"Le double langage se réduit, au point de vue de la lexicologie,

à cette singularité que, pour exprimer environ 400 idées sur 2,000 à

3,000, les hommes invariablement, et les femmes seulment entre elles,

se servaient de mots différents."

See also Introduction à la grammaire Caraïbe, du P. R. Breton, and

the Dictionaire Caraïbe, of the same author.

[90] The Purgatorio, Canto I, vv. 22-27.

The poet is not to be taken too literally in this last verse. In

consequence of the precession of the equinoxes, the constellations

are ever changing their position with reference to any given point on

the earth's surface. There was a time, in the distant past, when the

Southern Cross was visible in the very land in which Dante penned his

immortal poem. "At the time of Claudius Ptolemæus," says Humboldt,

"the beautiful star at the base of the Southern Cross had still an

altitude of 6° 10' at its meridian passage at Alexandria, while at

the present day it culminates there several degrees below the horizon.

"In the fourth century, the Christian anchorites in the Thebaid

desert might have seen the Cross at an altitude of ten degrees." And

again, "The Southern Cross began to become invisible in 52° 30'

north latitude 2900 years before our era, since, according to Galle,

this constellation might previously have reached an altitude of more

than 10°. When it disappeared from the horizon of the countries on

the Baltic, the great pyramid of Cheops had already been erected more

than five hundred years. The pastoral tribe of the Hyksos made their

incursion seven hundred years earlier. The past seems to be visibly

nearer to us when we connect its measurement with great and memorable

events."--Cosmos, Vol. II, pp. 288-291, New York, 1850.

For an interesting discussion of Dante's "quattro stelle," four stars,

with references, see Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio, Vol. I,

pp. 10, 11, third edition. Compare also Ramusio, Delle Navigazioni e

Viaggi, Vol. I, pp. 127 and 193, Venetia, 1550, and Oviedo, Historia

General y Natural de las Indias. Lib. II, Cap. 11, pp. 45 and 46,

Madrid, 1851.

[91] Geografia Statistica de Venezuela, p. 461, Firenze, 1864.

[92] It was here that the well-known brand of Angostura bitters

was first prepared by Dr. Siegert. The women of the city, however,

maintain that its discovery was due to a Venezolana, who was the

wife of the German doctor. Owing to the exactions of the Venezuelan

government, the manufacture of this widely used infusion was long

ago transferred to the Port-of-Spain, where it now constitutes one

of the city's chief industries.

[93] A Naturalist in the Guianas, p. 65, by Eugene André, New York,

1904.

[94] In the quasi-suburb, known as morichales, from the number of

moriche palms found there, the homes of the well-to-do people are

not unlike those we so much admired in Trinidad. Some of them are

delightful arbors, surrounded by gardens filled with the rarest shrubs

and blooms. Here truly, in the language of Pliny, flowers are the joy

of trees, and they vie with one another in the brilliance of their

colors, and in the exuberance of their growth.

[95] Sr. Pérez Triana, the son of a former president of Colombia,

was in 1893 obliged to flee from his country, and as the seaports

were watched he and his companions were forced to escape by way of the

Meta and the Orinoco. He tells us in his charming book, De Bogotá al

Atlantico, p. 3, of the dread inspired by the thought of "lo incierto

del viaje, que emprendiamos hacia regiones desconocidas, acaso nunca

holladas par la planta del hombre civilizado," "the uncertainty of

the journey we were undertaking to unknown regions, probably never

trod by the foot of civilized man."--Segunda Edición, Madrid, 1905.

Mr. Cunninghame Graham, in his introduction to this book, remarks

that "The voyage in itself was memorable because, since the first

conquerors went down the river with the faith that in their case,

if rightly used, might have smoothed out all the mountain ranges in

the world, no one, except a stray adventurer, or india-rubber trader,

has followed in their footsteps," p. 13, English edition, London, 1902.

Another Colombian, Sr. Modesto Garces, had made the same journey eight

years before, a record of which he has given us in his little work,

Un viaje á Venezuela, Bogotá, 1890. But neither he nor Sir Pérez

Triana saw the lower Meta, for they left this river a short distance

above Orocué, and voyaged to the Orinoco by way of the Vichada.

Three years subsequently to Pérez Triana's trip the same journey,

with slight modifications, was made by a German naturalist,

Dr. Otto Bürger. He has given us a record of it in his Reisen eines

Naturforschers im Tropischen America, Leipzig, 1900.

So far as I am aware, no writer has made the journey up the river

from Ciudad Bolivar to Bogotá. In a certain limited sense it was,

therefore, probably true that we were the first to undertake the

journey described in the following pages.

[96] The plaga, as understood by the natives, has special reference to

the insects known to them as mosquitoes, zancudos and jejenes. What

they call mosquitoes we call gnats. The zancudo is our mosquito. The

jejen is a small fly whose bite is quite as painful as that of the

zancudo. Sometimes the term zancudo is applied to all these pests

indiscriminately.

Besides these insects, that are often the cause of much suffering to

the traveler in low woodlands, there are others that are sometimes

included under the general designation of the plaga. These are

a very small red insect known as the coloradito, and the nigua,

or jigger--pulex penetrans--which, on account of the misery they

occasion, are often more dreaded than serpents or the wild beasts of

the forest. They usually bury themselves under the toe nails, where

they lay their eggs. If not immediately removed they cause painful and

often dangerous sores. It is related of Sir Robert Schomburgk that

a negress once extracted from his feet no fewer than eighty-three

jiggers at one sitting.

The coloradito, called by the French bête-rouge, and in some places

known as the red tick, is almost invisible to the naked eye. It is

found everywhere in the equatorial lowlands, especially during the

rainy season. Its bite causes an intolerable itching, and when one

has been exposed to the combined attacks of many of these microscopic

insects, the result is as painful as the burning produced by the

poisoned tunic of Nessus. Schomburgk, in describing his personal

experience, declares that "the bite of this insect drives by day

the perspiration of anguish from every pore, and at night makes

one's hammock resemble the gridiron on which St. Lawrence was

roasted." Simson informs us that the intense irritation produced by

the bites of the bête-rouge at times drove him almost to the verge of

madness. "Notwithstanding every effort of self-control," he writes,

"to bear the itching sensation, I have many times awoke in the

night to find myself sitting up in the bed, and literally tearing

the skin off my legs, where most of the insects collect, with my

nails." Mosquitoes and the zancudos are bad enough, but, as a pest,

the coloradito is far worse. Truth to tell, our greatest suffering

in the tropics came from the coloradito, but it was in great measure

due to our lack of precaution. Had we exercised more care we should

have avoided many painful hours. The best way to allay the pain is

to rub the part affected with rum or lemon juice.

Padre Gumilla assures us that leaving the Gulf of Paria and

entering the Orinoco, or any of the tropical rivers, is tantamount

to engaging in a fierce and continued warfare, day and night, with

countless insects of all kinds. Of certain mosquitoes, he tells us,

their sharp, uninterrupted noise is more to be dreaded than their

piercing proboscis.

So trying and difficult did Raleigh consider a voyage up the Orinoco

that he declared it a task "fitter for boies," than for men of mature

years, although, when he visited Guiana, he was nearly three lustra

younger than was the author of the present work when he made the

journey herein described.

[97] Journal of an Expedition 1400 miles up the Orinoco and 300 up

the Arauca, pp. 62 and 66, London, 1822.

[98] Adventures Amidst the Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South

America, p. 63, by Villiers Stuart, London, 1891.

Accepting as true these and similar exaggerated statements made by

travelers from the time of Gumilla to our own regarding the insect

pests of tropical America, the reader will no doubt be inclined to

agree with Sydney Smith that it is better for one to become reconciled

to the trials of our northern climate than to expose oneself to

the still greater trials in the lands bordering the equator. In

a characteristic article in the Edinburgh Review on Waterton's

Wanderings, the genial humorist has the following paragraph:--

"Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The bête-rouge lays the

foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you are covered with

ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your flesh, and hatch a large colony

of young chigoes in a few hours. They will not live together, but every

chigoe sets up a separate ulcer, and has his own private portion of

pus. Flies get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose;

you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches,

and snakes, get into the bed; ants eat up the books; scorpions sting

you on the foot. Everything bites, stings, or bruises; every second

of your existence you are wounded by some piece of animal life that

nobody has ever seen before, except Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect

with eleven legs is swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine

wings is struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several

dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over your bread and butter! All

nature is alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomological hosts

to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your coat, waistcoat, and

breeches. Such are the tropics. All this reconciles us to our dews,

fogs, vapours, and drizzle--to our apothecaries rushing about with

gargles and tinctures--to our old, British, constitutional coughs,

sore throats, and swelled faces."

[99] "In a region," says Humboldt, "where travelling is so uncommon,

people seem to feel a pleasure in exaggerating to strangers the

difficulties arising from the climate, the wild animals and the

Indians." Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 361.

[100] "More bold a man is, he prevails the more,

Though man nor place he ever saw before."

--The Odyssey, Book VII, vv. 50, 51.

[101] Op. cit., p. 87.

[102] Voyages dans l'Amérique du Sud, p. 578, Paris, 1883.

Major Stanley Patterson, writing in the Royal Geographical Journal,

Vol. XIII, No. 1, p. 40, 1899, of the Venezuelans living on the

Orinoco, declares that "All are avaricious, thriftless, independent,

faithless, untruthful, lazy, capable of hard work, quick-tempered,

vindictive, changeful and full of laughter. If there are clouds

these children of the sun see them not; nothing is really serious to

them." Certain of his adjectives may apply to some of the inhabitants

but they surely cannot truthfully be applied to all of them. We found

many good people among them and retain the pleasantest recollections

of their kindness and hospitality.

[103] As to the flora of the forests of Venezuelan Guiana one can

truthfully say what Richard Schomburgk affirms of the flora of British

Guiana. In his Reisen in British Guiana, Vol. II, p. 216, speaking

of the plants in the country around Roraima, he writes as follows:

"Not only the orchids, but the shrubs and low trees were unknown to

me. Every shrub, herb and tree was new to me, if not as to the family,

yet as to the species. I stood on the border of an unknown plant-zone,

full of wondrous forms which lay as if by magic before me.... Every

step revealed something new."

