A VISIT
TO
COLOMBIA,
>s '
BY LAGUAYRA AND CARACAS, OVER THE CORDILLERA
TO BOGOTA, AND THENCE BY THE MAGDALENA TO CARTAGENA.
BY COL. WM. DUANE, OF PHILADA.
PHILADELPHIA :
PRINTED BY THOMAS H. PALMER, FOR THE AUTHOR
1826.
1
EASTERN DISTRICT op PEHNSYIVANIA, TO WIT :
BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the 5th day of June, in the fiftieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1826, WIILIAM DUASB, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit :
" A Visit to Colombia, in the Years 1822 and 1823, by Laguayra and Caracas, over the Cordillera to Bogota, and thence by the Magdalena to Cartagena. By Col. Wm. Duane, of Philada."
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intituled "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.'* And also to the act entitled, " An act supplementary to an act, entitled, * An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned/ and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching, historical and other prints."
D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
PREFACE.
THE Visit to the Colombian Republic was made on behalf of persons in the United States, having claims against the govern- ment, of which other agents had not procured the liquidation. It was supposed that I should be more likely to accomplish that ob- ject, and the business required that the first steps should be at Ca- racas. I proceeded thither, and thence across the Cordillera to Bo- gota, where I accomplished the settlement to a considerable amount. The parties in seeking to outwit each other embarrassed themselves ; they however at length received the amount settled by me— -but contrived to cheat me out of my commissions. The fact would not be noticed, were it not possible, that an entire silence might be con- strued into acquiescence in a transaction of transcendant knavery, meanness, and ingratitude.
Thirty years ago I became acquainted with some men of virtue and intellect, who were preparing the way for that revolution in South America, which is now realized. Those intimacies had, by exciting my sympathy, led me to bestow more earnest attention on the history, geography, and the eventual destiny of those countries. I perceived the commercial and political importance of those rich regions to the United States — countries possessing every thing that nature had bestowed on the other parts of the globe, and much more which none else possessed. A new creation springing out of chaos ; inviting the republic, which had only a few years preceded, to com- municate its institutions, exchange its useful products,, and promote a family of republics, whose institutions must eventually regenerate humanity.
A free press enabled me to communicate my anticipations and conceptions, which I continued to make known, even though laughed at — and by persons too who are now as zealous friends, as they were
PREFACE.
before sceptical, hostile, and — worse. The generous love of liberty in a free nation, however, triumphed over insidious and open enmity to the new republics, and procured for my essays and my opinions a more rational reception ; the government of Colombia thought my efforts worthy of a vote of thanks ; and the kindness and hospitality which I experienced in a long journey of thirteen hundred miles, afforded me ample vengeance for the sneers of those who have now become the admirers of a revolution, which they before reviled or deprecated.
No labour has been attempted in this work ; a mere conversational narrative, such as I should give to a circle of private friends, is all that I pretend to. I had proposed to comprise my volume within five hundred pages, but it has swelled to a hundred and twenty more ; and I find I have not said one half of what my opportunities and materials would enable me to say — on the internal state of the country — its commerce, domestic and foreign — its constitution — laws and policy — its statesmen and its parties — finances— public economy^ — colonization— arts. I meant to have said something about the Amphyctions of Panama, with the origin of which I was ac- quainted before any other person now living in the United States — and I proposed to bestow a chapter on the grand work of the strait of Panama* to effect which I have made proposals to the Colombian government (sustained by capitalists) — and which, if accomplished, as I know it is practicable, would render the communication between the two oceans as free and more secure than the passage of the straits of Sunda or Gibraltar.
When this sheet was going to the press, advices have been receiv- ed of a gust of civil war, at Valencia, in which the reputation of a hero of the revolution is involved. The occurrence is to be lament- ed, though the consequences carry nothing serious to the republic.
The cause of this rumor may be found in the federative spirit — the spirit of party-— and the blind passions of personal envy and personal disappointment, incident to all revolutions, and which are possibly necessary to complete the career of the revolution, and es- tablish the power of the laws, where the passions only had prevailed for so many ages.
Circumstances dependant not on myself, will determine whether I shall publish any more on the subject.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE • • • • Page o
CHAPTER I. Voyage to Laguayra»« • ••...... 9
CHAPTER II. Residence in Laguayra and incidents there • • 24
CHAPTER III. Further anecdotes, and departure for Caracas • • • 37"
CHAPTER IV.
Caracas—first impressions— manners— oriental style of building 52
CHAPTER V. Plaza Mayor — market — college — library— ecclesiastical affairs* •••• 69
CHAPTER VI. Religious processions— visit to the country— military parades 87
CHAPTER VII. Bolivar's birth-day—musical party— a coffee plantation 101
CHAPTER VIII. Departure, preparations for— hints to travellers 1 14
CHAPTER IX.
Cross the Guayra — cavalcade— the route to San Pedro— San Mateo 128
CHAPTER X.
Sugar-mill at the Hacienda of the President Bolivar— pass of La Cabrera — Paez 143
CHAPTER XT. Lake of Valencia—strategy at Naguanagua .>......... • . . 160
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
Grenadiers of Colombia— Senator Penalver — barbarity of Boves»«« Page 17T
CHAPTER XIII. Carabobo — Captain Spence and Morales • ....«...»...........*.. 190
CHAPTER XIV. San Carlos— El Altar— buttress tree 204
CHAPTER XV. Barquisimeto— Alcalde— dismal plain— Tucuyo* • •• • •••••• 218
CHAPTER XVI. Humacaro Baxo— knavish Alcalde— wild country • 236
CHAPTER XVII. Obispos — Carache — Santa Ana — treaties there- ••••••• 249
CHAPTER XVIII. Truxillo — Gen. Clemente — soldier's widow — Mendoza — Christmas day* • • • • 262
CHAPTER XIX. Motatan river — Timothes — curate — tournament— Erica — the Virgin of Chin-
chinquira • • • 280
CHAPTER XX.
Hospitality at Muchachees — Merida— Gov. Paredes — Sierra Nevada* ••••• 294
CHAPTER XXI. Exido— Lagunillas— Natron Lake — turbulent Chama- ' • • • • . 307
CHAPTER XXII.
Bayladores — agriculture — Col. Gomez — Gritja — ruse de guerre — Post-house at El Cobre • 320
CHAPTER XXIII.
Army magazines— Challomar— a bivac— Gen. Urdaneta— Capacho— Cucuta 336
CHAPTER XXIV.
Fandango — Saltikal post-house— Indian rancho, happy condition— Pamplona 351
CHAPTER XXIV. Military depot— arsenal — military drills— training horses— Volcan de Agua
— good Franciscan 379
CHAPTER XXV.
Goitre— Capitanejo— bridge— videttes— Suata— Senora Calderon — Sativa 384
CONTENTS. Vll
CHAPTER XXVI. facca— traditions— Serinza— a French traveller* •• ............ Page 399
CHAPTER XXVII. Santa Rosa — beautiful town and plain — hospitality — handsome population —
Pay pa— /os diablox azulos • . 415
CHAPTER XXVIII. Peeling winds — sublime wilds — Virgin of Chinchinquira, becomes a patriot
— -<bu.ll teazing • ••••••• •••••••• 428
CHAPTER XXIX. Fra. Garcia — Tunja — Senor Soto — education* ••••••••• • •• 442
CHAPTER XXX.
Suesca— Hacienda— plain of Bogota—approach to the city — Plaza Mayor. . . 455
CHAPTER XXXI. Cathedral— palace— market — Calle Real— artisans • 471
CHAPTER XXXII. Cataract Taquendama— Suacha— Franciscan monastery 490
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Geographic sketch— political distribution of the Republic* • ............. 501
CHAPTER XXXIV. Congress of 1823— state of the Republic, foreign relations. • 513
CHAPTER XXXV. Affairs of interior* «•*«•••••••••••••• •••••••••••••••••••••• 526
CHAPTER XXXVI. Financial Report— Report of the War Department— Naval Report 546
CHAPTER XXXVII. Leave Bogota— Quindiu, Guaduas, Honda— hints to travellers * * 569
CHAPTER XXXVHI. Rapids— passage of the Magdalena — Mompox , . 586
CHAPTER XXXIX. Leave Mompox— Teneriffe— anecdotes— Barranca Nueva— the digue — Tur-
bajo— Cartagena* ••• 502
APPENDIX* — No. I. Fundamental law of Angostura, 1819 623
No. II. Fundamental law of Cucuta, 1821 * • 625
No. III. Itineraries**. *«•**•*•«*« *»t •*»••••«« «t« **t ••• 627
THE PLATES.
The Pass of Cabrera, to face the title.
The Fall of Taquendatna, to face Chap. XXXII.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA
CHAPTER I.
Embarcation, and reception on board. — A sister of Bolivar occupies same cabin. The mess a variety of cheerful and agreeable company. — Pass Sandy Hook, 3d Oct. — joined by the Vincador, our consort — make sail S. E. — character and force of both ships. — The horse latitudes — conjectures concerning. — Ship put in fighting trim. — Anecdote of Sefiora llolivar. — See Sombrero 14th, afternoon — passed close to Orchilla — glimpse of Cape Codera. — Coast as approached Caravallada — historical anecdote of its spirited population. — Foundation of Laguayra. — The Sierra Avilla seen, and the Silla — aspect of the mountains in front. — Palm trees at Maquiteia — and town. — Casemates of Laguayra con- stantly beaten by the surf' — prison and grave of patriots. — Anchor on 18th with fourteen fathoms cable out — salute, and salute returned. — The U. S. corvette Cyane, Capt. Spence — his manly cinduct — land the 18th. — A harbour easily formed here secure against all storms. — Find acquaintances unexpectedly.— Kindness of American consul, and Commodore Daniels— introduced to Com- mandant— quarters. — Oriental style of building and living. — Politeness of a friend. — Baggage not examined. — Mode of carrying ashore — paying porters.
THE Colombian Government, through their agent, Com- modore Daniels, had purchased the beautiful corvette Her- cules, built by Mr. Eckfbrd of New York, in the fall of 1822 : the Commodore, understanding I was about to visit Colombia, with his accustomed generosity, offered me a pas- sage, which was extended with the same kindness to my daughter Elizabeth, and stepson Lieut, R. Bache, of the U. S. Artillery. We were at New York in time, and embarked at noon on the second of October, 1822 ; and the same evening anchored within Sandy Hook.
