Returning to the lake, and now gathering the information furnished by
geology, whose silent annals are so carefully and truthfully recorded
(being as they are beyond reach of man’s little contentions and petty
adjustments), we find that the original lake covered an area of about
seventy-five square miles, and attained great depths. Its placid waters,
beating possibly for centuries against the environing rocks, have left
their marks, from which it may be seen that in some places the depth was
120 feet, and in others 180.
We cannot fix the date of the break in the mountains which allowed the
drain to occur. So far man has not succeeded in grasping with invariable
accuracy the chronology of the admirable geological archives to which we
have referred, and in matters of this kind a discrepancy of a few
hundred years more or less is accepted as a trifle scarcely worth
mentioning. And possibly this may be right. For man’s passage through
life is so short that his conception of time cannot be applied to
Nature, whose evolutions, though apparently protracted and very slow to
see, in truth are sure to develop themselves harmoniously in every way,
as to time inclusive.
But no matter how far back the draining of the great lake may have taken
place, it had left its memory and impression, not only on the mountains
and the rocks, but also in the minds of men. The legend ran thus: At one
time there came among the Chibchas a man differing in aspect from the
inhabitants of the plateau, a man from the East, the land where the sun
rises, and from the low plains where the mighty rivers speed to the
ocean. He had taught them the arts of peace, the cultivation of the
soil, the division of time; he had established their laws, the precepts
by which their life was to be guided, their form of government; in one
word, he had been their apostle and legislator. His name was Bochica or
Zuhe. He resembled in aspect the Europeans who invaded the country under
Quesada.
It is asserted by a pious Spanish Bishop, who in the middle of the
seventeenth century wrote the history of the discovery and conquest of
the Chibcha kingdom, that the said Bochica was none other than the
Apostle St. Bartholomew, as to whose final work and preachings there is
(not to overstate the case) some obscurity. The good old Bishop states
that, as the Christian faith, according to the Divine decree, was to be
preached in every corner of the earth, it must have also been preached
amongst the Chibchas, and that, as nothing was known with certainty
about the final whereabouts of the Apostle Bartholomew, and he was not
unlike the description made of Bochica by the Chibchas (which,
by-the-by, was such that it might have fitted any white man with a long
blonde beard), it is evident that the saint must have visited those
Andine regions. Furthermore, he adds, there is a stone on one of the
mountains, situated between the plateau of Bogotá and the eastern
plains, which bears the footprints of the saint. This, to many people,
is decisive, and I, for my part, am not going to gainsay it, since it
serves two important ends. It explains the saint’s whereabouts in a most
creditable and appropriate fashion, and it puts a definite end to all
doubts concerning Bochica’s identity. We cannot be too grateful to those
who thus afford pleasant explanations of matters which would otherwise
be intricate and difficult, perhaps even impossible, of solution.
The legend went on to say that the god of the Chibchas (Chibchacum),
becoming irate at their excesses and vices, flooded the plain where they
lived, by turning into it several neighbouring rivers. The inhabitants,
or such of them as were not drowned, took refuge on the neighbouring
mountain-tops, where, animated by that fervour and love of the Deity
which takes possession of every true believer when he finds himself
thoroughly cornered, they prayed abundantly to the Bochica, whose
precepts they had utterly forgotten. He, of course, took pity on them,
and, appearing amidst them on the mountain-top one afternoon in all the
glory of the setting sun, which covered him as with a sort of royal
mantle, he dashed his golden sceptre against the mighty granite wall of
the nearest mountain, which opened at the blow into the gap through
which the waters poured, draining the lake, and leaving as a memorial of
his power and his love for his chosen people those waterfalls whose
thunder goes up like a perennial hymn to heaven high above the trees
that crown the mountain-tops, and whose sprays are as incense for ever,
wreathing on high at the foot of a stupendous altar.