As an evidence of the variety of plant life in this part of the world,

it suffices to state that Bonpland, the companion of Humboldt in

his memorable journey to South America, discovered no fewer than

six hundred species of new plants on his way to the Cassiquiare,

and that, too, in spite of the fact that his investigations were

necessarily confined entirely to the banks of the river along which

he passed. There are still many large tracts in Venezuela and Colombia

that have never been visited by the botanist.

[104] S. Pérez Triana, op. cit., p. 309.

[105] Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela and New Granada from

1817-1830, Vol. I, p. 119, London.

[106] In his Travels and Adventures in South and Central America,

Don Ramon Paez, the son of the first president of Venezuela, writes

as follows of a certain cattle farm in the llanos: "Its area, would

measure at least eighty square leagues, or about one hundred and

fifty thousand acres of the richest land, but which under the present

backward and revolutionary state of the country is comparatively

valueless to the owner. The number of cattle dispersed throughout the

length and breadth of this wide extent of prairie land was computed

to be about a hundred thousand head, and at one time, ten thousand

horses; but what with the peste, revolutionary exactions, and skin

hunters, comparatively very few of the former and none of the latter

have been left." Pp. 202, 203, New York, 1864.

[107] "My wife and my valued horse

Died both at the same time.

To the devil with my wife,

For my horse do I repine."

[108] "With my lance and horse, I care not for fortune, and it matters

not whether the sun shines or the moon gives light."

[109] For valuable information regarding the llanos and their

inhabitants, the Llaneros, the reader may consult, besides Páez,

already quoted, Aus den Llanos, von Carl Sachs, Leipzig, 1879, and

Vom Tropischen Tieflande zum Ewigen Schnee, von Anton Goering, Leipzig.

[110] Uncle, a name by which Páez was frequently addressed by the

Llaneros.

[111] Recollections of a Service of Three Years during the War of

Extermination in the Republics of Venezuela and Colombia, pp. 176,

178, London, 1728.

[112] El Orinoco Ilustrado, Cap. XXII.

[113] Op. cit., Cap. VIII.

[114] Tom. I, p. 2.

[115] Purgatorio, VI, 124-126.

[116] The unstable and turbulent condition from which the country has

so long suffered cannot be attributed to a defective constitution or

to impracticable laws. The constitution of Venezuela is modeled after

that of the United States, and the laws are largely based on the best

legislation of other countries. But this is not sufficient. Of this

unhappy country, and especially of its rulers, one may exclaim in

the words of the great Florentine poet:--

"Laws indeed there are,

But who is he observes them? None."

During our wanderings through this country, which Nature has so highly

favored, we often thought that the interests of the people and of

humanity would be subserved by adopting a method of government that,

for a while, was deemed necessary in Florence. To quell sedition

and dissension and break up the factions that had so long made law

and order impossible, rulers were brought in from outside--men who

had no affiliations with either the Bianchi or the Neri, Guelphs or

Ghibellines, and who could, therefore, be counted upon to execute

the laws with strict impartiality, regardless of family or party.

Unless those responsible for the government of the country shall soon

give evidence of being able to guarantee peace and tranquillity and

give the people an opportunity of developing the resources of the

country--something in which the whole civilized world is becoming

daily more interested--the time may come when the great powers will

find it necessary, in the interests of international expediency,

to appoint some one who may be counted upon to keep the peace, and

foster the commercial and social development that is so greatly needed

and is so essential to national progress and prosperity.

[117] Juan de Castellanos, Varones Ilustres de Indias, Primera Parte,

Elegia, XI, Canto II.

[118] Castellanos was for a while a soldier and afterwards

an ecclesiastic, enjoying a benefice in the town of Tunja, New

Granada. Like Pope, he had an extraordinary faculty for versification,

and, like him, "He spoke in numbers for the numbers came." This

does not, however, detract from his authority as a historian. Having

taken an active part in many of the campaigns, which he describes,

and, knowing intimately many of the earlier conquerors of that vast

territory now known as the Republic of Colombia, few writers were

better qualified than he to record the events so graphically depicted

in his Elegias, or to portray the characters of those conquistadores

who figure so prominently among his Varones Ilustres de Indias. The

first part of his work was published in 1589. The second and third

parts were published in 1850 by Rivadeneyra in the Biblioteca de

Autores Españoles. The fourth part, discovered only a few years

ago, was issued by D. Antonio Paz y Melia in 1887 under the title of

Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada. In his introduction to this work,

Sr. Melia gives an able résumé of all that is known or conjectured

regarding Castellanos. For a critical estimate of the author of Las

Elegias de Varones Ilustres, consult Jimenez de la Espada, in his

study, Juan de Castellanos y su Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada,

in the Rivista Contemporanea, Madrid, 1889.

[119] Padre Caulin, Historia Coro-Grafica, Natural y Evangelica,

Lib. I, Cap. X, p. 79, 1779.

[120] Maluco, a word frequently used in Venezuela for malo, bad.

[121] "A sambo," writes Depons, "is the offspring of a negress

with an Indian, or of a negro with an Indian woman. In color he

nearly resembles the child of a mulatto by a negress. The sambo is

well formed, muscular, and capable of supporting great fatigue;

but unfortunately, his mind has a strong bias to vice of every

kind. The word sambo signifies, in the language of the country,

everything despicable and worthless, a knave, a drone, a drunkard,

a cheat, a robber, and even an assassin. Of ten crimes committed in

this district, eight are chargeable on this villainous and accursed

race."--Travels in South America, p. 127, London, 1806.

[122] Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 43.

[123] Compare Cassani, J., Historia de la provincia de la compañia

des Jesus del Nuevo Reino de Granada en la America, descripción y

relación exacta de sus gloriosas missiones en el reino, llano, meta,

y rio Orinoco, etc. Con 1 mapa. Folio. Madrid, 1741.

[124] P. 14. How like the labors and cares of the bishops of the

early Church were those of the missionaries among the children of

the forest! Both were continually called upon to act as causarum

examinatores--arbitrators--and to settle difficulties that were ever

arising among the flocks entrusted to their care. St. Augustine, the

great bishop of Hippo, refers frequently to "the burdensome character

of this kind of work, and the distraction from higher activities which

it involved"--"Quantum attinet ad meum commodum," he writes in his

De Opere Monachorum, XXIX, 37, "multo mallem per singulos dies certis

horis, quantum in bene moderatis monasteriis constitutum est, aliquid

manibus operari, et ceteras horas habere ad legendum et orandum, aut

aliquid de divinis litteris agendum liberas, quam tumultuosissimas

perplexitates caussarum alienarum pati de negotiis secularibus vel

judicando dirimendis vel interveniendo præcidendis."

[125] Every reader is familiar with the story that has long been in

circulation regarding monkey bridges, and, in his youth, was, no doubt,

entertained by pictures of such imaginary bridges. It is quite safe to

say that no one ever saw such bridges in any part of South America or

elsewhere. And yet the tale regarding their existence has had currency

since the time of Acosta, who visited the New World in 1570. "Going

from Nombre de Dios to Panamá," he writes, "I did see in Capira one

of these monkies leape from one tree to an other, which was on the

other side of a river, making me much to wonder. They leape where they

list, winding their tailes about a braunch to shake it; and when they

will leape further than they can at once, they use a pretty devise,

tying themselves by the tailes one of another, and by this means make

as it were a chaine of many; then doe they launch themselves foorth,

and the first holpen by the force of the rest takes holde where hee

list, and so hangs to a bough and helps all the rest, till they be

gotten up." Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Bk. IV, Chap. 39,

Grimston's Translation, London, 1604.

The fable about the monkey bridge belongs to the same class as

those that obtain in certain parts of South America regarding the

"great devil," or "man of the woods," a near relative of Waterton's

"Nondescript."

Kingsley, in the following passage from Westward Ho!, referring to some

of the things seen and heard by Amyas Leigh and his companions during

their voyage up the Meta, paints a picture that is doubtless before

the mind's eye of most people when they think of the forest-fringed

banks of this river, but which is about as far from the reality as

could well be imagined. "The long processions of monkeys," he writes,

"who kept pace with them along the tree tops and proclaimed their

wonder in every imaginable whistle, and grunt and howl, had ceased

to move their laughter, as much as the roar of the jaguar and the

rustle of the boa had ceased to move their fear." Chap. XXIII.

[126] Op. cit., p. 347.

[127] Historia de Abiponibus, Vol. II, p. 231 et seq., Vienna,

1784. "Attention has recently been called to a group of peasant

superstitions that have made their appearance in Germany, which are

closely analogous in principle to the couvade, though relating not to

the actual parents of the child but to the god-parents. It is believed

that the habits and proceedings of the god-father and god-mother affect

the child's life and character. Particularly, the god-father at the

christening must not think of disease or madness lest this come upon

the child; he must not look round on the way to the church lest the

child should grow up an idle stare-about; nor must he carry a knife

about him for fear of making the child a suicide; the god-mother must

put on a clean shift to go to the baptism or the baby will grow up

untidy," etc., etc. See E. B. Tylor's Researches into the Early History

of Mankind and the Development of Civilization, p. 304, Boston, 1878.

For further information on La Couvade, the reader is referred to

Brett's Indian Tribes of Guiana, p. 355; Max Muller's Chips from a

German Workshop, Vol. II, p. 281; Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil,

Vol. II, p. 247; Du Tertre's Histoire Générale des Antilles habitées

par les Francais, Vol. II, p. 371; Gilli's Saggio di Storia Americana,

Vol. II, p. 133; Tschudi's Peru, Vol. II, p. 235; Tylor's Researches

into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization,

p. 293, et seq; and Lafitau's Moeurs des Sauvages Americains, Vol. I,

p. 259.