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10 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The experience and kindness of the commodore had anti- cipated every thing that could render our passage and ac- commodations pleasant. The state cabin had been appro- priated to Stnora Antonia Bolivar and her daughter Jose- phine; the othtr two births, one to Elizabeth, and one to myself. Young Pablo, the son of Senora Antonia, and Lieut. Bache, were lodged in the two births next contigu- ous. The state cabin was also the mess room, and besides the Commodore and those above mentioned, the mess con- sisted of Captain Austin, who navigated on the part of the owners ; the ship's husband ; and such of the officers and passengers on board, in rotation, as the space would con- veniently admit. We had a great variety of characters, and (what does not always happen on board crowded ships) there was not a single squabble nor dispute during the voyage ; good humor, and an unstudied disposition to afford every ser- vice that could be agreeable, rendered the passage rather a party of pleasure on a river than a voyage at sea in a ship of war.
Capt. Austin, who was to deliver the ship at Laguayra, united the literary character with the seaman, and left no- thing on his part undone to contribute to the general comfort and pleasure. The officers who occasionally dined with us gave a diversity to our company, and there appeared to be no sort of contention but who should be most obliging and atten- tive. Our fare, to the hour we landed, was in every respect equal to what we should expect at the best hotel in New York ; and the wines were equally excellent and abundant.
The first dawn of the 3d of October found us under top- sails outside Sandy Hook, of which we very soon lost sight. About 11 o'clock descried a sail, which proved to be the Vincador, Colombian sloop of war, Capt. Shannon, who had been cruizing for us several days. After the usual commu- nications between the ships, made sail our course to the S. E. till otherwise ordered.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 11
The corvette being to be delivered only at Laguayra, car- ried the stripes and stars. The Vincador, the colors of Co- lombia. The Hercules, which after her transfer took the name of Bolivar, carried twenty . five 32 pounders, such as are usually carried by U. S. corvettes ; besides two brass 24 pound cannon on her forecastle. Her crew consisted of 220 prime seamen, principally of the crew lately discharged from the U. S. frigate Macedonian.
The Vincador carried fourteen guns, and her ordinary complement of 150 seamen, besides the like number of vo- lunteers intended for other ships of the Colombian navy. On board both ships there were several experienced naval officers extra, destined for the same service ; among whom, were Lieut. Christie, formerly of the U. S. navy, Mr. Mur- ray, formerly of the British navy, Capts. Clerke, Swaine, &c. men experienced in naval and military service ; besides a number of tyros, candidates for appointments in the naval service.
The weather was fair and winds propitious; nor had we a rough sea or foul weather during the passage, excepting the cobbling sea and hazy atmosphere in what the sailors denominate the horse latitudes.
It would seem that this agitation of the sea and clouded atmosphere are produced by the encounter of adverse cur- rents. The waters of the great current of the Orinoco, which is the grand feeder of the Gulf stream, do not all flow to the westward, and between Cape Catoche and Cape An- tonio ; much of those waters are thrown to the N. E. and pass through the channels of the Windward Islands and the Antilles ; and I suspect that the warmth which is perceptible in those currents, brought from the regions beneath the equa- tor, meeting at those latitudes the currents from the N. W., which bring them within the cold temperature of the north, produce at once this short and broken sea, and the vapour which for two days excluded the cheering rays of the sun,
IS VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The sailors assign as the origin of the name horse latitudes, that it has been given by . those who, in supplying horses to the West India islands, here often encountering a more than usually rough sea, are compelled for safety to throw their cargoes overboard. I am not aware that this is the same maritime position to which the Spaniards give the name of El Mare de los Mulas.
This bickering of the waves, which appeared trifling to persons accustomed to the sea, was considered very rough weather by those whose first voyage it was. Our course was not materially interrupted, and the third day restored us to sunshine, and our dining table to a horizontal position, and the gallant ship again floated majestically on an even keel eight and ten knots an hour. Indeed, the passage resem- bled more the even movement of a steamboat on a spacious river, than that of a ship of war on the broad and often bois- terous Atlantic.
Our consort never parted company, reporting alongside at sunrise and sunset, and sometimes exchanging visits; which to some of the passengers was very satisfactory, under the apprehension that we might be overhauled by Spanish ships of war ; an apprehension totally unfounded, as there was no ship then in those seas of sufficient force to encounter us; and if there were, independent of the importance of our con- sort, our ship was completely equipped, and was soon after putting to sea prepared for such a contingency : our flag, it was reasonable to thirk, would have prevented a conflict ; but if the worst should occur, we had a heavy broadside, an expe- rienced and intrepid ship's company, and about a dozen gal- lant officers on board, each competent to command, and who had seen some rough service and given some hard knocks.
The sailors disliking nothing so much as lounging in their hammocks, or on the spars, or the forecastle, and besides it being good for their health, the fine weather was used to put the ship in fighting trim. The routine of discipline, which
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 13
is that of the U. S. navy, in the distribution of duties and the assignment of stations, was soon accomplished, and every gun had its captain, gunner, and assistants. Gangs of board- ers were organized, and helmets, hangers, pikes, axes, and hand grenades distributed. The idlers (that is, all on board who are not of the ship's complement) were organized as marines, furnished with rifles, and assigned to the poop, forecastle, and tops ; and the spirit-stirring drum beat all hands to quarters. In an instant every thing was in a bustle, courses hauled up, matches lighted, water tubs placed, and every gun manned. The silence was as emphatic and im- pressive as the momentary agitation. The wordjire/ was echoed by the roar of the guns ; and succeeded by the same impressive silence. The guns being scaled and reloaded, the sham-fight closed with a real frolic, — abundance of grog for the ship's company.
To those who are unaccustomed to the " note of prepara- tion" for military action, this mere semblance could not but be impressive. In the course of the preparation Senora Antonia requested the commodore to inform her where she was to take her station in case of an action ? The commodore, with per- fect presence of mind, assured her that she had not been ne- glected ; that no station on board in time of action was more important than the charge of the magazine, which was never entrusted but to the most worthy and confidential ; that this charge would be committed to herself, and Miss Josephine and Miss Elizabeth should be her assistants. She appeared for an instant satisfied, but the commodore adding ; that the ma- gazine was below the range of shot, and therefore perfectly out of danger, the countenance of the good lady, before per- fectly composed, appeared to be lighted up by indignation, and her eye sparkling, she exclaimed — " No ! no, Senor Commodore ! no quiero ! — mi nombre es Bolivar > y mi lugar es en frente del peligro." No ! no, Mr. Commodore, this
14 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
must not be ; my name is Bolivar, and when there is danger my station is in front.
It was the emotion of a moment ; the expression was ani- mated, and the effect electrical ; it was not until the commo- dore assured her of a station near himself on the quarter deck, in case of any adventure, that she was reconciled. To me the incident was the more remarkable, because when the sea chanced to be agitated in the horse latitudes at night, or the ship leaned with a stiff breeze, her hours were devoted to unceasing prayer ; the holy rosary was repeated, and the responses by her amiable daughter, as long as the ship was any way disturbed in its motion.
On the evening of the 14th of October the island of Som- brero was distinctly marked on our starboard bow ; and we changed our course to the westward. On the morning of the 15th Saba rose ahead, apparently about the size and shape of an inverted teacup ; by one o'clock it was largely defined to the S. S. E. about ten miles, and as we passed at ten knots an hour, under our upper sails, the figure constant- ly changed. About five o'clock St. Christophers and Ne- vis were in sight, and, in the dim distance, St. Eustatia with its double summit S. W. The whole groupe of islands in that direction, bore the appearance of headlands to a conti- nuous continent, and as if stretching from S. E. to N. W.
This navigation is so well known, that nothing novel could be said about it ; what has been said is intended ra- ther to show the good judgment by which the track was cho- sen, the facility of the passage, and the short time in which it was performed. Our course lay by the northward of the celebrated ledge, at the extremity of which is Bird-island ; and then parallel with its west side, our course nearly south.
On the 16th we heard the surges beat against the steep solitary rock of Orchilla, distant about three miles on our larboard ; the boisterous surf seemed to rage in eternal anger at its base. At half past four we had the first glimpse of
rISIT TO COLOMBIA.
terra Jirma on our larboard bow. The atmosphere was loaded with a sleepy vapor, which appeared like a curtain hung hori- zontally about one hundred feet above our topmast heads ; the space beneath dimly but distinctly lighted, so that we could discern Cape Codera as if growing out of the sea as we approached land ; after some time it presented its rounded summit and steep north face to the ocean ; and on the south side inclined gradually to the margin of the shore, where the view was concealed by clouds of vapor of different light and shade. The lake of Ticaragua lies to the eastward of Cape Codera a few leagues, it is an oval bason of twenty by fifteen miles, formerly open to the sea like the Cinegas of Maracaibo and La Hacha, but now only accessible in small boats. This Cinega receives the waters of many valleys, and particularly those of the Tuy and Caracas. The evapora- tion from these waters I presume intercepted the view, and gave the position an appearance of an inland gulph or the mouth of a vast river.
A little farther west lies the dark base of the Sierra, which seems placed like a barrier against the ocean, which perpetu- ally beats like a battering ram against its feet, and retiring only to return again with never exhausted force. The coast from Cape Codera to Laguayra, about eighty miles apart, has an ample curve, more apparently regular than real ; nor do the mountains rise so abruptly and precipitous within the Cape, as nearer to and in front of Laguayra. The coast is rugged and rocky, westward of the Cape ; farther west there is some space between the sea and many recesses in the line of mountains, upon which scenes of a highly picturesque char- acter are open to the sea : many small plantations covered with verdure, and trees too minute to tell their character or class ; rocky cliffs again appear ; and not less than seventeen small rivers issue from the Sierra, some of which carry boats two or three miles inland through those narrow valleys, that stem crevices in the mountain, and along the margin of
16 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
which are fine fields of sugar cane and cacao plantations ; near Caravellada, the position at first selected for a port on this coast, cultivation is more extensive, and the coast is composed of detached hills which bear their verdure to their summits. De Pons has given a concise account of the cause of its abandonment, which becomes of more interest from the events that have since taken place, than when he narrated it, as it corroborates the declarations of intelligent men, that notwith- standing the iron despotism of the Spanish government, and the more galling tyranny of its deputies, there was always in S. America a latent spirit which required only a spark to kindle it into a general blaze. Caravellada was established by Losada in 1568, and had a cabildo or corporation : the members of cabildos throughout America were elected by the people. In 1585, Roxas the governor undertook to di- vest the people of the right of election, and appointed alcaldes himself, ordering the four regidors to be arrested. The peo- ple assembled and came to an unanimous resolution to aban- don the place, and they fulfilled their engagement, retiring to Caracas, Valentia, and other places. The affair being made known in Spain, the regidors were released, and the inhabitants invited to return ; they never returned ; but some of them selecting the position of Laguayra, it be- came the port of entry and clearance for Caracas, and has continued to be. The places of note west of Laguayra are Catia, Arrecifes, La Cruz, Coroni, Ocumare bay, Turia- mo, Barbaruta, and Porto Cabello.
