at Port Limon with a party of engineers who were building a railroad from the coast into the interior. While on a visit to Port Limon the President discovered that Dr. Bross had much more skill than any of the physicians at the capital. He wanted him to go to Europe with him and, when this proposition was rejected, urged him to accompany him to San Jose, the capital, and become his private physician, at a salary he was to name himself. This offer was also turned down. Had Dr. Bross been more worldly, and less devoted to the men who were in his care, he could have secured concessions worth millions of dollars, for Gen. Guardia was more than generous to his friends.