[128] One of the peculiarities of some savages is the decided objection

they manifest to having their photographs or portraits taken. They

imagine that they lose somewhat of their own life by having their

likeness transferred to paper or other material. And the more

perfect their likeness the greater, they fancy, is the loss which

they personally sustain. Having had some experience with the Indians

of North America regarding this matter, I was not surprised to find

that there are in South America certain Indians who entertain similar

notions regarding the danger of having their pictures taken. Some, to

avoid having their photographs taken, will at once avert their faces;

others will run away to escape the impending danger. Cf. On the Origin

of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man, by Lord Avebury,

London, 1902, and The Indians of North America, Letter 15, by George

Catlin, Edinburgh, 1903.

[129] For the benefit of those who are familiar with Spanish I give

this touching quotation in the original. It is quite impossible

to reproduce in a translation the verse and rhythm of the sonorous

Castilian of the poet.

"Así de la Mision todos los niños

Corren en torno de la cruz que arranca

Enhiesta al aire y cercan al anciano,

Que entre tantas cabezas infantiles

Descuella allí con su cabeza blanca.

Oh! ni Platon, ni Socrates, famosos

En los anales del saber, supieron

Tras largos años de velar continuo

Lo que estos pobres niños, candorosos,

De los tremulos labios del anciano,

Al pié del leño rústico aprendieron."

--From his ode Los Colonos.

[130] Known in the West Indies as the god-tree and greatly venerated

by the native negroes. The ceiba is one of the few tropical trees

that ever shed their foliage. The erythrina, when it exchanges its

leaves for flowers, is another.

[131] G. Hartwig, The Tropical World, p. 137, London, 1892.

[132] Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 47 et seq.

As early as 1640 the Dutch writer Laet refers to a milk tree which

was evidently the same as the one that so impressed Humboldt. He

says: "Inter arbores quae sponte hic passim nascuntur, memorantur a

scriptoribus Hispanis quaedam quae lacteum quemdam liquorem fundunt,

qui durus admodum evadit instar gummi, et suavem odorem de se

fundit; aliae quae liquorem quemdam edunt, instar lactis coagulati,

qui in cibis ab ipsis usurpatur sine noxa."--Descriptio Indiarum

Occidentalium, Lib. XVIII.

[133] In Venezuela and Colombia the word parasita--parasite--is usually

employed to designate all orchids, no matter what may be the species

or genus. This is a mistake. Orchids are not parasites which, like the

dodder or mistletoe, obtain their nourishment from the plant or tree

on which they grow. They are epiphytes, that get their nourishment

from the surrounding atmosphere, and use the branches and trunks

of trees merely as supports or resting-places. The Old World genus

Aërides is especially remarkable in this respect. One of the species,

Aërides odoratum, "has this wonderful property, that, when brought

from the woods, where it grows, into a house, and suspended in the

air, it will grow, flourish and flower for many years without any

nourishment, either from the earth or from water." For this reason

the orchid is appropriately called Flos aëris, or Air Flower.

[134] Orchids: Their Culture and Management, p. 20, by W. Watson and

H. J. Chapman, London, 1903.

Peter Martyr must have had some of these orchids in mind when he

wrote the following sentence as translated by Michael Lok:--"Smooth

and pleasinge words might be spoken of the sweete odors and perfumes

of these countries, which we purposely omit because they make rather

for the effeminatinge of mens minds than for the maintanance of good

behavior." Dec. IV, Cap. 4, p. 161.

For colored figures and descriptions of the rare and beautiful

orchidaceous plants found in Venezuela and Colombia, the reader is

referred to The Orchid Album, 12 vols., conducted by Messrs. Warner,

Williams, Moore and Fitch, London.

[135] Named after the astronomer Copernicus.

[136] In eastern Colombia, if a cattle farm contains more than

a thousand head of cattle it is called a hato; if it counts less

than this number it is known as fundacion. A plantation in the hilly

country is called a hacienda, in the plains a conuco, and if it have

a sugar-mill, it is named a trapiche.

[137] The steamer on which we had come to Orocué, took, on her

return to Ciudad Bolivar, among other articles of freight, nearly

three tons of orchids, of many species, collected from divers parts

of Colombia. They were intended for certain New York florists, and

were shipped directly to their greenhouses in New Jersey. They were

gathered by one of the many orchid collectors that are constantly

engaged in tropical America in making collections for florists in

the United States and Europe.

Sometimes they come across new species of rarest beauty. This

means a treasure-trove for the lucky finder. Not long before our

visit to Colombia a truly magnificent specimen had been discovered

by one of these collectors. It was sold in London for a thousand

pounds sterling. And we heard of others that fetched prices quite

as extravagant as any that were ever paid for tulip-bulbs during

the period of the tulipomania in Holland in the early part of the

seventeenth century.

[138] Viajes Cientificos á los Andes Ecuatoriales, p. 29, Paris, 1849.

[139] Personal Narrative, up. sup., Vol. II, p. 438 et seq.

[140] Casanare, p. 11, Bogotá, 1896.

[141] Writing of the juice of the arnotto berries, "that die a most

perfect crimson and carnation," Sir Walter Raleigh declares, "And for

painting, al France, Italy or the east Indies yield none such. For

the more the skyn is washed, the fayer the cullour appeareth, and

with which euen those brown and tawnie women spot themselues and

cullour their cheekes." Op. cit., p. 113.

Peter Martyr, referring to certain painted Indian warriors, encountered

by the Spaniards in the West Indies, declares, "A man wold thinke

them to bee deuylles incarnate newly broke owte of hell, they are

soo lyke vnto hell-houndes." Op. cit., p. 91.

[142] Ibid.

[143] Bongo, falca, and curiara are names given in Colombia

and Venezuela to the dugouts or canoes fashioned from a single

tree-trunk. They are sometimes large enough to hold from twenty to

twenty five persons. Usually, however, their capacity is limited

to five or six persons. The curiara is smaller than the bongo or

falca. The bongo is generally provided with a covering in the centre

called a toldo or carroza. This is made of lattice-work with palm

leaves to shelter the traveler from the sun and rain. It is steered

and urged backwards and forwards by a man standing at the stern, who

uses a kind of oar--canalete--very much as a Venetian gondolier handles

his oar for steering and propelling his gondola. When the current does

not permit the use of oars those standing near the prow urge the boat

forward by poles called palancas. The boatmen are called bogas and the

ropes with which they sometimes pull their canoes forward are called

sogas. The bongo, especially when the river is high, is a very slow

means of locomotion. And owing to the very limited space of the toldo,

even in the largest canoes, traveling in a bongo is, at best, very

confining and uncomfortable. A journey any distance in one of these

long, narrow, crank dug-outs--more unstable than a shell--is a trying

experience, and one that all travelers in equatorial America avoid

whenever possible. The treacherous craft is liable to capsize when

one least expects it. Even a skilled Oxford or Harvard sculler would

at times have great difficulty in keeping his balance in one of them.

[144] Also called papelon--cane-syrup boiled down, without being

clarified, and cast into molds. The only kind of sugar obtainable here.

[145] A stanza from this poem will show what value the author placed

on the hammock. It expresses, at the same time, the opinion of it

entertained by all travelers in tropical countries.

"Mi hamaca ea un tesoro,

Es mi mejor alhaja;

Á la ciudad, al campo,

Siempre ella me acompaña.

Oh prodigio de industria!

Cuando no encuentro casa,

La cuelgo de los troncos,

Y allí esta mi posada.

'Salud, salud doe veces

Al que invento la hamaca!'"

Mention is made of hammocks by Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda as early as

1498. They are made on hand-looms from the fibres of various species

of palm and bromelia or from cotton thread. In their manufacture

the Indian women often display considerable skill and taste. This is

particularly true of the hammocks made in the regions of the upper Rio

Negro, which are beautifully decorated with the feathers of parrots,

toucans and other birds of brilliant plumage.

"The hammock," as Schomburgk well observes, "is the most indispensable

article in the Indian's house, or for an Indian's journey. On his

travels it is carried folded up and slung round his neck; the greatest

precaution is used to prevent its getting wet. Where a halt is made,

be it of ever so short a duration, the first object sought for is a

convenient tree from which he can suspend it. It is a compliment paid

to the stranger, if the host takes the hammock from him on entering

the house and slings it for his guest, and it is the duty of the

wife to do this service for her husband. The common hammocks of the

Indians are generally open, that is, not closely woven, and colored

red with roucou or arnotto." Op. cit., p. 66.

[146] Peter Martyr, writing of the West Indies, informs us that "In

all these Ilandes is a certeyne kynde of trees as bygge as elmes,

whiche beare gourdes in the steade of fruites. These they vse only

for drinkynge pottes, and to fetch water in, but not for meate, for

the inner substance of them is sowrer then gaule, and the barke as

harde as any shelle." Eden, op. cit., p. 76.

[147] "Tutti dormono insieme come i polli, chi in terra, chi in aria

sospeso."--Historia del Mondo Novo, In Venetia, 1565.

[148] Often misspelled yucca, which is the name of a genus of plants

belonging to the lily family. The Spanish bayonet--Yucca albifolia--is

a familiar example.

[149] Life and Nature in the Tropics, p. 98, by H. M. and

P. V. M. Myers, New York, 1871.

[150] Aus den Llanos, p. 147, Leipzig, 1840.

[151] Of the tonina, as of the dolphin that befriended Arion, one

could say in the words of an ancient writer: "Of man, he is nothing

afraid, neither avoideth from him as a stranger; but of himselfe

meeteth their ships, plaieth and disporteth himselfe, and fetcheth a

thousand friskes, and gambols before them. He will swimme along by the

mariners, as it were for a wager, who should make way most speedily,

and alwaies outgoeth them, saile they with never so good a forewind."

[152] The national dish of Venezuela, also much esteemed in

Colombia. It is a kind of ragout composed of meat and vegetables,

or fish and vegetables, highly seasoned with aji, or red pepper.

[153] Wanderings in South America, Second Journey.