The veil which appeared suspended above us, now seemed to rise and expose the summit of the first ranges of the Sierra, holding vast fleeces of snow-white clouds behind them, and concealing ranges in yet greater elevation and remote succes- sion, which soon appeared in more distinctness, but still clad with clouds in the utmost distance. The line of the Sierra Avilla, which is the mountain that separates Caracas from the coast, was now clearly defined, but the Silla, like a coy
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 17
isel of the region, still retired her head, scarcely con- cealed by a gauzy veil, the skirt of which flared in the air to the south-west. A brighter light above, and the shadows of the mountain upon the glassy waters followed, and pre- sented a most sublime spectacle — still further adorned by the lofty Silla, which had now cast its veil of clouds away, and expost-d its double summit to the admiring visitor.
Along the mountain foot a white vanishing line appeared — it was the beating surf, not yet to be distinguished by the ear. No level space for human foot was visible between the steep declivity and unceasing surge. Drawing still nearer, the eye is engaged by a brighter steady white line on the sea verge ; and behind, the appearance of a longer, higher range, of less distinctness — it is the long rampart that marks the port and the town of Laguayra, which seems stuck up against the face of the steep. Attracted to the right, a small promontory thrust into the sea, appears covered with Palmyra palms, which half conceal houses in the rear, on higher ground. It is Maquiteia, a handsome village about half a mile west of Laguayra. Before the eye is satisfied in con- templating this refreshing tropical picture, the objects appear more distinct and enlarged ; but the face of the mountain between Maquiteia and Laguayra displays a dreary and deso- late aspect, of dusky and grey shades ; projecting rocks and broken red and yellow soil, sterile and destitute of verdure, as if the ocean had been pelting at it for ages, and left it alike bare of fruits and of vegetation. There are however, scat- tered on distant spots, three or four species of Cactus, im- perceptible in the distance ; and some Agaves or American Aloes, have seized upon some " coigns of vantage," and with giant arms hold places in their native soil.
The whole line of coast from Cape Codera is now dis- played, and west of Maquiteia, about three miles, stands Cape Blanco, but with less altitude than made it formerly remarkable : it was sometimes spoken of as the west horn
3
18 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
of a bay, of which Cockra was the east ; but without any other than a remote similitude.
The Silla is now also more distinct, and the form of its summit, which has been named from a distant resemblance to a saddle, here gives its shape distinctly ; the eastern sum- mit being the highest, is said to resemble the fore part or pommel of a saddle, and the western or lowest summit com- pared to the cantle or hind part of the seat. The shore is no longer still nor silent, the roar of the beating surf is un- ceasing ; and there appears a space between the surge and the mountain which presents a picture as minute, busy, and agitated as an anthill whose inmates are disturbed. Men and mules are the actors in this busy scene ; a spacious causeway, the product of very great and judiciously applied labour, leads from the postern or Caracas gate to Maquiteia, and is also the high road to Caracas. As seen from the dis- tance, it appears no broader than a ribbon, though it is, in many places, 60 and 100 feet broad, and is constructed about ten feet above the ordinary water line.
As the sun gained the south-west, the shadows of the Sierra slanted along the coast to the eastward, and left the horizon bright and clear, and, about two o'clock of the 18th, we came to anchor with 14 fathoms of cable out, in a posi- tion about equidistant from Laguayra and Maquiteia, and a mile from the shore. The three fortifications behind the town, the works in front, and the village of Palms on our right, were now perfectly distinct, and proportionably inte- resting. The warmth of the glowing sun, the bright at- mosphere, and the grove of palms, gave to me an Ori- ental resemblance ; and all appeared to more advantage, except the battered aspect of the Sierra, on nearer approach. The recess, or scooped out space of the mountain, in the rear of the town, eastward, seemed more depressed, than when seen from the distance, and the principal fortress on the shoulder of the mountain had the appearance of a regu-
i
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 19
work. I did not attempt to visit either, the ascent ap-
ring to me rather difficult for goats. They appear less perpendicular on shore ; but, for military purposes, their shot would not reach the anchorage, and could therefore be of no use, unless to batter an enemy in possession of the town, in the rear.
The fortification on the margin of the sea, in front of the town, appears to have been originally a palanka thrown up to mask the main street, with which it runs parallel: the ram- part now is a well constructed curtain of masonry, without bastions, but it has a curved outward segment of a circle, of which the diameter may be seventy yards, and the radius six or eight feet ; not sufficient to enfilade either flank with ef- fect. It is casemated, the masonry arched and bomb proof; the surf eternally beats its foundation and dashes the spray over the rampart, which is without embrasures. The case- mates beneath, as may be presumed, are for ever dripping. It was in these horrible casemates, the gallant patriots of the revolution were incarcerated, while the Spaniards held the place ; and it was also the prison, often the grave, of men of virtue, before the revolution. Melancholy, however just, has been the retaliation ; had the deputy tyrants, who gave the example, been themselves the objects of retribution, hu- manity would -have no cause to lament them ; but experience appears not to have had any effect upon the Spanish chiefs ; who, persuaded and careful that retaliation should not reach themselves, from the precautions always made to insure their own escape, felt no concern nor sympathy for their country- men, involved in the consequences of their barbarity.
There were but a few guns mounted ; a considerable num- ber had been transferred upon other service. The work it- self appears to more advantage on inspection, though the only skill manifest is the workmanship of the masonry and the casemates. I had assimilated the appearance of Funchal in Madeira from its road with that of Laguayra, by which many
20 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
years ago I had been deceived in the external appearance ; but as Funchal proved to be very much worse on shore than it promised at the distance, I found myself, by the false as- sociation, again deceived ; for Laguayra proved to be much better within than it appeared from without.
But I am rambling into a description of what is on shore before I have yet landed. Upon coming to anchor the two ships saluted, and were answered from the citadel. The numerous ships in the road hoisted their colours, and in the van we recognized with particular satisfaction the U. S. Corvette Cyane, captain Robert Spence, who while we were at Caracas did so much honour to his flag, his country, and himself, by his prompt, manly, eloquent, and effective repulse of the outrageous menaces put forth in a proclama- tion, by the Spanish general Morales; menaces which he dared not to realize thereafter.
The hour of our arrival, and the bustle incident to entering port from the sea, rendered it prudent for the ladies to defer going on shore that evening ; but on the 19th in the morning betimes the custom-house barge was along-side, and Seno- ra Bolivar and her family were conveyed on shore, and the other cabin passengers, whom she invited, accompanied her.
The landing at Laguayra has been held forth as unusually dangerous. Those who have had occasion, to land at St. Helena or at Madras, would consider it as a matter of very little difficulty at the worst, and we landed without any in- convenience whatever. The mode of landing from boats in common, is upon a stairs, attached to the side of a long wharf, which is projected on piles 160 or 170 feet into the sea : the boatmen are skilful, they place the boat in such a position as to swing with the rising swell to the side of the stairs, and the passenger seizes the instant before the surf recedes to jump or step on shore. Some accidents have occurred, but more through inexperience in the boatmen, or want of self-posses- sion in the passenger, than any other cause. We landed in
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. %i
a manner such as I had seen practised in Sandy Cove, St. Helena, by the boats of some American whalers, one of a company who made a party of pleasure round that island in 1795, where I was detained three months. Upon approach- ing the beach, the boat was rowed in, stern foremost, so as that the coming surge should carry her in full swing upon the strand. It was executed with skill ; the moment the boat touched ground the rowers cast their oars into the re- tiring surf, and held the boat to prevent her floating off. Before the surge could return, each boatman took a lady upon his arm, as a nurse would take a child, and placed her safe above the water line ; the returning surge brought back the oars, and the boat floated off with the retiring wave.
The time surely cannot be remote when the citizens and proprietors of Caracas and its rich neighbourhood will per- ceive how much they are interested in forming a commodi- ous and secure harbour at Laguayra. Nature, which has prepared so much in the rough for man to finish, has provi- ded already one spacious mole in the little promontory of Maquiteia ; the materials for another are on the spot ; and a port cap; ble of protecting a thousand sail of the line from the worst storms of the Caribbean sea, may be formed at a less expense of money than such a work could be executed so near a great city in any part of the globe.
Having landed, we had the gratification to find, very unex- pectedly, several acquaintances and friends waiting to greet us, some of them from Caracas, fifteen miles distant. The respectable consul of the United States, R. K. Lowry, among the rest ; he had already fixed it, that Elizabeth should, during her stay, reside with her townswoman, Mrs. Lowry, at Maquiteia, and such arrangements had been made for all our accommodation as left us nothing to wish for.
Commodore Daniels, untired by the civilities rendered us on board, received us at the water-gate, and conducted us to the quarters of the commandant, to whom he intro-
gS VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
duced us, and by whom we were received with soldierly courtesy. Colonel appeared to be about twenty- eight years of age, tall, slender, and perfectly military in his costume and demeanor ; he is one of the numerous youths who have been born at the right time to distinguish them- selves, under the eye of Bolivar, in the battles and triumphs of independence. This class of men, created by the revolu- tion, are by a sagacious policy placed in stations of confi- dence and honour, where the habits of military vigilance, or- der, and punctuality are acquired, and which will prepare habile men for the public service, to supply the places of the defenders of liberty, which the order of nature will ere long vacate among their seniors in the revolution.
