COSTA RICA: The Rediscovery of Lim

When Christopher Columbus reached the place he named Costa Rica in 1502, he found a friendly tribe of prosperous Indians who decked themselves out with golden ornaments.* In dilapidated Puerto Limón last week, their poverty-stricken descendants celebrated the 450th anniversary of Columbus' visit with a new hope that the white men's civilization might bring back the prosperity of their ancestors. In the second growth of jungle forest along the coast, United Fruit Co. engineers were studying the soil as the first step toward developing the area with banana plantations.

At the beginning of this century, Unifruit men leased a strip...

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