Referring to Waterton's account of the bellbird and the distance at

which it can be heard, Sydney Smith expresses his scepticism in the

following fashion:--

"The description of the birds is very animated and interesting; but

how far does the gentle reader imagine the campanero may be heard,

whose size is that of a jay? Perhaps 300 yards. Poor innocent,

ignorant reader! unconscious of what Nature has done in the forests

of Cayenne, and measuring the force of tropical intonation by the

sounds of a Scotch duck! The campanero may be heard three miles!--this

single little bird being more powerful than the belfry of a cathedral,

ringing for a new dean--just appointed on account of shabby politics,

small understanding, and good family!

"It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the

forests of Cayenne; but we are determined, as soon as a campanero is

brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the

distance measured."

[154] "In angry sea, in sudden storm,

I thee invoke, our star benign."

[155] Compare the reception of Ulysses by Eumæus, in the fourteenth

book of the Odyssey, where the old servant of the wandering hero is

made to say to his unknown master:--

"Guest! If one much worse

Arrived here than thyself, it were a curse

To my poor means, to let a stranger taste

Contempt for fit food. Poor men, and unplac'd

In free seats of their own, are all from Jove

Commended to our entertaining love,

But poor is th' entertainment I can give,

Yet free and loving."

Crevaux, op. cit., p. 556, remarks anent this subject: "On pratique

largement l'hospitalité dans les grandes solitudes."

[156] "Videmus lunam et stellas consolari noctem."--Confessionum,

Lib. XIII, Cap. XXXII.

[157] Codazzi also refers to this and other similar phenomena in his

Geografia Statistica di Venezuela, pp. 29 and 30, Firenze, 1864.

[158] Among the Indians of Guiana, p. 384, by Everard T. Im Thurn.

[159] The Bolivian Andes, p. 201, London and New York, 1901.

Padre Figueroa, in his Relaciones de las Misiones en el País de los

Maynas, writes of similar phenomena observed among the Andes near

the Amazon.

[160] Since writing the above I have discovered that both Antonio

Raimondi of Lima, Peru, and Col. Geo. E. Church had arrived

independently at a similar conclusion to my own. "The Andes," writes

Col. Church, "at least within the tropics, are at times a gigantic

electric battery, and so highly charged that they are very dangerous

to cross."--The Geographical Journal, pp. 341, 342, April, 1901.

[161] Op. cit., p. 4.

[162] "Homo habitat inter tropicos, vescitur palmis, lotophagus;

hospitatur extra tropicos sub novercante Cerere carnivorus."--Systema

Naturæ, Vol. I, p. 24.

Besides the fruit-yielding palms there are others, like the palmetto

or cabbage Palm, that also afford nutritious food. "The head of the

Palmito tree," says Hakluyt, "is very good meate, either raw or sodden;

it yeeldeth a head which waigheth about twenty pound, and is far

better than any cabbage."--Early Voyages, Vol. V, p. 557. Schomburgk

informs us that during his exploration of Guiana it was for weeks

his chief sustenance.

[163] It is surprising what erroneous notions have been and are

still entertained regarding the distance of Bogotá from the head of

navigation on the eastern side of the Andes. Many recent writers place

the distance at twenty miles. Michelena y Rojas, in his Exploración

Oficial, p. 293, makes it but four leagues. Schomburgk, in an article

in the Journal of the Geographical Society, Vol. X, p. 278, assures us

that by way of the Meta there is uninterrupted navigation to within

eight miles of Sante Fe de Bogotá! The fact is that the nearest

point to Bogotá to which vessels of even light draught may ascend

by the Meta is Barrigón, more than one hundred and fifty miles from

Colombia's capital. Small flat boats and canoes may, through some of

the affluents of the Meta, approach considerably nearer. During the

rainy season they may even reach the foothills of the Andes at the

base of which Villavicencio stands. But from here, the nearest point

to the capital which even the smallest craft can reach to Bogotá,

the distance is still ninety-three miles at the lowest estimate. To

navigate the Rio Negro, as Rojas and others imagine can be done,

from the llanos to Caquesa--thirty-seven hundred feet higher than the

plains--would be no more possible than it would be to row or sail

up an Alpine torrent. From Caquesa to Bogotá is not four leagues,

as Michelena estimates, but full twenty-five miles.

[164] "Dichoso aquel que alcanza

Como rico don del Cielo,

Para defender su suelo

Buen caballo y buena lanza."

[165] "When roseate Aurora shows her fresh face in the East, in vain I

seek my gentle spouse, in vain I look for the daughter my soul adores,

to imprint a kiss on their brows."

[166] "O what prodigies! What beauty! Man feels weak and poor in their

presence. There is nothing here that does not amaze the heart. In

everything is inscribed the name of God. Everything proclaims His

omnipotence."

[167] A View of the Present State of Ireland.

[168] Also called cobija and ruana.

[169] The Chagres river, it is said, occasionally rises twenty-five

feet in a few hours.

[170] The term Jurungo has much the same signification among the

Llaneros as has "tenderfoot" in Australia and the western part of

the United States. Guate, another word of similar import, frequently

heard in the Llanos, is employed to designate a Serrano--a highlander

or mountaineer--while jurungo refers more specifically to a stranger

from Europe or the United States. Like the word tenderfoot, these

two epithets are used in a certain depreciative sense.

[171] The reader who is interested in the famous expeditions of

Hohermuth, von Hutten and Federmann, about which there is little

in English that is satisfactory, is referred to Castellanos, Varones

Ilustres de Indias, Partes II and III; Herrera, Historia de las Indias,

Dec. VI; Oviedo y Baños, Conquista y Poblacion de Venezuela, Lib I

and III; Oviedo y Valdéz. Historia General y Natural de las Indias,

Tom. II, Lib. XXV; Ternaux--Compans, Voyages, Rélations et Memoires

Originaux pour servir à l'histoire de la découvarte de l'Amérique,

Tom. II, Paris, 1840; Klunzinger, Antheil der Deutschen an der

Andeckung von Süd-Amerika, Kap. VI, IX and XII, Stuttgart, 1857;

Schumacher, Die Unternehmungen der Augsburger Welser in Venezuela,

Kap. IV, IX and XII, in Tom. II, of a work published in Hamburg, 1892,

Zur Errinnerung an die Endeckung Amerikas; Topf, Deutsche Statthalter

und Konquistadoren in Venezuela, pp. 18, 19, 33-42, 48-55; Tom. VI, of

the Sammlung gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge, Hamburg,

1893; Humbert, L'Occupation Allemande du Venezuela au XVI Siècle,

Période dite des Welser, 1528-1556, Bordeaux, 1905. The last-named

work is illustrated by a valuable map. The subject possesses an added

interest from the fact that it refers to the only attempt at colonial

occupation ever made by Germans in South America. How different would

now be the condition of Venezuela and Colombia if the Welser colony

had been permanent and successful!

[172] "Plain folk and faithful, modest and frank,

Loyal, humble, sane and obedient."

This is particularly true of Indian children. Writing of them, a

Dominican missionary, who had lived among them, and knew them well,

expresses himself as follows:--

"Je ne sais rien d'aimable, de gracieux, de docile et d'intelligent

comme le jeune Indien"--"I know nothing so amiable, so kindly, so

docile and so intelligent as the young Indian."--Voyage d'Exploration

d' un Missionaire Dominicain chez les Tribus Sauvages de l'Equateur,

p. 310, Paris, 1889.

[173] The people of Venezuela and Colombia are very fond of using

diminutives, and one must confess that it often gives to their

conversation a peculiar charm and expressiveness. Thus from todo,

all or every, they form todito, toditico; from cerca, near, they

derive cerquita, cerquitita or cerquitica. Instead of Adios they will

say Adiosito, and instead of Yo voy passando bien, one hears Yo voy

passandito bien.

I once gave a young mother a medal for a child she was holding on her

lap, and she at once said, "Muchisimas gracias, hijito, yo pondre

la medallita lueguito al cuellito de la queridita que va andandito

asi, no mas." "Many thanks, little son"--I was old enough to be her

grandfather--"I shall immediately put the little medal on the little

neck of the little darling, which is in rather delicate health."

[174] Richard Eden, op. cit., p. 71.

[175] Historia de las Indias Occidentales, Dec. II, Lib. III, Cap. 14.

[176] The town of Santa Rosa, in Ecuador, had to be abandoned because

of the swarms of ants that invaded the place. It is now known as

Anagollacta--place of ants.

[177] Birds of the World, Chap. IV, New York, 1909.

[178] So fixed are the periods of migration, and so punctual is the

feathered tribe in starting on its semiannual flights, that "The Arabs

are said to have been helped in the compilation of their calendars,

by noting the times of the arrival and departure of migratory birds;

and the Redskin in the far Northwest has received much the same aid

from the birds of another continent."

All things considered, Professor Newton was probably right when he

declared that the migration of birds is "perhaps the greatest mystery

which the whole animal kingdom presents."

[179] Historia de las Indias, Dec. 1, Cap. V.

[180] "Certainly it is a marvelous fact in the history of the

Mammalia," says Charles Darwin, "that in South America a native

horse should have lived and disappeared, to be succeeded in after

ages by the countless herds descended from the few introduced with the

Spanish colonists!"--Journal of Researches into the Natural History and

Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H. M. S. "Beagle"

round the World, Chap. VII.

[181] According to the Chibchas, the fossil remains found here

were the bones of a race of giants, hence the name given the

locality. Humboldt and Cuvier, at the beginning of the last century,

showed that the larger bones found were the remains of the Mastodon

angustidens. Similar fossils found in other parts of South America

have given rise to like fables. Cieza de Leon devotes an interesting

chapter to a race of giants whose remains were found at Point Santa

Helena, near Guayaquil. And on the tradition of a race of giants,

that at one time landed at this place, a certain Mr. Ranking, in 1827,

published a fantastic book entitled Researches on the Conquest of

Peru and Mexico by the Mongols, accompanied with Elephants. See La

Cronica del Peru, Cap. LII, of Cieza de Leon.

[182] Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela and New Granada from

1817-1830.