The quarters of the commandant are spacious ; they oc- cupy the north-west angle of the line of defence, and are covered below by a breast- work of good masonry with em- brasures, which covers the postern gate and causeway on the west, and the landing on the north or sea front. A pas- sage of fourteen or fifteen feet forms a sort of covert way, and separates the rampart from the house, which is of stone, and two stories high, the lower of which is masked by the breast- works ; these are the offices for domestic uses, storage, &c. The upper story is the residence, to which the ascent is by a double flight of spacious stairs at the west end, which terminate in an ample saloon, covering the west front and open upon the sea to the north ; the apartments, which are lofty, are entered from the saloon, and lie in the direction east and west — a verandah, or open gallery, fronting on the sea. The style of building, the pavements, the high fold- ing doors, the broad staircase, and the elevation of the apart- ments, with the naked timbers of the structure, brought to my mind the strong resemblances of what I had seen many years before in different parts of Asia.
After paying our respects, and partaking of the good Cata- lonian wine of the commandant, and the excellent sweetmeats
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 23
of his good lady, we retired to meet with fresh evidences of the hospitality we were to receive without anticipating them. A friend had sent from Caracas, a well- trained grey mule, tastefully caparisoned with a handsome side saddle, which was to be for the use of my daughter during her stay at Ca- racas ; and upon this she made her first equestrian essay, by galloping off with a gay young party to Maquiteia, where she was received by her friend Mrs. Lowry. I had felt some disquiet for Elizabeth, looking to the long journey of thirteen hundred miles, which she was to perform on the backs of mules only ; but this first essay satisfied me, and the event justified the conclusion, for she made the journey with much less fatigue than I did.
While we were paying our respects to the commandant, our baggage had, through the care of our worthy consul, been transferred to the custom-house, where, as a testimony of respect, it was exempted from the usual search, and de- posited in the stores of the consul. The manner of landing the baggage reminded me of the same kind of transaction at the ghauts of Pondicherry and Calcutta. Upon the ap- proach of the baggage boat to the landing place, a crowd of men and boys, of every shade of complexion and apparel, rushed forward in a tumult, and each seizing the article nearest hand, bore it away, until there was no more to carry, and deposited them at the custom-house ; where those that underwent examination were removed as the owner direct- ed. The mode of payment was in the same oriental style. The consul, who undertook to do for us as his experience and our want of it induced him, having provided himself with a sufficient sum in the macutina, or silver currency, of the country, commenced with calling to him the porters who had brought the largest loads, and, in succession, handed each according to service a real, a media, or quartilla ; the real is our disme or eighth of a dollar, the media is the half of a real, and the quartilla, a fourth of the real. I shall take some further notice of this currency in another place.
CHAPTER II.
Delay at Laguayra agreeable. — Mules here perform the services of horses, carts, coaches, and wagons in other countries. — Enter the town by a short steep street to the main street — described — stores and other buildings Asiatic style — ruins from Earthquake, 1812 — Military works — accommodation at Ho- tels— expenses — better than in any public houses in the interior — absence of musquitoes and flies — mixture of ancient and modern furniture — absence of wheel carriages — the want of roads — a carnage road and rail road proposed through the valley of Tipe. — Rail roads unsuitable to a large country.-— Carts introduced at Petare. — Houses of stone unaffected by Earthquake. — Public fountains abundant — good water. — Humboldt exaggerates — not im- moderately warm in October — more dependence on thermometers than is justifiable. — Madras, Calcutta, and Batavia, extremely hot compared with JLaguayra — prevalence of diseases also exaggerated — no marshes nor marine vegetables contiguous. — Incident at Barbaruta. — Rival towns calumniate each other. — The effect of Spanish policy. — A whole country prospers by the prosperity of any of its parts. — Hints to visiters of the tropical regions. — Dif- ferent views of the great mortality in the Earthquake. — Appearance of the military — anecdote of two sentinels — soldiers compared with the sepahis of In- dia.— Laguayra may be made a spacious and safe harbour — the interests of Caracas and proprietors to establish such a harbour.
THOUGH the voyage was but a party of pleasure, the novelty of the new country and manners, but, above all, the kindness of old and new friends, rendered the delay of one or two days agreeable ; which we must wait for the return of mules from Caracas, as is customary, on stated days. This invaluable animal performs all the services, which, in other countries, employ wagons, carts, coaches, postchaises, and even wheelbarrows, as well as those of horses for business or pleasure. Our shipmates too did not wish to separate with- out the participation of a cheerful dinner and a parting glass. I had therefore an opportunity to see the interior, as I had already seen the exterior of Laguayra.
There are three gates of entrance to the town : that at the east of the works is seldom opened but for public uses, and
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 25
is not a thoroughfare. The principal entrance for strangers coming from sea, and for baggage and merchandize, is the water-gate. This gate has in front, upon the margin of the sea, a broad and spacious platform of stone masonry ; and the wharf, erected upon piles, extending into the surf, more than 160 feet in length. A short street or lane leads! up from the water-gate towards the main street ; the custom- house is at the right side of the entrance, and a sort of picket guard occupies the left ; above, on the right, opens the pas- sage to the commandant's quarters ; and at the head of this short street commences the main street, which leads off to the eastward about half a mile. The continuation of the short entering street is about 30 feet broad, but is prolong, ing up the ascent, only reduced to about 15 or 16 feet, all admirably well paved. The houses on the main street, on the right side, and in front of the entrance, are principally occupied by merchants's stores, and have the exact appear- ance of the Godowns or stores in the Asiatic cities ; long and spacious, admitting light only through the folding-doors in front, and of one story ; though there are many houses in this range of two, and very good of their style of struc- ture.
There is a slight descent to the eastward in this part of the street, and the line is not direct, nor the breadth equal, it being in some places only twenty feet broad, towards the east end broader. The left side of the street, at the point of entrance, is also occupied by stores and dwelling houses, but the line is very much broken by ruins, which remain since the earthquake of 1812; in several the rubbish is thrown into the space between the remaining walls ; but the streets are all cleared.
On the outer side, bounding on the sea, is the line of de- fence, a broad platform of good workmanship, separated from the houses by a parapet. The breast work in front is with- out embrasures, and extends more than a quarter of a mile,
4
26 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the space between the line of the street being gradually more open, and leaving a convenient space for a parade, between the casemates and the rear of the habitations. Nothing need be added of description to what has been already noted of this work. The garrison was but slender, and barely suffi- cient to supply sentinels for the chief entrances, for the works, and for purposes of police ; a few guns remain on the platform, in rather an unsightly state, at least to those who are accustomed to the discipline and order of well re- gulated garrisons.
What I have said of the stores, applies to the general style of building, narrow streets, paved porches or entrances, paved patios, or open squares within the gates, corridores on all sides of those squares : broad stairs of coarse masonry, of double flights, with a landing : high and long halls, and narrow and retired sleeping apartments, rude and cumbrous furni- ture, and naked walls, with tiled floors : — these points of oriental similitude are common, and applicable to all the places I have passed through ; and it is curious matter of fact, in elu- cidation of the influence of habits, and the spirit of imitation, that these forms should remain for so many centuries little altered from their Asiatic prototypes in Spain, which hold the same unaltered characteristics to this day.
I may have occasion to notice the style of building more particularly in another chapter. The stranger who lands here is very fortunate, though he may not think so, when he enters one of the hotels at Laguayra, for in fact there is no other equal to them, in the whole line of the journey. There are two, one kept by a Frenchman, at whose table I partook of a well provided entertainment. He was not a novice in any part of his business, and his native talent had been much improved, by a residence in the British islands of the West Indies. The company was about thirty, and the table was covered with an abundance of excellent provisions, well cooked and displayed, and more than sufficient for double the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 27
company ; the free circulation of the bottle, in the British West India fashion, was already before the dessert ; but the dessert was excellent, and the coffee introduced in the French mode was perfect.
The expences are not so high as in the West Indies ; but as there is no tariff of prices, the eye and opinion of the fi- nancier, regulates the charges according to the apparent newness of the traveller, his real, or presumed opulence ; but, above all, by that principle of the economists, that demand governs price ; so that if there are few ships and few stran- gers, the price is reduced to the demand ; but if there be many strangers prices rise.
A stranger may, so far as the table is concerned, fare very well ; but he who has not made up his mind to dispense with a pallet and fresh sheets, after leaving Laguayra, must re- solve to do so or go no farther ; for he will find no ac» commodations in a public house of entertainment equal to it, in the long range of near 2000 miles, which I visited. Comforts of this kind are to be found only in private dwel- lings. The climate is however an excuse for indifference; the air is light, the respiration free, and favourable to plea- sant repose. I have heard there were musquitoes at La- guayra, but I declare that there, or in the whole rout of 1200 miles to Bogota, I saw no musquitoes, nor was I plagued with the common fly which annoy us during the summer season in northern climates. I found musquitoes abundant on the Magdalena, and flies for the first time at Carthagena.
Neither is the furniture of any kind so good in the interi- or as at Laguayra, where contiguity to the sea has admitted articles not to be found in the interior, because neither will the roads admit, nor the mules be able to carry articles of bulk, or unusual weight. A bureau or a sideboard, a hand- some sofa, or a piano forte, must therefore be transported on the heads and shoulders of men. Some articles of this de- scription have therefore remained, because the expence might
2S VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
be greater than the sacrifice. Mercantile men, therefore, should not send articles which are not transportable by mules, but in such boxes or packages as that two shall not exceed 250 pounds weight, which may be carried to Caracas for two dollars, more or less, as the circumstances determine. But these articles of modern taste do not appear to advantage ; an elegant sofa alongside a coarse plank table, the finest im- plement which had passed over it was the saw or the jack ; a mahogany toilette table and swinging glass with a joint-stool, the seat of which is higher than the table, are ill-assorted ; and the best chair to be found any where is that which is called the Windsor chair, put out of good company among us for twenty years, and very scarce in any part of South America till the revolution of 1810 opened the market.
The absence of wheel-carriages produces at first a sense of deficiency without perceiving in what ; but roads must precede carriages, and I have repeatedly met on my route handsome pieces of artillery lying in a ditch, where they had been dragged by infinite labour, and could not be carried upon wheels farther. A road was many years ago proposed to be carried from Caracas to Laguayra through the Quebra- da or chasm of Tipe, a small distance west of Maquiteia, which would admit of a fine wagon and coach road with a very slight inclination ; some part of it was begun, but it re- mains incomplete. A recent proposition has been made to es- tablish a rail road there, a mode of transport adapted only to short distances, and in the midst of a dense population and the arts ; not at all adapted to the position ; but where wagons and carts of an improved and suitable form would be infi- nitely beneficial ; and these have become, and must every- day become more necessary in proportion with the inevita- ble augmentation of production and commerce. Mr. Alder- son, who resides at Petare, seven miles east from Caracas, has introduced some excellent carts made for the purpose in Philadelphia, and has employed them on his own plantation
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 29
and business, but it will be some time before he will have imitators, such is the force of inveterate habits ; until neces- sity or some rival impulse overcomes them.