The cataract takes two leaps, first striking a protruding ledge at a
distance of about 75 feet from the starting-point, a sort of
spring-board from which the other mighty leap is taken. Close to the
shore, at a distance of about 6 feet, on the very brim of the abyss,
there is a rock about 10 feet square, which, when the waters are low,
breaks the river, and appears like a sinking island in the mass of
foaming waters. The rock is slippery, being covered with moss, which the
waters and the mists keep constantly wet. Bolivar, the soldier to whose
tenacity and genius Colombia and four other South American republics owe
their political independence, once visited the cataracts, and stood on
the very edge of the abyss; glancing fitfully at the small round island
of stone that stood in the very centre of the waters, fascinated by the
danger, he jumped, booted and spurred as he was, upon the stone, thus
standing in the very vortex of the boiling current. After remaining
there for a few minutes he jumped back. The tale is interesting, for few
men indeed have the courage and nerve required, once upon the rock, not
to fall from it and disappear in a shroud fit for any man, however
great.
After the little scene of the foundation of Bogotá, in what later on
became the public square of the city, Quesada devoted himself to
establishing a government. I cannot help thinking that challenges like
that which he flung down for the purpose of establishing the right of
property are, to say the least, peculiar. True it is that no one
contradicted, and, according to the old proverb, silence gives consent.
A comfortable little tag this, especially when you can gag the other
side! And a most serviceable maxim to burglars, conquerors, and, in
fact, all such as practise the art of invading somebody else’s premises,
and taking violent possession of the premises and all that may be found
on them. What I cannot for the life of me understand is, how it is that,
the process being identical in essence, so many worthy men and so many
worthy nations punish the misunderstood burglar, and bestow honours,
praise, and, so far as it lies in their power, glory, upon the
conqueror. It seems a pity that the gentle moralists who act in this
puzzling fashion have not found time to indicate the point, in the
process of acquiring somebody else’s property by violence and bloodshed,
when the vastness of the undertaking transfigures crime into virtue. The
average man would hold it for a boon if those competent to do it were to
fix the limit, just as in chemistry a freezing or a boiling point is
marked by a certain number of degrees of heat. What a blessing it would
be for the rest of us poor mortals, who find ourselves beset by many
doubts, and who through ignorance are prone to fall into grave errors!
but as these hopes are certainly beyond fulfilment, and are possibly out
of place, it is better to drop them.
Quesada, after vanquishing the Chibchas and becoming lord of the land,
did not have it all his own way. The fame of El Dorado existed all over
the continent. Though peopled by numerous tribes, mostly hostile to each
other, some knowledge of the power of the Chibcha Empire, covering over
5,000 square miles and including a population estimated at over a
million and a half of inhabitants, had in the course of centuries slowly
permeated to very remote parts of what is now known as South America. In
the land of Quito, situated below the equator, it is said that the
conquerors who had invaded it heard from an Indian of the wonderful El
Dorado. The Indian’s tale must have been enhanced with all the charms
invented by a vivid imagination, playing safely at a distance. This set
many of the conquerors on the road to Bogotá. Don Sebastian de
Belalcázar, who had entered the continent by the Pacific, led his
troops—not over 200 in number at the end of the journey—to the Bogotá
plateau, thus making a march of several hundred leagues across forest
and mountains, attracted by the renown of the land of El Dorado. Another
expedition which had entered the continent by the north-east coast of
the Atlantic, and had wandered along the Orinoco Valley for over two
years, eventually found itself near the plateau, and entered it, so
that, shortly after his arrival into the country and his conquest of it,
Quesada found himself confronted with two powerful rivals. For the
moment there was great danger that the conquerors might come to blows
amongst themselves, but Quesada’s political ability matched his military
gifts, and arrangements were soon made by which the three expeditions
were merged into one, gold and emeralds distributed amongst the
soldiers, numerous offices created, taxes established, the Indians and
their belongings distributed amongst the Christian conquerors, and the
reign of civilization established to the greater glory of God, and that
of his beloved monarch, the King of all the Spains.
One detail deserves mention as an instance of tenacious though
unpretending heroism. The men who had come along the Orinoco had
wandered for many weary months, and at times had been on the point of
starvation, so that all their leather equipment had been devoured. With
the expedition marched a friar who carried with him a fine Spanish cock
and four hens. During that long journey, which cost the lives of so many
men, the murderous attempts made against this feathered family were past
counting; yet the useful birds were saved, and formed the basis of an
innumerable progeny in the land of Colombia. The incident seems trivial,
but, if well weighed, the friar’s sustained effort against others, and
doubtless against himself, to save the precious germ, deserves the
highest praise.