[183] "According to what the inhabitants told me," wrote Mollien, in

the early part of the last century, "when the paramo se pone bravo

is out of humor, then the greatest dangers threaten the traveler;

a wind laden with icy vapors blows with tremendous violence; thick

darkness covers the earth and conceals every trace of a road. The birds

which, on the appearance of a fine day, had attempted the passage,

fall motionless. The traveler seeks to shelter himself under the

stunted shrubs which here and there grow in these deserts; but their

wet foliage obliges him to find another covert. Worn out with fatigue

and hunger, in vain urging on his mules, benumbed with cold, he sits

down to recover his exhausted strength. Fatal repose! His stomach

soon becomes affected as when at sea, his blood freezes in his veins;

his muscles grow stiff, his lips open as if to smile, and he expires

with the expression of joy upon his features. The mules, no longer

hearing their master's voice, remain standing, till at length tired,

they lie down to die."--Travels in the Republic of Colombia, pp. 96,

97, London, 1824.

[184] Signifying a large hole, or a wide opening.

[185] The author of Campaigns and Cruises, already quoted, writing of

the pass where Bolivar's army crossed the Cordillera describes it as

"strewed with the bones of men and animals, that have perished in

attempting to cross the paramo in unfavorable weather. Multitudes

of small crosses are fixed in the rocks by pious hands, in memory of

former travelers, who have died here; and along the path are strewed

fragments of saddlery, trunks and various articles that have been

abandoned, and resemble the traces of a routed army." Vol. III, p. 165.

[186] The Guia de la Republica de Colombia, p. 301, por M. Zamora,

Bogotá, 1907, places the altitude at three thousand and nine hundred

metres.

[187] Nueva-Geografia de Colombia, Tom. I, p. 985.

[188] According to Vergara y Velasco, the name Suma Paz is of Indian,

and not of Spanish origin. If this be true, the name should be

written as one word--Sumapaz. Personally, I prefer to think the name

is Spanish. For this particular range it is a most appropriate epithet.

[189] Padre Simon says that Federmann, after crossing the Cordillera,

tarried for a while in the province of Pasca. Castellanos declares

it was in the pueblo of Pasca, a small town a short distance south

of our route. According to Vergara y Velasco, the adventurous

German conquistador entered "the Sabana of Bogatá by way of Pasca

and Usme." Usme is a village that is on the road along which we

passed. Col. Joaquin Acosta tells us the Cordillera was crossed in

the broadest and most rugged part, "where even to-day the most daring

hunters scarcely ever venture. Neither before nor since Federmann

have horses scaled the craggy crests of Pascote and crossed the

heights of Suma Paz and descended thence to Pasca in the valley of

Fusagasuga." Oviedo informs us that it required twenty-two days to

cross the paramos, which was so extremely cold that sixteen horses

were frozen to death. But whether Federmann crossed Suma Paz where we

did or, as some think, at a point farther south, it is reasonable to

suppose that his route from Villavicencio to Bogatá was practically

the same as our own.

[190] "Earth receives againe,

Whatever she brought forth, and they obtaine

Heaven's couverture, that have no urnes at all."

--Lucan's Pharsalia, Lib. VII, vv. 319 et seq.

[191] It was made a city by Charles V in 1540 with the title of

"muy noble y muy leal," very noble and very loyal.

[192] "You do well to weep like a woman for what you failed to

defend like a man."--Irving's A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada,

Chap. LIV.

[193] Op. cit., Appendice B., p. 10.

[194] Called by Colombians la Sabana, or la Sabana de Bogatá.

[195] "In the remotest times," writes Humboldt, following Quesada

and Piedrahita, "before the moon accompanied the earth, according to

the mythology of the Muysca or Mozca Indians, the inhabitants of the

plain of Bogatá lived like barbarians, naked, without agriculture,

without any form of laws or worship. Suddenly there appeared among

them an old man, who came from the plains situate on the east of

the Cordillera of Chingasa; and who appeared to be of a race unlike

that of the natives, having a long and bushy beard. He was known by

three distinct appellations, Bochica, Nemquetheba, and Zuhe. This

old man, like Manco-Capac, instructed men how to clothe themselves,

build huts, till the ground, and form themselves into communities. He

brought with him a woman, to whom also tradition gives three names,

Chia, Yubecayguaya, and Huythaca. This woman, extremely beautiful,

and no less malignant, thwarted every enterprise of her husband for

the happiness of mankind. By her skill in magic, she swelled the

river of Funza, and inundated the valley of Bogatá. The greater part

of the inhabitants perished in this deluge; a few only found refuge

on the summits of the neighbouring mountains. The old man, in anger

drove the beautiful Huythaca far from the Earth, and she became the

Moon, which began from that epoch to enlighten our planet during the

night. Bochica, moved with compassion for those who were dispersed over

the mountains, broke with his powerful arm the rocks that enclosed

the valley, on the side of Canoas and Tequendama. By this outlet he

drained the waters of the lake of Bogotá; he built towns, introduced

the worship of the Sun, named two chiefs, between whom he divided the

civil and ecclesiastical authority, and then withdrew himself, under

the name of Idacanzas, into the holy valley of Iraca, near Tunja,

where he lived in the exercise of the most austere penitence for

the space of two thousand years."--Vues de Cordillères et Monuments

des Peuples Indigènes de l'Amérique, par Al. de Humboldt, Paris,

1810. Compare Piedrahita's Historia General de las Conquistas del

Nuevo Reino de Granada, Cap. III, Bogotá, 1881. Piedrahita, following

other authors, was of the opinion that Bochica was no other than the

Apostle Bartholomew, who, according to a widespread legend, preached

the gospel in this part of the world.

[196] "Why do you plant these eucalyptus trees around your houses?" I

asked of a peon one day. "Para evitar la fiebre, Sumerced," to prevent

fever, your honor. The "Sumerced," in this reply, is only one of many

indications of deference on the part of the common people in their

intercourse with strangers, or with those whom they regard as their

superiors. It is an echo of the courtly language employed in the days

of the viceroyalty.

[197] The height of the falls, according to Humboldt's measurements,

is one hundred and seventy metres. Before his visit they were supposed

to be much higher. Piedrahita calls them one of the wonders of the

world and declares that their height is half a league. Around the top

of the falls are seen oak, elm and cinchona trees; at the bottom are

found palms, bananas and sugar-cane. Colombans always refer to these

facts when they wish to impress the stranger with the extraordinary

height of Tequendama, as compared with that of other great falls. By

a single plunge, they proudly tell us, its waters pass from tierra

fria to tierra caliente.

[198] Le Tour du Monde, Vol. XXXV, p. 194.

[199] Not Benalcazar, as is so often written. He took his name from his

native town, Belalcazar, on the confines of Andalusia and Estremadura.

[200] "Ours be his gold and his pleasures,

Let us enjoy that land, that sun."

[201] Op. cit., Parte III, Canto 4.

[202] Compendio Historico del Descubrimiento y Colonization de la

Nueva Granada, p. 168, Bogotá, 1901.

[203] Piedrahita, op. cit., Lib. VII, Cap. 4, Bogotá, 1881. See also

Noticias Historiales de las Conquistas de Tierra Firme en las Indias

Occidentales, por Fr. Pedro Simon, Tom. IV, p. 195, Bogotá, 1892.

[204] Antologia de Poetas Hispano-Americanos, publicada por la Real

Academia Española, Tom. III, Introduccion, Madrid, 1894.

[205] A peculiar phenomenon, which has been frequently commented on,

is that the early prose writers of Latin America exhibited more true

poetic feeling and enthusiasm in their productions than did those

who expressed themselves in verse. La Araucana, the so-called epic

poem of Ercilla, pronounced an Iliad by Voltaire and considered by

Sismondi a mere newspaper in rhyme, is a case in point. Nowhere,

in this long work of forty-two thousand verses, "has the aspect

of volcanoes covered with eternal snow, of torrid sylvan valleys,

and of arms of the sea extending far into the land, been productive

of any descriptions that may be regarded as graphical." It exhibits,

it is true, a certain animation in describing the heroic struggle of

the brave Araucanians for their homes and liberty, but, aside from

this, the higher elements of poetry--especially of epic poetry--are

entirely lacking.

The same observation can be made with still greater truth of the

Arauco Domado, of Padre Oña; of the Argentina, of Barco Centenera;

the Cortés Valeroso, and the Mejicana, of Laso de la Vega; and

the oft-quoted Elegias de Varones Ilustres de Indias, of Juan de

Castellanos. All of these, with the exception of the last-mentioned

work, have long since been buried in almost complete oblivion. The

influence of the Italian school is everywhere manifest in these

productions--an influence which, while it may have contributed to

purity, correctness and elegance of expression, was quite destructive

of the vigor, freshness and originality so characteristic of the great

masters of Spanish verse. Compare Humboldt's Cosmos, Vol. II, Part I;

and Historias Primitivas de Indias, por Don Enrique de Vedia, Tom. I,

p. 10, Madrid, 1877, in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles desde la

Formacion del Lenguaje hasta Nuestros Dios.

Those who are interested in the literature of Colombia will find the

subject ably discussed in Historia de la Literatura en Nueva Granada,

by Don José Maria Vergara y Vergara Bogotá, 1867.

[206] The first printing press seen in the New World was brought

to the city of Mexico by its first bishop, the learned Franciscan,

Fray Juan de Zumarraga, shortly after the conquest by Cortes.

[207] The people of some of the other South American capitals would,

I am sure, take exception to the claims here made in favor of Bogotá. I

myself think them greatly exaggerated.

[208] The Colombian and Venezuela Republics, p. 101, Boston, 1905.

[209] Compendio de la Historia de Venezuela desde el Descubrimiento

de America hasta Nuestros Dias, p. 213, Paris, 1875.

[210] See especially introduction and Cap. I, Vol. I, Quinta Edicion,

New York, 1901.

[211] A Narrative of the Expedition to the Rivers Orinoco and Apure,

pp. 462-464, London, 1819.

[212] Memoirs of Simon Bolivar, Vol. II, pp. 3, 236, 257 and 258.