Near the east end of Laguayra the main street opens into an ampler breadth, and presents a portly church, remarkable for nothing in its architecture, but that, though much more ele- vated in its structure than any other building, it appears to have remained uninjured by the earthquake of 1812.
The public fountains, such as are to be found in all the principal cities and towns, flow with abundance of limpid water, so conducive to cleanliness and health, and which many of the principal cities, such as Caracas, San Carlos,. Truxillo, Merida, and Bogota appear to have been provi- dent in securing at the founding of those places, whose streets are constantly cleaned and refreshed by living streams flowing through the channels of their pavements.
The celebrated Humboldt has contributed so much more than any other traveller to make the curious familiar with the southern parts of the new world, that it would appear ungen- erous and hazardous to dispute any observations he has made. But, under a persuasion that he would not be him- self displeased to see his ideas canvassed or his theories dis- puted with freedom and good will, I shall not hesitate to express my own opinions, though they may not concur with his. From what he has said of the temperature of Laguay- ra, compared with my own observations there and in other parts of the world to which he has referred, I apprehend he must have landed at Laguayra under circumstances unfa- vourable to an accurate judgment. His stay in Laguayra did not amount to more than three or four hours, for he landed on the 21st of November, in the evening, (Person. Nar. vol. III. p. 381,) and was at Caracas the same day. He was indeed informed by some persons there that the yellow-fever had only ceased a few weeks ; and advised not to stay, by some one who stayed himself. His account, or
30 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
his theory of the heat at that place, are therefore not the re- sult of his own observations or sensations, but formed upon the records of thermometrical observations of others. It may be a sort of philosophical heresy to entertain but little dependunce on thermometrical data ; though they may serve for approximations to general inferences, the inequality and disagreement between instruments made and graduated in different countries, and between those made by the same artist, is such as to justify this incredulity. I have com- pared twenty different instruments of the same maker, in or- der to serve a friend who wished for the most perfect instru- ments, and am justified in the conclusion I make from that experience as well as from residence in some of the warmest climates of the globe. We landed at Laguayra the 19th of October, and if there could be any material difference in the temperature in the period of one month, it must in the or- dinary course be warmer in October than in November. We remained there three days, and in that time I have pre- ferred walking, at all hours, to riding, and have felt not so much inconvenience in going on foot from Laguayra along the paved causeway in front of the arid sierra to Maquiteia, than I have experienced in a like distance in Philadelphia in June or July. A parasol might be acceptable, but I felt no inconvenience without one. At Madras, or Calcutta, or from the pier of Batavia, a walk of that distance might be fatal. I could not but recollect Batavia as I walked along the mar- gin of the sea, but Laguayra is a paradise compared either with Madras or Batavia. No white man ventures to walk in the mid-day in the Asiatic cities mentioned without a chattah, or umbrella, carried by a servant whose business it is.
Besides this experience, the*circumstances which are the usually ascribed causes of diseases on the coast, do not exist at Laguayra. There are neither marshes, stagnant waters, nor mangroves, to produce, by vegetation and decomposi-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 31
tion, that foul or mephitic air, which is found productive of disease elsewhere : east and west of Laguayra there is a long naked strand perpetually cleansed and refreshed by the busy action of the surf. There is a strong corroboration of the generally attributed cause of disease in the case of some changes which took place at Barbaruta, a town of some note near Puerto Cabello. This place had been frequently swept of its population by disease. The contiguous shore is co- vered with marine vegetable productions, a considerable space, where this mephitic air was generated, was covered with a great portion of excavated soil, which was placed there merely to be thrown away. The neighbourhood of this spot became salubrious ; while the adjacent shore, co- vered with marine vegetation, retained its usual noxious atmosphere ; which resembles that at Porto Bello and other places on the coast.
The jealousy of commerce and avarice, which is not con- fined to those countries, must have had strong incentives under such a monopoly as that exercised by Spain in the countries bowed down by her intolerable policy. If any excuse could be allowed for this selfish spirit any where, it is where commerce was circumscribed, and its business a succession of scrambling, intrigue, and corruption. The idea could not enter into the conceptions of a people so cir- cumstanced, that the spirit of a monopoly is a self destroying spirit, or that the extension and augmentation of commerce is beyond the power of calculation to fix or measure ; and that the prosperity of several parts of a country must, by the effect of example, consumption, reciprocal aid, and in- tercommunity of exchange, extend, progressively, prosperity over the whole. The colonists, under Spain, maintained an hostility of provinces and of towns — the government policy fomented this division ; and one town defamed the men of another, and carried the defamation to nature itself. Thus all were held forth as execrable, because each was believed.
32 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
Thus Laguayra, under the influence of Caracas, was held forth to be a much worse climate than Puerto Cabello ; and the latter, under the influence of Valencia, was misrepresented at Laguayra in turn. This spirit has not yet ceased ; the yel- low-fever has been reported to prevail by one and the other for the mere purpose of diverting consignments from their rival, when, in fact, the disease did not exist in either place.
Travellers who have not visited the tropical regions will, however, be alarmed by such considerate friends as Hum- boldt took his report from, and caution will be requisite as to the regularity of the bodily habit, and abstinence from heating drinks, or more than sufficient food ; a secretion of bile more than common takes place in warm climates, accompanied by head ache, which gentle purgatives dissipate generally, but an emetic effectually removes ; and frequent bathing, particu- larly the tepid bath, is delightful and conducive to health.
My observations in Laguayra, and subsequently at Cara- cas and elsewhere, have induced opinions differing from Humboldt and others, on the great mortality which took place at the earthquake of 1812. I do not question the data as to the numbers, nor is it so important to the views I take, and which I shall only glance at here, and dis- cuss more at Caracas. The impression on my mind is that more injury was produced by the materials of which the houses are generally built, than could have happened had the houses been constructed of stone. No house of stone has been disturbed at Laguayra. The late respectable consul of the United States, R. K. Lowry, lived there at the time. The house he resided in was constructed of stone ; an addi- tion had been made to the stone building, in what is called pita, that is ordinary earth beaten to hardness with ram- mers. The additional and fragile part was crumbled to dust by the agitation of the earth ; the stone building remained, and himself in it, in entire safety. This subject shall be no- ticed again.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 33
The appearance of the two or three officers, whom I saw at Laguayra, answered my expectations ; they appeared to feel and think like soldiers : my first impressions of the rank and file were not so satisfactory. I had arrived too sudden- ly, and was called upon by the moment's view to form an opinion, which I found upon closer observation and reflex- ion erroneous ; an incident of a moment had perhaps super- seded my common mode of forming an opinion, by ta- king the con after I had given the pro. Passing through the postern gate on my walk to Maquiteia, I was accosted by both the centinels in the same cadence : " Will the excellent Se- iior have the bounty to bestow una real?" There was none of the insolence of mendicity in the supplication ; but an air of confident persuasion, which seemed to say they were not ashamed to ask, but that it would be a shame for the Senor to deny so small a bounty as una real. 1 could not but smile at the novelty of the occurrence, and a train of ideas rushed upon me which brought before my mind's eye a brigade of Rohillas and Patans, men of the same mixed variety of com- plexions, six feet high, and on whom the tailor and the mili- tary equipment- maker had bestowed all that neatness and el- egance would require to set off arms and accoutrements, which the daily inspection established in the most perfect or- der ; I began — or rather rapidly went on to compare the sturdy, chubby, broad shouldered, muscular, oval faced, bare footed veterans of Colombia, who stood before me ; in their platilla pantaloons and jackets, of which the quality could be only inferred through the stains of bivouacs, or the soiling of their only bed beside the earth, the cow-hide upon which they are used to slumber when they have it, and then it is luxury; the collars, cuffs, skirt facings of yellow, blue, or red, the ab- sence of many buttons without leave ; their leather caps, and close cropped, lank, black hair ; their shirt collars open, which had been probably washed at some distant time ; but the whole apparel soiled ; firelocks and belts that may have had some de-
5
34* VISIT TO COLOMBIA,
termined colour, presented such a contrast with the Bengal Se^ pahis, ".in my mind's eye," that out of mere liberality I call- ed in a brigade of Madras Sepahis, men of their own stature, and took recruits to reconcile the disparity ; I was just dis- covering that these soldiers of five feet six inches had, in the Mysore campaigns, borne the marches in the ghauts with less fatigue, and greater alacrity, than those long legged Hindus- tanees, whose heads were so much in the clouds that they disdained to look down on those sturdy soldiers ; a gentle touch on the arm, and a soft aspiration of Scnor ! — put the Sepahis to flight — and I began to remonstrate, that it was unworthy of soldiers to solicit — and talked of their dig- nity, and what was due to themselves — one of them, perhaps seeing my hand glide unconsciously to my pocket, asked, in a tone perfectly soft and conciliatory, though bearing a sort of rebuke — " Is it worth the while of the worthy Senor to hesitate about una real, with soldiers who have fought the battles of Colombia, and who have received no pay for six months, because the public treasure has been exhausted in the expulsion of the Godas ?"
It was the logic of nature — and a professor of rhetoric would have made but a poor hand of it, if he attempted to do it better. Whether it was my obvious embarrassment, or my attempt to explain in rather imperfect Castilian, that produced a smile, I shall not pretend to decide, but, as I drew my hand from my pocket, they handled their arms and very gravely resumed their posts, and we parted with a bet- ter opinion of each other I am sure; for, as I went along, I reviewed my first impressions, and perceiving that I had not taken proper ground in judging by the first appearances, I brought up my sepahis again for another contrast, and, travelling back to their first history, I found them to be not the defenders, but the hired enslavers of their country ; far. ther, that it was only the difference between seven and eight rupees that carried them from beneath the French standard,
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 35
to fight under the British, that they are never without the amplest accommodations, clothing, subsistence, quarters, and pay ; that when they march beyond certain bounds their pay is augmented ; and that vast bazars of subsistence, am- ple transportation, accompany them in all their marches, and that a suspension of pay for three months, would, perhaps, dissolve the British dominion. This was my renewed view of my six feet Rohillas and Patans, as well as my sturdy Tilinghees and s61diers of the Carnatic.