After months of hunger, when the plenty found on the plateau had
restored equanimity to the hearts of the conquerors, they must have felt
how much they owed to the good friar, who, even if his sermons—about
which I know nothing—may not have been of the best, had left behind him
the hens to lay the egg so dear to civilized man, and the chanticleer to
sing the praises of the Almighty and to remind everyone in this instance
of the humble beings who serve Him and their fellow-creatures in such a
practical way.
It is not at all strange that the Spanish conquerors swallowed the
wonderful tales of incalculable treasure to be found in different parts
of the continent which they had just discovered. Columbus himself, in
his second voyage, landed at Veraguas on the mainland, and reaped a most
bountiful harvest of gold. Never before in the history of Spanish wars
had such booty fallen to the lot of the common soldier as in that
instance. Other expeditions in various parts of the continent were
equally fortunate, so that they supported the belief that gold was
inexhaustible. The ostensible object of the conquest was the conversion
of the infidels to the true faith; officially the Government of the
Metropolis proclaimed first and foremost its intense desire to save the
souls of so many million men who groped in the darkness of heathenism.
Doubtless many of the conquerors really thought that they were doing the
work of God, but the great majority of them were certainly moved by more
worldly ends and attractions.
The Indians, on their side, not only in Colombia but everywhere else,
received the Spaniards in a friendly and hospitable way. Some warlike
tribes there were, but it does not appear that their hostilities against
the Spaniards began before these had shown their cruel greed and
insatiable thirst for gold. The precious metals and jewels that had been
accumulated amongst the tribes in the course of many generations were
given freely to the Spaniards, who, believing that greater treasures
were kept back from them, did not hesitate to recur to the cruellest
methods of extortion, burning, pillaging, killing, and destroying
everything in their way.
After a struggle which did not last long, the Indians—even those of
riper civilization and better organized—were completely subdued, and the
sway of the Spaniard established all over the land, whose former lords
became the slaves of the conquerors.
Those who know the Indian of to-day in certain parts of the South
American continent can hardly understand how at one time that same race
possessed the qualities indispensable to the civilization which it had
attained at the time of the Spanish conquest. Boiling the whole thing
down to hard facts, we find that the Spaniards discovered a land wherein
they found a people with civilization inferior to that of the old world;
that this people, divided and subdivided in many tribes, received the
conquerors hospitably, treated them generously, and in their ignorance
considered them as superior beings; that they gave over to the Spaniards
all the gold and treasures which the latter coveted, and that it would
have been feasible for those superior beings to establish the
civilization and the religion which they longed to propagate amongst the
infidels, by methods worthy of the Christian faith which they professed.
Instead of this, violence and bloodshed were the only methods employed,
not to civilize, but to despoil the natives; and the right of force,
brutal and sanguinary, was the law of the land. To this and its
accompaniments the poets lifted up pæans of praise, the Church gave its
blessing, history its acceptance, and, barring a handful of the just, no
one gave a thought to the oppressed and helpless Indians whose sole
crime was they were weaker than their aggressors.
Let us be thankful for what we have. Quintana, the great Spanish lyrical
poet, pondering on these misdeeds and crimes, exclaims that they were
crimes of the epoch, not of Spain. Fortunately it is, as we like to
think, our privilege to live in an epoch when such things are
impossible, when the mere thirst for gold, or its equivalent, cannot
impel powerful nations to forget right and justice and to proclaim
hypocritically that in so doing they are fulfilling the law of Him who
said, ‘Love ye one another,’ and proclaimed charity amongst men as the
supreme rule of life. Nowadays such wrongs as those perpetrated by the
Spanish conquerors could not happen. Wars we have, and violence and
destruction, and malcontents complain of them, saying that the same old
burglarious spirit of brutal greed is the real cause of those wars; but
those malcontents should not be (and, in fact, are not) listened to. I
myself do not understand or pretend to explain where the justice of many
wars comes in, but certainly they must be waged for good and honest
ends, because the great and the powerful say that the ends are good and
honest, that civilization and Christianity are served thereby; and it
must be so since they say it, for they, like Brutus, are ‘honourable
men.’ Let us be thankful, then, that we live in an age of justice and
universal fairness amongst men!