[213] After the battle was over the survivors of this decisive

conflict were saluted by Bolivar as Salvatores de mi Patria--Saviors

of my country.

[214] Op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 249, 250.

[215] "Colombia had been an efficient war machine in the hands of

Bolivar by which the independence of South America was secured, but

was an anachronism as a nation. The interests of the different sections

were antagonistic, and the military organization given to the country

only strengthened the germs of disorder. Venezuela and New Granada

were geographically marked out as independent nations. Quito, from

historical antecedents, aspired to autonomy. Had Bolivar abstained from

his dreams of conquest, and devoted his energies to the consolidation

of his own country, he might, perhaps, have organized it into one

nation under a federal form of government, but that was not suited

to his genius. When his own bayonets turned against him, he went so

far as to despair of the republican system altogether and sought the

protection of a foreign king for the last fragment of his shattered

monocracy."--History of San Martin, p. 467, by General Don Bartolome

Mitre, translated by W. Pilling, London, 1893.

[216] After writing the above paragraphs, I was glad to learn

from Mr. W. H. Fox, the American Minister to Ecuador, that General

Alfaro, the present chief executive of that republic, is, like many

distinguished patriots and statesmen of Colombia and Venezuela,

an ardent advocate of the restoration of Bolivar's great Republic of

Colombia. "I would," said he to Mr. Fox, who has given me permission to

publish this statement, "rather be governor of Ecuador, as one of the

states of such a great republic, than be its president, as I am now."

All friends of Greater Colombia, and their number among enlightened

and far-seeing statesmen is rapidly increasing, hope the day is not

far distant when Bolivar's plan can once more be put into effect,

but this time on so enduring a basis that it cannot again be affected

by the machinations of the jealous military rivals and self-seeking

politicians, by whom so many hapless countries in Latin America have

so long been cursed.

[217] Quoted by F. Hassaurek, formerly United States Minister to

Ecuador, in his Four Years Among Spanish Americans, p. 209, New

York, 1868.

[218] Since writing the above the connection has been made.

[219] Vergara y Velasco, Nueva Geografia de Colombia, p. 253.

[220] Castellanos, in his Historia del Nuevo Reino de Granada, Tom. II,

pp. 61, 62, in referring to the delicacies Don Alonso Luis de Lugo and

his half-famished companions found on their reaching the Sabana de

Bogotá, after their dreadful journey through the "pluvious, swampy,

impassable, dismal" sierras of the Opon, makes mention, among other

things, of well-cured hams and capons that were provided for their

entertainment.

"Cuantidad de jamones bien curados,

Porque tenian ya buenas manadas

De puercos desque vino Benalcazar

Que trajo los primeros de la tierra.

Hubo tambien capones y gallinas,

Que se multiplicaron desque vino

Nicolao Fedriman de Venezuela,

Que al Nuevo reino trajo las primeras."

[221] Fray Bernardo Lugo, in his Gramatica de la lengua Mosca,

published in 1619, and Padre Simon, in his Noticias Historiales,

written shortly after, were the first to state that the language

spoken was the Chibcha. Muisca is a Chibcha word signifying person.

[222] The Chibchas, like many people living on the Andean plateaus

to-day, derived their chief sustenance from potatoes and maize, both

of which are indigenous to South America. Oviedo speaks of the potato

as their principal aliment, as it was always served with whatever

else they ate. According to Castellanos, it was a favorite article

of diet with the conquistadores, as well as with the Indians.

Maize afforded them meat and drink, for out of it they made bread

and their highly-prized beverage, chicha, which is still so popular

among their descendants. Of the paramount importance of this article

of food among the aborigines of the New World, John Fiske, in his

valuable work, The Discovery of America, writes as follows:--

"Maize or Indian corn has played a most important part in the history

of the New World, as regards both the red men and the white men. It

could be planted without clearing or ploughing the soil. It was only

necessary to girdle the trees with a stone hatchet, so as to destroy

their leaves, and let in the sunshine. A few scratches and digs were

made in the ground with a stone digger, and the seed once dropped in

took care of itself. The ears could hang for weeks after ripening,

and could be picked off without meddling with the stalk; there was

no need of threshing or winnowing. None of the Old World cereals can

be cultivated without much more industry and intelligence." Vol. 1,

pp. 27, 28. M. Alphonse de Candolle, in his learned work, Origin of

Cultivated Plants, seems to regard Colombia as the original home of

maize, while he inclines to the opinion that Chile was the point of

departure of the potato--Solanum tuberosum.

[223] Prehistoric America, p. 460, London, 1885.

[224] It is saying more than the facts will warrant to assert, as

does Ameghino, that "En Nueva Granada las inscripciones geroglificas

se encuentran a cada paso"--that hieroglyphic inscriptions are found

everywhere. Cf. his La Antiguedad del Hombre, Vol. I, p. 92.

[225] Los Chibchas antes de la Conquista Española, p. 176, Bogotá,

1895. Cf. also El Dorado, Estudio Historico, Etnografico y arqueologico

de los Chibchas, Habitantes de la Antigua Cundinamarca y de Algunas

Otras Tribus, por el Doctor Liborio Zerda, Bogotá, 1883, and Nouvelle

Géographic Universelle, par Elisée Reclus, Tom. XVIII, pp. 292 et seq.,

Paris, 1893.

[226] Chap. I, New York, 1877.

[227] Compare Fiske, op. cit., Vol. I, Chap. I.

[228] Crossing a mountain range like the Oriental Cordilleras, is not,

as is so frequently imagined, a gradual and uninterrupted ascent to

the summit, and then a similar continuous descent to its base. Far from

it. It is literally an ever-recurring journey "up the hill and down the

dale," from the foothills on one side of the range to the foothills

on the other. The accompanying diagram from Karsten's Géologie de

l'Ancienne Colombie Bolivarienne, gives a good idea of the eastern

range of the Andes along our route from the Meta to the Magdalena.

[229] Commonly called "chaps."

[230] Notwithstanding the statements, frequently made by travelers,

about their mules climbing roads inclined at angles varying from

30° to 45°, it can safely be affirmed that the maximum angle is but

little, if any more than 20°, as actual measurement will show. When

the inclination becomes greater than this the mule will always take

a zigzag course, so as to reduce the grade as much as possible.

[231] "Heavy, tortuous and dark."--Ovid.

[232] I do not pretend to deny that drunkenness exists in

Colombia. Even Colombian writers would be the last to do this, for they

are fully aware of the extent of the ravages of the drink evil. They

will tell you frankly that the inhabitants of certain parts of the

country are addicted to intoxication, or, as one of them expresses it,

that they are "muy amigos de embriagarse"--fond of getting drunk. And

no one, I think, will deny that the prevalence of the drink habit

is one of the country's greatest curses. A good old padre, learned

and patriotic, wrote a book some decades ago, in which he contended

that Colombia, by reason of its favored geographical position and its

wonderful natural resources, should rank among the richest and most

prosperous countries of the New World. And it would be, he insisted,

were it not for three drawbacks. These, in his estimation, were

borracheria, holgozaneria and politiqueria, to-wit, drunkenness,

indolence, and the habit, so universally prevalent, of its people

dabbling in questionable politics. We have no equivalent in English for

the expressive word, politiqueria, although we should have frequent use

for it if it existed. It means, literally, the methods and occupation

of a politicaster--an individual who is as much of a drawback to the

best interests of our own country as is the politicastro to Colombia.

To the great amount of chicha sold in these estancos, usually kept

by women, is undoubtedly traceable the origin of the saying, Toda

chichera muere rica--Every chicha vender dies rich.

[233] According to Franz Keller and other travelers in South America,

the Indian women in certain parts of the continent prepare chicha by

masticating the maize, just as some of the Polynesians prepare kava and

certain other of their favorite beverages by mastication. They claim

that when thus prepared it has a far more agreeable flavor than when

prepared artificialmente, that is, by the method above described. See

The Amazon and Madeira Rivers, p. 164 et seq., London, 1874.

Spix and Martius' Travels in Brazil, Vol. II, p. 232, London, 1824,

say, "It is remarkable that this mode of preparing a fermented liquor

out of maize, mandioca flour or bananas, is found among the various

Indian tribes of America, and seems peculiar to this race."

Sir Robert Schomburgk, referring to the intoxicating drink, paiwori,

made from cassava bread, writes as follows:--

"The women, who prepare the beverage, assemble around a large jar or

other earthen vessel, and having moistened their mouths with fresh

water, they commence chewing the bread, collecting in the vessel the

moisture which accumulates in the mouth. This is afterwards put into

a trough, called canaua, or in large jars, in which a quantity of

the charred bread has been broken up, over which boiling water is

poured; and it is then kneaded, and portions which are not of an

even consistency are again carried to the mouth, ground with the

teeth, and returned into the earthen pot. The process is repeated

several times, from the idea that it conduces to the strength of

the beverage. The second day fermentation begins, and on the third

the liquor is considered fit for use. We have seen a whole village,

young and old, men and women, occupied in this disgusting process when

it was contemplated to celebrate our unexpected arrival among them;

otherwise, for common use, the females alone employ themselves ex

officio with the preparation. Their teeth suffer so much from this

occupation that a female has seldom a good tooth after she is thirty

years old.... The taste of the paiwori is very refreshing after

great fatigue, and not unpleasant to the taste; if offered as the

cup of welcome by the Indian, it would be a great offense to refuse

it."--The Discovery of Guiana, ut sup., pp. 64, 65.

[234] Reisen in den Columbianischen Anden, Leipzig, 1888.

[235] The usual name given the humming bird by the people of Venezuela

and Colombia is colibri. It is also known as the pajarito-mosca--little

bird fly--or pica-flor--flower-nibbler. But the most beautiful and

most picturesque names are those in use by the Indians, who seem

to have a particular faculty for inventing appropriate epithets

for whatever specially strikes their fancy. By them humming birds

are called "The rays of the sun," "The tresses of the day-star" and

"Living sunbeams." The poet Bailey has incorporated the last of these

names in the couplet,

"Bright Humming-bird of gem-like plumeletage,

By western Indians Living Sunbeam named,"

Audubon was but imitating the children of the forest when he called

humming birds "Glittering fragments of the rainbow."