But looking once more at those oval, cheerful, contented, chubby faces, and the fine symmetry of those forms which their worn and tarnished uniforms did not at all conceal, I tra- velled back with them also, only twelve years, when called from the plantations of cacao or maize, to the fortress and the plain, where to them a flash of gunpowder was as terrific as thunder ; see them scarcely trained, without experienced men to train them, formed into battalions, performing marches such as reduce those of Hannibal and Alexander to the common class of military achievements ; see them opposed to the ve- terans of Spain, who had but recently fought against the first soldiers of the age, the legions of France ; and behold them amidst privations and wants, without shoes, clothing, or pay, traversing the uninhabited plains, and the more dismal and dreary summits of the snow clad Chisga, encountering and conquering those veterans of Spain, in successive pitched battles ; not with the distant cannonade of artillery, nor the protracted de.tails of a subtle strategy, but like those of Ma- rathon and those of Zama, hand to hand, in close energetic conflict : armies at no one point, at any period, exceeding four or five thousand men ; and, at the same time, defending and vanquishing, at greater distances from their base of ope- rations than Paris is from Moscow. It was these men, and such men as these, created by liberty and the revolution, who were menaced — and the menaces realized wherever it e onld be accomplished upon the unfortunate captives — who
36 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
were menaced with extermination — and who, after sustaining a conflict of twelve years, have vanquished, destroyed, or expelled 43,000 veterans of Spain, who had threatened to exterminate them. I gave up the sepahis, the enslavers of their country, and reconciled myself to the soldiers of liberty, whose valour and whose blood gave independence to that world Columbus had discovered. At Valencia I was gratified to find, in the grenadiers of Columbia, men, in every per- sonal respect, equal to the finest sepahis of India.
In thus rendering justice to myself, by correcting an er- roneous and hasty judgment, I was led to ask if I had not sinned in the same way in speaking of Laguayra ; perhaps it was only the censure of a passing thought, on seeing the port of entry of the beautiful city and rich country of Cara- cas, without a safe harbour ; which, at an expense compara- tively inconsequent, and by labour, and with materials, per- fectly at their command, might be accomplished with more ease and effect than in any part of the earth, near so important a city. But it did not consist with the policy of Spain to expend riches on merely commercial improvements. Car- thagena, and Puerto Cabello, and Puerto Beilo, and St. Juan d'Uloa, were but as the gates of a prison by which mo- nopoly was to be sustained through force and terror. It could not be expected then that the republic, not yet re- leased from Spanish inroads, for Morales was then maraud- ing on the borders, and menacing Truxillo and Merida, and plundering the country near Timothes — for we afterwards passed within two miles of the Spanish outposts near Gritja : it could not be expected, after twelve years of a desolating war, that such an object could yet be proposed or accom- plished. But, if the proprietors of estates in the contiguous neighbourhood were to inquire into the effect of such a harbour, as would defend ships against the worst storms of the Caribbean sea, it would be found to be their best inte- terest, as it would treble the value of their estates, the de-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 37
mand for their productions, and multiply their commerce tenfold.
CHAPTER III.
The causeway leading to Maquiteia — a redan or outpost and barrack half way— - the east side of Maquiteia forms a cove, adapted to form the west jetee of an artificial harbour.— Plan of the village — the scite delightful. — Adventure of an evening at Maquiteia — musical performance on the lyre of the country — novelty of the dancing — civility of the people — a good ear and grace in dancing, uni- formly found among all classes — a refresco of fruit presented by these hospit- able paisanas — they refuse compensation — delighted with the music. — Cape Blanco — effects of the earthquake of 1812 — the notion of a bay formed by Capes Codera and Blanco fanciful. — Mules arrive from Caracas — Consul antici- pates and provides an arriero — hints to travellers concerning mules, muleteers, and alcaldes — patiencia por force — for a long journey preferable to purchase prime riding mules — it saves money and time. — Prepare for departure — take leave of Commandant — innocent manners — fix rendezvous at Maquiteia. — De- parture— the zigzag road of Avila — compared with that to Honda by Hum- boldt — a different comparison. — Ascend the Torrequemada — to the Salto — the Venta Grande — meet Senora Bolivar and friends there — dilemma as to accom- modation— relieved by a joke. — Coffee plantation on the Sierra — coffee tree described, and husbandry of— fortlet of Cuchilla, reflection produced by it- descend by las Vueltas.— The Silla unveiled.— Caracas seen — the first impres- sions— fountain on the road. — Enter the barrier of Pastora — ruin and desolation all round — street of Carabobo — rendezvous at Senora An tonia's — interesting spectacle— Elizabeth remains. — We accept invitation of Dr. Forsyth— meet Colonel Todd.
THE causeway which leads from the west end of Laguayra to the village of Maquiteia, I compute to be rather more than half a mite : it is a spacious platform, formed upon a compact and well constructed wall, facing the sea to the north, and skirting the steep Sierra on the south side. It is about forty feet broad ; and I must apprize the reader that I have not measured any thing, because I could not accomplish it perfectly, through the breaking of some instruments which
38 VISIT TO COLOMBIA*
I carried with me. All the measures I shall mention, unless reference be specially made, must be considered as impres- sions on my judgment, from the habit of estimating eleva- tion and space by the eye. The causeway winds but very little, but it expands over a more ample space as Maquiteia is approached : the road to Caracas lying in a west direc- tion above the south end of Maquiteia, the main street of the village is open to that road, and runs north and south, about sixty feet broad, to the point of a promontory on which it stands, in north and south length perhaps half a mile, of which not a third is occupied by the village, and on the up- per or southern end, which is more than seventy feet higher than the sea, and fifty- six feet higher than the main street of Laguayra.
About half way from Laguayra, a ravine in the Sierra sup- plies a rivulet which crosses the causeway beneath a well built single arch ; and the ground being more elevated here lhan at any other point between the two places, a picket or outpost was established formerly. The breastwork of the redan, and the platform, all of good stone masonry, remain, though now mutilated; and excellent quarters erected for the troops still remained.
The line of the strand curves off as Maquiteia is ap- proached, and the cove forms a segment of a circle ; if a bold pier were run out in a line to the north-west from the east ex- tremity of Laguayra, this promontory would form a beautiful Hank to a harbour. The ground plan of Maquiteia is an in- clined plane from south to north, where its rocky extremity is beaten by the surf. The upper or southern end of Ma- quiteia is seventy -six feet above the ocean ; the main street of Laguayra about fifteen feet. The scite is delightful, and the laying out of a street so spacious and commodious is ascribed to Mr. Lowry, the American consul, who then resided there. Several houses in the style of the country, and well constructed, roomy, and commodious, are erected on that street ; and the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 39
place promises to be as prosperous as it is delightful. The stranger is surprized to find this village, so well adapted for a town, overlooked by those sturdy men who abandoned Ca- ravellada to defeat a tyrant.
Several smaller streets are laid-out crossing the main street ; but the village is most populous on the side of the road lead- ing to Caracas, at the upper end. The causeway is a de- lightful morning and evening promenade, and the space be- ing more open and more detached from the foot of the moun- tain than Laguayra, it has become a place of evening retire- ment after the business of the day, and, on account of its charming atmosphere, a place of delicious repose.
On one of the delightful evenings spent at the American consul's, our seats were in the open air in front of the dwell- ing, and as the visitors drew off by degrees in order to enter the town before the gates were closed ; and as others retired to rest, lieutenant Bache and myself continued to enjoy the serenity and beauty of the night. Music of a very spright- ly kind attracted our attention, and it became more interesting in its successive changes ; we moved in the direction from whence it appeared to proceed, without any other purpose than to hear more distinctly ; it came from a small house beneath the Palmyra palm trees, on the main street, which, as we pass- ed, we were invited to enter with great civility, and seats were handed to us. The house was occupied by several females, and children of both sexes; one of the young women resumed her lyre as soon as we were seated, and renewed her interest- ing performance. The instrument was of the form, but one- third less than the Irish harp, formed of a light wood, resem- bling red cedar, but closer grained. After some time the younger people stood up to dance, and we were no less amused by the ease and deportment of the dancers than by the novelty of its style ; it was a sort of pantomimic dance, not in active springs, or figures, or cuts with the feet, but a 'veil caclenced pursuit and retreat. Other dances were per-
40 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
formed by young girls and boys, all in admirable time. The young person who had first performed handed the lyre to another, who commenced with equal execution. These were short cantas, and, as usual, patriotic songs, in which Bolivar was not overlooked.
The young woman, who had retired, now entered, with some others, carrying excellent and fresh fruit, as she said/?or refresco : sweet bananas, delicious oranges, and several kinds of fruit with which we were not yet acquainted, but of which \ve partook, as they were with unaffected civility handed round.
The dance was renewed, and the first female resumed her lyre, and new airs and new dances so won upon our time, that it was early before we could overcome our wishes to stay and see it out. We rose and tendered compensation for our entertainment ; but it was modestly refused, and we were informed that the pleasure we manifested to have received from their humble music was an ample compensa- tion.
Whatever may be the superiority of science, over these harmonists of nature, I confess my gratification was as full and delightful, as any I ever experienced from the best com- bined orchestra. Possibly predisposition, time, place, and even the unexpectedness of the incidents, may have produced a more lively effect, and enhanced the pleasure. I had ample opportunities in the course of my journey, to perceive the ge- neral aptitude for music and dancing, among all classes and in all parts of the country. A uniformly good ear, and the total absence of awkwardness in dancing are striking. Upon en- quiring concerning the harp, I understood it was a manu- facture of the country, and cost no more than five dollars ; had I been on my return, I should certainly have procured one, were it only as a remembrance of the evening's entertain- ment we experienced.
It was my intention to have visited Cape Blanco, three miles west of Maquiteia, but other engagements prevented
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 41
me. I however learned from the best authority, the parti- culars which I shall here narrate. Before the earthquake of 1812, presented an elevated bluff, on the summit of which had been erected a commodious pavilion, which served as a beacon to the mariner, an observatory and look-out- house. In the earthquake, this pavilion totally disappeared, leaving not a fragment to shew where it stood. The cliff appears to have opened, and swallowed the pavilion and summit of the headland, which now appears sixty feet depressed below its former elevation. A long ledge of rocks, which perched above the waves to some height, and to a considerable ex- tent, believed to be sixteen hundred yards into the ocean, underwent a change also ; the ledge, which before rose above the sea, is now beneath the surface, but reveals itself by a heavy foaming reef.