[236] Even the Colombian writer, Vergara y Velasco, who, like South

Americans generally, is slow to grow enthusiastic over natural scenery,

refers to the view from El Sargento as a "Sitio pintoresco si los

hay"--a picturesque place if there be any.

[237] Act III, Scene VI.

[238] According to Karl Fauehaber, the explorer of the Quindio

Cordillera, Tolima has an altitude of 20,995 feet.

[239] "With Francis of Assisi and his Hymn to the Sun," we are

informed by a recent writer, "the love of wild nature became more

articulate." As an illustration of the effect of Nature-love on

sensitive souls, we are told that the poet Gay, after visiting the

Grande Chartreuse, declared that if he had lived in St. Bruno's day,

he would have been one of his disciples. "It was," he said, "one of

the most solemn, the most romantic and the most astonishing scenes

I ever beheld."

[240] Shelley's Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude.

[241] The negroes of Colombia are often of a highly poetical nature,

and, like those of our Southern states, are passionately fond of

music, singing and dancing. Their voices are often marvelously elastic,

expansive and harmonious. Their favorite air and dance is the bambuco,

of African origin, to which Jorge Isaacs refers in his charming Caucan

novel, Maria, and of which Vergara y Vergara in his valuable Historia

de la Literatura en Nueva Granada (Parte primera, p. 513, Bogotá,

1867) gives us so glowing an account. It is the latter writer that

assures us that if a negro were to play a marimba in the forests of

the South Coast, he could be certain that wild beasts and serpents

would listen to him in silent ecstasy.

[242] "Hail, hail, majestic river!... Contemplating thee, adorned

by the eldest of Earth's sons; full only of thee, I feel my soul

carried on by the foam of thy waves, which in deep whirlpools roar,

absorbed in the giant works of that Being which embraces the infinite."

[243] The reader will be surprised to learn that the aggregate

capacity of all the boats--champans included--at present plying on

the Magdalena--proudly named by the people the Danube of Colombia--is

not more than eleven thousand tons, about half the tonnage of one of

our great transatlantic steamers.

[244] Op. cit., 3a Noticia, Cap. IX.

[245] The first mention, apparently, of the Magdalena, as distinguished

from the Rio Grande, occurs in Benzoni's work, already cited.

[246] Called by the natives Cabeza de Negro--Negro-head--from the

globular form of the spathe enclosing the nuts.

[247] The introduction of the steamboat on the Magdalena will soon

suppress the rude yet picturesque craft known as the champan. With it

will disappear that interesting type of negro known as the boga. The

boga is tall and robust, with the habits of a savage. He spends

the greater part of his time in the champan, and his life as a

punter is a strenuous one and full of danger. He speaks a barbarous

jargon--currulao--composed of Spanish and of certain African and

Indian dialects. His ideas of honor and honesty are not unlike

those of similar people in other parts of the world. One can safely

trust him with money and clothing, but, if the traveler have liquor

of any kind with him, the boga will be sure to purloin it at the

first opportunity. He is simple, frank, and brave. He sings during

good weather, even while struggling against the current or fighting

caymans, but he swears like a trooper during rain and thunder storms,

especially when the lightning strikes near him. For him death is

a very simple matter. A dead man to him is like a champan damaged

beyond repair--something to be carried away by the all-devouring river.

[248] The exact altitudes of the points named are as follows:--Cumbre

Pass, between Chile and Argentina, 12,505 feet; Crucero Alto, between

Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, 14,666 feet; Galera Tunnel, 15,665 feet. At

Urbina, on the recently-completed railroad between Guayaquil and Quito,

the height above sea level is 11,841 feet.

[249] In Colombia, the white race, composed of the descendants of the

conquistadores, most of whom have intermarried with the indigenous

tribes, constitutes fifty per cent of the population. The negroes

compose thirty-five and the Indians fifteen per cent. In Venezuela

the descendants of Europeans are in the minority, while in Ecuador,

Peru and Bolivia the indigenes make up nearly two-thirds of the

inhabitants. La Republique de Colombie, p. 44, par Ricardo Nuñez et

Henry Jalahay, Bruxelles, 1898.

[250] Albert Millican, Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter,

p. 118, London, 1891.

[251] The noted English botanist, Spruce, expresses a similar idea

when he writes, "I like to look on plants as sentient beings, which

live and enjoy their lives--which beautify the earth during life,

and after death may adorn my herbarium."--Notes of a Botanist, and

the Amazon and Andes, Chap. XXXIX, by Richard Spruce, London, 1908.

[252] The route followed by Quesada from the Magdalena to the

plateau of Bogotá has remained impassable for horses since the time

of the conquest. To one familiar with the difficulties of the way,

it seems impossible that so small a body of soldiers should ever

have been able to take sixty horses with them and bring them all,

with a single exception, in safety to the plains above. It may be

safely doubted if such a feat could be accomplished now. But "there

were giants in those days."

[253] The fact that the Spaniards found potatoes here on their arrival,

and the further fact that there was never any communication, so far

as known, between New Granada and Chile before the conquest, would

seem to indicate that the Solanum tuberosum may have been, contrary

to the opinion of Humboldt and De Candolle, indigenous to Colombia.

[254] Op. cit., Dec. I, Book X.

[255] Quesada's infantry received as their share of the spoil, which

had been secured, the equivalent of about $1,000. The cavalry received

twice this amount.

[256] In the province of Sinu the amount of treasure in gold and jewels

secured in one day amounted to $300,000. Not without reason, then,

was this part of the New World designated by the early geographers,

Castilla del Oro--Golden Castile.

[257] The Republic of Colombia, p. 59, London, 1906.

Nothing is farther from my mind than to call in question the veracity

of distinguished naturalists and travelers regarding any statements

they may have made concerning the vast numbers of animals and birds

seen by them in the equinoctial regions of South America. But my

experience proves at least one thing and that is that one may travel

a long time in the very heart of the tropics, and see very little

of its fauna, even in those parts in which it is generally supposed

that there are always representatives of many kinds and that, too,

in great numbers.

[258] The following sentence affords an interesting commentary on

the occasional rarity of certain animals which are usually supposed

to be always visible in large numbers, especially in the Magdalena.

"I have read much of the number of alligators on the Magdalena, but

have not seen one."--The Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela

and Colombia, p. 264, 1906-7, by Hiram Bingham, New Haven. 1909.

Raleigh says he saw in Guiana thousands of these "vglie serpants"

called Lagartos.

[259] Mr. R. L. Ditmars, Curator of Reptiles in the New York Zoological

Park, in his interesting work, The Reptile Book, writes as follows of

the crocodile: "The sight of a child will send a twelve-foot specimen

rushing from its basking place for the water, and a man may even

bathe in safety in rivers frequented by the species. The dangerous

'man-eating' crocodiles inhabit India and Africa." P. 91. Compare

Schomburgk, in Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, p. 57.

[260] If the slaughter of the alligator in the Gulf States continues

for a few years longer, at the rate which has prevailed during the

past few decades, the reptile will be exterminated. According to

the Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission, XI, 1891, p. 343, it is

estimated that 2,500,000 were killed in Florida between 1880 and 1894.

[261] Dec. II, Book 9.

[262] Dec. I, Book 9.

[263] The Ceroxylon andicola and the Kunthia montana grow at altitudes

of from 6,000 to 9,000 feet, and, according to Humboldt, palms are

found in the Paramo de Guanucos, 13,000 feet above sea level.

[264] Historia Naturalis Palmarum, Tom. I, p. 156, Lipsiæ. 1850.

[265] The countries here mentioned, especially Palestine, are now

comparatively bare of palms.

[266] According to a legend, this was the first date-palm seen in

Spain, and was planted by the calif himself, in front of his palace,

as a souvenir of his early home.

[267] Quesada and his companions made their celebrated voyage

from Guatiqui to the mouth of the river, a distance of nearly

seven hundred miles, in twelve days. Considering that they had only

rudely-constructed brigantines and dugouts, their trip, compared with

ours made in a steamboat under the most favorable conditions in but

little less than half the time, was truly remarkable.

[268] Paradiso, Canto XIII, 130 et 136-138.

[269] The amount of loot and tribute obtained by de Pointis was,

according to some estimates, no less than forty million livres--an

enormous sum for that period.

[270] W. Robertson, The History of America, Vol. II, p. 514,

Philadelphia, 1812.

[271] History of the New World, pp. 124, 125, printed for the Hakluyt

Society, London, 1857.

[272] Writings of Christopher Columbus, p. 202, edited by P. L. Ford,

New York, 1892.

[273] The Discovery of America, Vol. II, p. 370.

[274] John Boyd Thacher declares that Las Casas was "the grandest

figure, next to Columbus, appearing in the Drama of the New

World. Against the purity of his life, no voice among all his enemies

ever whispered a suggestion. If the Apostle Peter was a much better

man, the story is told elsewhere than in his acts. If the Apostle Paul

was braver, more zealous, more consecrated to the cause of humanity,

which alone can ask for Apostleship, Las Casas was a consistent

imitator. The Church has never passed a saint through the degree of

canonization more worthy of this signal and everlasting honor than

Bartolomé de las Casas, the Apostle of the Indies."--Christopher

Columbus, His Life, His Work, His Remains, Vol. I, pp. 158 and 159,

New York, 1903.

[275] The line here referred to is not the equator, but the tropical

line. The phrase practically signified that European treaties did

not bind within the tropics; that, although Spain might be at peace

in the Old World, there could be no peace for her in the New.

[276] The History of the Buccaneers of America, Vol. I, p. 22, fourth

edition, London, 1741.

Esquemeling, as the reader will observe, does not apply to his

associates the euphemious term Buccaneers, but calls them "the Pyrates

of America, which sort of men are not authorized by any sovereign

prince. For the Kings of Spain having on several occasions sent

their ambassadors to the Kings of England and France to complain

of the molestations and troubles those pyrates often caused on the

coasts of America, even in the calm of peace, it hath always been

answered that such men did not commit those acts of hostility and

pyracy as subjects to their Majesties, and therefore his Catholick

Majesty might proceed against them as he should think fit. The King

of France added that he had no fortress nor castle upon Hispaniola,

neither did he receive a farthing of tribute from thence. And the

King of England adjoined that he had never given any commission to

those of Jamaica to commit hostilities against the subjects of his

Catholick Majesty." Op. cit., p. 58, Vol. I.

[277] Here, says Sir Frederick Treves, in his charming work. The Cradle

of the Deep, "In defiance of the ban of Spain, a strange company

began to collect.... They came across the seas in obedience to no

call; in ones and twos they came. Frenchmen, British, and Dutch,

and, led by some herding instinct, they foregathered at this wild

trysting-place. Some were mere dare-devil adventurers, others were wily

seekers after fortune; the few were in flight from the grip of justice,

the many had roamed away from the old sober world in search of freedom.

"There was a common tie that banded them together, the call of the

wild and the hate of Spain. They formed no colony, nor settlement, but

simply joined themselves together in a kind of jungle brotherhood. They

found a leader as a pack of wolves finds theirs, not by choosing one

to lead but by following the one who led." P. 250, London, 1908.

[278] For awhile the term Buccaneer was applied to the English,

who had nothing to do with the bucan, as well as to the French

adventurers. Subsequently the French sea-rovers became known as

flibustiers, the French sailors' pronunciation of the word freebooter,

while the English corsairs appropriated the name Buccaneers. As their

occupations were the same--making war on the Spaniard--the two terms

came eventually to be regarded as synonymous. All the freebooters,

whether English, French, or Dutch, as an indication of their being

banded against a common enemy, the Spaniards, assumed the name

Brethren of the Coast. The members of this brotherhood must not be

confounded with such cutthroats as Kidd, Bonnet, Avery and Thatch,

who was known as Blackbeard and, for a while, terrorized the Atlantic

Coast from the West Indies to New England.

[279] Thus, the French Flibustier, Pierre le Grand, with only a small

boat and a crew of but twenty-eight men, surprised and captured the

ship of the vice-admiral of the Spanish galleons as she was homeward

bound with a rich cargo.

[280] When John Watling, the successor of the deposed Captain Edmund

Cook, began his captaincy, he ordered all his crew to keep holy the

Sabbath day. "With Edmund Cook down on the ballust in irons," writes

Masefield, and William Cook talking of salvation in the galley, and

old John Watling expounding the Gospel in the cabin, the galleon,

'The most Holy Trinity,' must have seemed a foretaste of the New

Jerusalem. The fiddler ceased such prophane strophes as 'Abel Brown,'

'The Red-haired Man's Wife,' and 'Valentinian.' He tuned his devout

strings to songs of Zion. Nay, the very boatswain could not pipe

the cutter up but to a phrase of the Psalms." (On the Spanish Main,

p. 263, London, 1906.)

[281] History of the Buccaneers of America, Chap. V.

[282] Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 115.

[283] Ibid., p. 117.

[284] Referring to this matter, George W. Thornsburg writes:--

"Anomalous beings, hunters by land and sea, scaring whole fleets

with a few canoes, sacking cities with a few grenadiers, devastating

every coast from California to Cape Horn, they needed only a common

principle of union to have founded an aggressive republic as wealthy

as Venice and as warlike as Carthage. One great mind and the New World

had been their own."--The Monarchs of the Main, or Adventures of the

Buccaneers, preface, p. 10, London, 1855.

[285] Thus Esquemeling tells us that Morgan's fleet, before his raid on

Maracaibo, was, by order of the governor of Jamaica, strengthened by

the addition of an English vessel of thirty-six guns. This was done

to give the ruthless Buccaneer "greater courage to attempt mighty

things." Op. cit., p. 147.

[286] The Spaniards accused Queen Elizabeth of aiding Drake, and it is

known that she lent John Hawkins one of her ships. "The great Queen,"

as Mowbray Morris observes, "had a most convenient way of publically

deprecating the riotous acts of her subjects, when she found it

expedient to do so, and roundly encouraging them in private. She

was fond of money, too, and ... had found a share in these ventures

uncommonly remunerative. Unqueenly tricks, as they seem to us, and

apt to confuse the law of nations, they were, as things went then,

extremely useful to England."--Tales of the Spanish Main, p. 131,

London, 1901.

Père Labat cleverly hits off the policy of France and England

towards the Buccaneers in a single sentence, "On laissoit faire

des Avanturiers, qu on pouvoit toujours desavouer, mais dont les

succes pouvoient être utiles"--they connived at the actions of the

Adventurers, which could always be disavowed, but whose successes

might be of service.

[287] By-Ways of War, The Story of the Filibusters, p. 251, Boston,

1901.

[288] Hakluyt's Early Voyages, Vol. III, p. 594, London, 1810.

[289] The origin of the name Costa Rica is uncertain. It appears for

the first time in an account of an expedition made by Martin Estete to

the river San Juan in 1529, twenty-seven years after the discovery of

the country by Columbus. It occurs subsequently in a document signed

by the King of Spain, dated May 14, 1541. It is probable that the name

was given in consequence of the rich mines that had been discovered

near the town of Estrella, in Talamanca--from which it was inferred

that all the interior of the country was equally rich in the precious

metals--and not on account of the luxuriant vegetation that abounds,

as is sometimes supposed. Cf. Diccionario Geografico de Costa Rica,

p. 47, por Felix F. Noriega, San José, Costa Rica, 1904.

[290] "Alli vide una sepultura en el monte, grande como una casa y

labrada."--Relaciones y Cartas de Colon, p. 375, Madrid, 1892.

[291] In his Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, Book IV,

Chap. IX, he asserts that for a given area of land "The produce

of bananas is to that of wheat as 133:1, and to that of potatoes

as 44:1." These proportions, however, refer to the weights and

not to the nutritive values of the products compared. The ratio of

the nutritive value of bananas and wheat is, according to Humboldt,

twenty-five to one in favor of bananas. Hence, he writes, "a European,

newly arrived in the torrid zone is struck with nothing so much as

the extreme smallness of the spots under cultivation round a cabin

which contains a numerous family of Indians."

[292] Stanley, in In Darkest Africa, writes: "If only the virtues

of banana flour were publicly known, it is not to be doubted but it

would be largely consumed in Europe. For infants, persons of delicate

digestion, dyspeptics, and those suffering from temporary derangement

of the stomach, the flour properly prepared would be of universal

demand. During my two attacks of gastritis a light gruel of this,

mixed with milk, was the only matter that could be digested." Vol. II,

pp. 261, 262, New York, 1890.

[293] Two Years in the French West Indies, p. 38, New York, 1890.

[294] Op. cit., pp. 140, 141.

[295] "Al famoso Matina

que a los hombres acoquina,

Y a las mulas desatina."

[296] According to observations made with the pluviometer, the amount

of precipitation sometimes reaches nearly two and a half inches

an hour.

[297] "La Banane," says Père Labat, "que les Espagnols appelent

Plantain ... renferme une substance jaunatre de la consistence d'un

fromage bien gras, sans aucune graines, mais seulment quelques fibres

assez grosses qui semblent representer une espece de crucifix mal formé

quand le fruit est coupé par son transvers. Les Espagnols du moins

ceux a qui j'ai parlé, pretendent que c'est la le fruit defendu et

que le premier homme vit en le mangeant le mystère de sa réparation

par la croix. Il n'y a rien d'impossible la dedans; Adam pouvoit

avoir meilleure vue que nous, ou la croix de ces bananes etoit mieux

formée: quoiqu'il en soit il est certain que ce fruit ne se trouve

seulement dans l'Amérique, mais encore dans l'Afrique, dans l'Asie,

et sur tout aux environs de l'Eufrate ou on did qu'etoit le Paradis

terrestre." Op. cit., Tom. I, Part II, p. 219.

[298] Andres Bello, the Venezuelan poet, beautifully expresses these

facts in the following verses:--

"Y para ti el banano,

Desmaya el peso de su dulce carga.

El banano, primero

De cuantos concedio bellos presentes

Providencia a las gentes

Del Ecuador feliz con mano larga;

No ya de humanas artes obligado

El premio rinde opimo;

No es á la podera, no al arado,

Deudor de su racemo.

Escasa industria bastale cual puede

Robar á sus fatigas mano esclara;

Crece veloz, y cuando exhausta acaba,

Adulta prole en torno le sucede.

Silva a la Agricultura en la Zona Torrida."

[299] Jerusalem Delivered, Canto XVI.

[300] Josefinos--feminine Josefinas--is the name given the denizens

of San José. In Central America, Costaricans generally are known as

Ticos, while the people of Nicaragua are called Nicos or Pinolios,

and those of Guatemala and Honduras Chopines and Guanacos respectively.

[301] Compare this with the peculiar belief of the South American

Indians, alluded to in Chap. IX, regarding the cry of a lost soul.

[302] Veragua has a special interest for Americans, as "the only

thread of glory still held in the hands of the family of Columbus"

leads back to this narrow strip of territory on the western shores

of the Caribbean. The present representative of this name in Spain

is Don Cristobal Colon, Duke of Veragua. His full title is Duke of

Veragua and Vega, Marquis of Jamaica, Admiral and High Steward of the

Indies. The grandson of the discoverer of America, Don Luis Colon,

was the third Admiral and Viceroy of the Indies, the last of which

titles he relinquished for that of first Duke of Veragua and Vega.

[303] "Whatever he may have thought, or said he thought, when he

was at Cuba, on the second voyage; whatever he thought, or said he

thought, when in a half-crazed condition in the island of Jamaica,

he now knew he really had discovered continental land, and that it

was separated from Catigara, or the land of the east, by a goodly

stretch of another sea."

"And it is pleasant to think that such a view is consistent with

the nautical, geographical and astronomical knowledge of the great

Discoverer."--Thatcher, Christopher Columbus, Vol. II. pp. 593 and 621.