Whatever may have been the influence of its former eleva- tion on the fancy, that Cape Blanco and Cape Codera formed the horns of a spacious bay, it is a merely metaphorical bay, like that of the bay of Bengal, formed by Capes Comorin and Malacca, or like the Bay of Biscay. They afford neither shelter from storms nor anchorage, within the supposed line of their extremities.
The 21st of October being the day of the arrival of mules from Caracas, our friend the consul had saved us the trou- ble of going in search of an afriero, or master muleteer, and we prepared for our departure the next day. The trans- portation of all moveable objects being on mules, the stran- ger who has not some friend, such as we had, will do well to address himself to some of the resident merchants, whose civility and attentions are proverbial ; and whose experience is necessary to guard against the knavery of muleteers here, as in all parts of the world where they are numerous ; and against which a perusal of Gil Bias will furnish some instructive ex- amples and precautions in relation to them throughout the country. In all the cities, towns, and villages, the established
6
42 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
usages, which are law, require of the civil, or military autho- rity to direct the supply of mules, and it is the practice every where, unless the traveller upon a prudent calculation finds it more advantageous, as we did, to purchase mules at a high price, rather than risque the delays incident to the customary practices of muleteers, wherever they are sure of impunity. In Laguayra, the merchant having it in his power to employ the muleteers, whom he requires for the carriage of his merchan- dize, holds an influence which the muleteer will not abuse ; as he might, if the stranger made his own bargain, without knowledge of the language or customs. Where the alcalde is applied to in a city or a town, he issues his orders, but the traveller bargains for the price of the mule, for a distance named. If the muleteer be exorbitant, an appeal to the al- calde brings him to the accustomed rate of charge. But it sometimes happens on a long journey — that the alcalde will be himself the covered owner : and where he is not, being only a mere man, subject to the same surly temper, ill na- ture, or false idea of his own consequence, and he may- sport with the patience, or laugh at the resentment of the person whom he wantonly injures, merely because he can do so. In every country there is some custom, some abuse to complain of, insolent, or negligent, or disobliging coach- men or boatmen, for which the remedy is often as bad as the disease ; in Colombia there is this perversity among muleteers and alcaldes, but I must acknowledge, I heard more of it from others, than I experienced myself — and on the few occasions, which happened to me, I had learned, among other wise saws, the Spanish proverb patiencia por force, and as a good appetite requires a good look-out before dinner, I learned not to fret when I found some of these ill. natured folks, likely to derive amusement from my re- sentment, and I recommend this course to other travellers. I also recommend the purchase of good mules rather than a dependance upon hire, where the journey exceeds five hun-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 43
drcd miles, because, as you may have to feed the mules you hire, and they are changed at short stages, the hire soon amounts to the price of a mule, while if you feed your own mule well, you have all the benefit in the journey, and you will obtain a better price for your mule when you part with him.
We paid our respects to the commandant and Senora Bo- livar on the 21st, and to other friends in town. In our visit to the commandant, we had the pleasure of an introduc- tion to his lady and a venerable matron, her mother, whom we found engaged at their needle work. The customs of every nation are the criterion of their own morals, which ought not to be judged by customs which differ from them, and are seldom more nor less moral one than the other. The lady of the commandant had playing at her feet a fine boy of about two years old. We were objects of curiosity to him, and his mother placed his hand in mine, and he was soon mounted on my knee ; he was stark naked. Some prudish people would reprobate this, and certainly I should prefer our own customs ; but Swift says " delicate people have nasty ideas," and I offer no other commentary ; it was no proof of false delicacy in the mother, for she had been so educated, and those who cannot stand the shock of such customs, should not visit any part of Asia or South America, where the nudity of a child carries no idea of indecorum.
We made the rendezvous of our friends for four o'clock in the morning, at Maquiteia, where we slept : and at the appointed hour, after taking some chocolate, which our good Philadelphia friend, Mrs. Lowry, had taken care to have prepared, we took our leave, and moved off in a gay ca- valcade for the Sierra Avila. It is a custom of the country for friends to come out to meet and to' escort, on departure, those whom they esteem or respect.
Humboldt's description of the road from Laguayra over the Sierra Avila to Caracas, leaves very little to be said by those who follow him over the same space, and if his works
4* VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
were likely to be in every hand through which this produc- tion is likely to pass, it need be no more than noticed ; but as different persons may view the same objects differently, or find objects that may have been overlooked, I shall use the manner of his diagrams to show the elevation of the mountains, and describe places only as I saw them.
Humboldt, in illustrating the steepness of this passage, states it to be infinitely finer than that between Bogota and Honda, which might lead the reader to suppose there was some resemblance, or some road leading to Honda. The only resemblance is that of steepness ; but that of Caracas, besides being only fifteen miles, and over an elevation of 6000 feet; whereas the distance to Honda from Bogota is about 84 miles from an elevation of 8000 feet. The Caracas road is paved in an excellent manner ; only about seven miles on the Bogota plain is paved, the residue of the route, not road, for in fact art or labour has done no- thing to make a road ; it is a path wrought by the hoofs of the patient mule, where it is not a ravine or a declivity dug out of the rocky sides of the Sierra Trigo and Sargente, where, excepting a gap or pass through the narrow crest of a ridge, man has done nothing. On the Caracas road there is no sort of danger, nor is the inconvenience of ascending or descending serious, as the road, besides being well paved, is cut into traverses, zigzag, which, though giving length to the course, make the ascent gradual and easy. This is not the character of the route to Honda, of which the descent is 7130 feet ; and, whether ascending or descending, it is more prudent to climb or to crawl than to attempt riding or jumping from rock to rock.
There is some pleasure too in ascending the Sierra Avila, as the scenes around are sublime, and open, without the necessity of watching the steps of the mule, to the constant observation of the traveller. The pavement, in some parts of the ascent where we passed, had been broken up and
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 45
in need of repair ; I learn that the width of the road has been since increased, some of the traversing lines better graduated, and the whole put into a perfect state of repair. To the mere traveller it is a delightful march ; to the inte- rests of commerce, a road through Tipe would contribute more to the interests of the city and the plantations too.
The road to Caracas, before the 'ascent is commenced, leads rather to the south of west, and after passing about a mile, the obscurity of a strait and a broad travelled track appears to be a continuance in the same western direc- tion, it is indeed the route, lately completed, by the valley of Tipe, which intrepid horsemen sometimes prefer to the mountain road. At this point we turned to the left, and commenced the ascent, which continued over spaces of fifteen to twenty yards length ; leading first to the south-east, then winding south-west, and so alternately, one side or the other to the ascent. The first range of ascent is over rocks, the Torrequimada, or the burnt tower, why so named, is uncer- tain; above this rocky range the road appears like a flat ditch, cut out of a whitish clayey soil, which shews the marks of the spade or instrument with which the sides were cut ; it was in this range, which is much more steep than that previously ascended, that the pavement was broken ; the clay bore the indenting of the mule's track, and where it was moist was slippery ; the traverses here were, besides being more steep, much shorter; and, this is the space, which, from a plantation on the west side of this ascent, is called Curucuti : this ascent overcome, which is the only part at all unpleasant, the ascent is less steep, the road more commodious, and the pavement in perfect repair. The next stage gained is denominated the Salto, or leap, a singu- lar appearance or opening in the mountain, about thirty feet broad at the summit, and diminishing, in the shape of a wedge, to 60 feet below. Over this chasm a drawbridge had been placed during the war, and a strong picket guard
46 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
established ; the machinery for raising the platform has dis- appeared with the military guard, leaving the platform per- manent. A redan of good masonry, with a firm platform, remains upon the brow of the declivity, on the south side of the bridge, which is an usual halting place on account of the grandeur and beauty of the prospect. The steep which is overlooked by the battery, is a tremendous ravine, broken and wild, but covered with verdure, as far as the eye can discern, to its lowest depth ; the opposite side is less steep, and woody, so that the peasants have cleared numerous patches, upon which the coffee and the cacao are seen in minute distinctness, and the garden and the plantain patch around the thatched cottages. Looking to the north, the ocean is spread out, and, apparently, beneath the feet, the ships, not larger than their buoys, appear playing upon the restless but glittering wave. Maquiteia is distinctly seen, in its whole extent, and its palm trees .diminished to the size of a honeysuckle. On the west side the mountain is not so steep, it is wooded to its base, only where husbandry has substituted plantations of coffee trees, and their beautiful companions, bananas, which are always planted on the sunny side of the coffee tree, to mitigate the fervour of a too ardent sun, by its beautiful leaves of six and eight feet in length, by three to four in breadth, of a refreshing pea-green. The coffee plantations on the side of this steep are objects of cu- riosity to the traveller, especially who has not been before within the tropics ; the presence of springs of limpid water, are indicated by the presence of a coffee plantation, as they do not thrive without it. Here a spring, trickling from a more lofty position, is conducted in rills along the sides of the mountain, above the upper line of trees, and having gained the extremity, retraces its course above another range, placed lower down, and so to the lowest range. The coffee tree was now in its full bloom and ripeness, exhibiting conical forms of about six feet diameter ; at two feet from the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 47
ground, the branches extending horizontally like radii from the centre stem, which rises to eight or nine feet high, where the tops are split and a small wedge placed in them : expe- rience having taught that the fruit is better and more abun- dant, when the tree is thus stunted. The branches were loaded, like the arms of an Oriental beauty, with beads of eve- ry tint, from the palest green to emerald, yellow topaz, from these to the rose and all its shades and hues, to crimson, and the deepest ruby red, " last stage of all," a confirmed chocolate brown, the sign of ripeness, and warning to the delicate finger where to pick. The fruit grow from the bark like beads, on the prolongation of the branch, of the size and shape of a cranberry ; where the husbandry is good, the work of collecting the ripe fruit is performed by young persons, who, with delicate finger, learn to pick only those that are ripe, place them in small baskets, and, at stated pe- riods, carry them to the station where the process of prepa- ration is completed.
Having satisfied curiosity, and had some little, though not indispensible rest, we continued our route, through natural hedges, and some scattered, but lofty forest trees, and it was eight o'clock when we reached the Venta Grande, or principal inn, more than 3800 feet above the sea. Here we unexpectedly found our friend Seiiora Antonia and her suite, and several friends who had come from Caracas to com- pliment her on her arrival. The Venta Grande was not suffi- cient to contain us all ; but the air was exquisitely exhilarat- ing, and it was more agreeable abroad than in the crowded house. The good lady had determined to surprise us, and give us a fresh example of the hospitality and courtesy of the country. I had addressed the posadera with a view to obtain breakfast for my party, but she had her lesson, and told me she had nothing to sell that day ; at first I thought it was my defective scholarship in Castilian ; but Senora Antonia, who had anticipated my object, continued the joke,
48 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
assuring me, significantly, that money could procure nothing there — and then added, but there is plenty of chocolate, coffee, fruit, sweetmeats, cake, and wine, and pointed to the other ladies already busy. I was here introduced to several of her friends, and she renewed the intimation, before made, that Elizabeth must be the guest of Josephine while she staid at Caracas.
We were soon on our way to the Cumbre, or summit of the mountain, yet nearly 1000 feet above us ; our progress was not hurried, as the company was now very numerous, and formed into little squads for conversation ; several ladies had joined, of course there was much lively prattle and gaiety, which rarely prevails where they are not ; passing several cottages, and the Venta of Goyavo on the Cumbre, where the muleteers were feeding their animals or themselves, we had reached the summit before the Silla had yet cast oft* its gauzy veil of clouds, in which it is concealed in the morning, and casts it oft' as the sun attracts it from the south in the forenoon. We passed a little fortlet called Cuchilla, placed on a point more elevated than our road. It had been established to guard the passes and paths which the adven- turous paisanos had found out during tbe existence of a military post at the Salto. The vicissitudes of human life were brought to mind by this fortlet of Cuchilla : while the war prevailed, and it was necessary to protection, it was visited by the passing traveller ; it was now passed with a casual and indifferent glance ; like the soldier of the revolu- tion, whose battles and whose blood had purchased inde- pendence, and destroyed his own vocation ; he is passed by with indifference or disregard, by men who bowed obse- quiously to him, while there was danger.
Our road, which had been so long zigzag, was now wind- ing, and shaded by lofty forest trees ; and at length the de- scent became perceptible, as we emerged from the shade ; the mountains in the south were revealing their summits.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 49
range beyond range ; and the Silla stood exposed in naked majesty, having just cast off her veil, which was flaunting to the south-west on a breeze, in the glare of the sunbeams. We were now on las Vueltas, or the back of the mountain, and descending eastward on a slope on the prolongation of its side, with a steep precipice on our right ; and the city of Caracas broke upon the view, and the whole west of the valley. It was prudent not to proceed, on the verge of such a steep, for to see and proceed too appeared dangerous; and I accordingly halted to contemplate one of the most beauti- ful and interesting spectacles that probably is to be found on earth, lest passing it I should lose it and my first impres- sions for ever. We unconsciously resort to comparisons in order to strengthen and embody our ideas ; my first impres- sion carried me to that bird-eye picture of Babylon which many years ago I had seen as an embellishment of the Uni- versal History. Caracas, with its greatest streets descending from the north or mountain foot, to the south and lowest part of the valley, presented beyond a trembling light, such as would be shown by a stream of quicksilver flowing through a transparent tube, sparkling and playing with the sunbeams as it passed sensibly from west to cast : it was the Guayra river, which has its sources in the valley between the moun- tain of Higuerota and Los Teques. The descending streets are crossed at right angles, and run east and west, forming manzanas, or blocks of buildings, of about 260 to 300 feet on each face ; the streets not more than twenty-five feet broad, some only twenty. The brightness of the hour displayed the streets very distinctly by their shadows ; and buildings more elevated than the dwellings were defined by their light and shade. In the west, in the south, and in the east, the verdure and the harvests were brilliant ; the field of yellow sugar cane ; the lighter and changeable tints of the waving barley ; the grave green of the maize patch ; orchards of orange, not yet distinguishable but by their clumps and
7
50 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
grouping. On the right bank of the Guayra, below the city, :he hills rose gradually, clothed in verdure to the tops; at a point a little to the eastward of the point of view, a curious sport of nature arrtsts the stranger's eye. It is a range of mounds, of such a iorm as that they seem to be rather the work of b:«man bbour than natural. They appear like a range of sp icious caserns or warehouses, with angular roofs, the line pi length ascending ; and their gavel ends also coped liki- their sides towards the city, and all covered with a rich velvet verdure. The city was still 2000 feet beneath me, and when I had finished my contemplation, my company had de- scoridtd far below me. I hastened along the now more gra- dual descem, and as { had read of Elfucnte de Sanchorqmz 4600 feet above the sea, I stopt to test the freshness of its waters, and found it limpid, and, as the day was not cold, placed in a very excellent position to slake the thirst of the traveller.
I joined my friends when they were entering the barrier or irate of Pastora. where there was a custom-house. The desolation around from the earthquake is here more conspi- cuous than in any other place. It is at the north-west angle and most elevated part of the sloping plain on which the city stands ; the greatest inclination is to the south-east, but it inclines also, though not so much, to the east and south. The breadth of the plain north and south appeared to me about three and a half miles, it may be more ; looking to the westward, the ground appears to rise in that direction, and to be more depressed as the eye follows the course of the Guayra to the valley of Chacao, through the rich plantations which the eye distinguishes, to the village of Petare, seven miles east.
We turned off to the east, after passing the gate of Pasto- ra, and entered the street of Carabobo, which descends south, and about noon, at the desire of Senora Antonia, rendez- voused at her casa ; we found abundant refreshments, and
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 51
had an opportunity to witness the cordial greetings of friends, and the prevailing manners. It was really a charming spec- tacie, to behold this good lady surrounded by crowds of friends of both sexes, old and young, congratulating her on her return to her native city. The liveliness of the younger senoritas and the solemnity of the senoras, the peculiar em- brace of the matrons, the inquisitiveness of the young, and the assiduous suavity of the sedate ecclesiastic, in his black silk cassock and his broad brimmed hat ; the curiosity of the females about the North American young lady ; and the vi- vacity which pervaded the whole concourse in the spacious hall, was altogether a spectacle of which no form of expres- sion can convey a distinct idea.
It was finally settled that Elizabeth should remain with her young friend ; and, at the invitation of Dr. Forsyth, an American merchant, long a resident there, Lieut. Bache and myself took quarters at his house, where he had previously ordered our baggage ; and where we were gratified to find Colonel Todd, the American ambassador ad interim, and his secretary, Mr. R. Adams, of Richmond, Virginia, who had been here some time, and were already preparing to pro- ceed for Bogota.
CHAPTER IV.
Military music— excellent throughout the country — the Intendant Soublette— the office of Intendant unknown till introduced by Galvez — in 1777— imitation of France — functions — more extensive than under monarchy — no Intendan- cies in New Granada nor in Chili, and why — convenient during the war — anecdotes of General Soublette — rises by merit — of Bolivar's staff — distin- guished at Cojede— defeats the Spanish General La Torre — difficulties of the station of Intendant in the revolution — his happy success and promptitude, IB appointed Secretary of War in 1824.— Distinguished patriot families— Cle- mente — Tbvar — Toro, &c. — First impressions of the city — streets — an inclined plane from north-west to south-east — Plaza Mayor— Valley of Chacao and plain of Petare. — Rivers — ravines — aqueducts destroyed by earthquake of 1812. — Public fountains excellent — custom of drawing water — bridges— church of Candelaria a heap of rubbish — bridge — city cleanly — pavements in the streets, gateways, and patios — excellent workmanship. — No side paths in Caracas — all round stone pavement — extended to the roads — an ingenious mode of improving a ravine without a bridge — Oriental style in all public works and private dwellings. — Interior of houses — style of building — materials —mortality of 1812, principally owing to materials called pita — process of building.
WHEREVER there are military bodies and discipline, they are sure to make themselves heard. While at break- fast the first morning after my arrival, my attention was at- tracted by the distant but approaching sound of "the spirit stirring drum and the ear piercing fife," whose clamorous concord became every instant more distinct and animating. I had supposed this kind of sympathy had long passed away ; I could hear the assemble or even the generate beat, without, perhaps, any more emotion than if it was a solo on a jew's- harp ; but here were anxiety and strong throbs, which led me at once to the street whence the sound appeared to pro- ceed, and I once again felt an interest in the
-" Drum's sonorous sound
Parading round, and round, and round."
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 53
Imagine a corps of twenty-four, half fifes, half drums, with their drum-major, in German or French style, and his staff of office, leading them in files of six in front, occupy- ing the whole breadth of the street, and pacing down the hill at more than quick-time: drums of better tone I had never heard, and the fifes were equally good ; but the style of the subject, the novelty, the vivacity, cannot be described ; a better musician would put the beats on a stave, and beat it off again ; but I put it unpremeditatedly into English syl- lables— which, however, they may impress the reader, con- tinue to speak the language of the drum to me — in this way, with a prelude of a half ruffle and a drag — R-r-r- ump'm, and bump'm, and blump'm, and stump'm, and thump'm, and blumb — R-r-r-and thump'rn, and stump'm, and plump'm, and plump'm and blum — Da Capo. The excitement of the moment brought to mind the song of Frederick I. of Prussia, " O mine got, vot blud and tender." The motion was so rapid and the sounds so much in con- cord, that I thought nothing would be better adapted to arouse the feelings ; the beating, to speak technically, was so bold and intelligible. Our military music, within the United States, is, generally speaking, so dull and execrable, and our marching so much in the time of the 104th psalm, such as was in fashion when soldiers wore a coat of long square skirts and slash sleeves, and a Kevenhuller-hat, with such a tail as the monkeys on the Magdalena wear at this day ; with a bandolier ; a long matchlock, and a crutch to rest his piece upon, before locks were invented. • Our usual morning and evening beats are better adapted to put men to sleep than to put them in motion. During the late \var there were a few officers and fewer regiments who had ideas of military music ; but with the peace it began to tra-. vel backward, and is now half a century behind the world : perhaps so it may be in Colombia when military talents shall be no longer necessary, and the establishment becomes a
54 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
provision for men who could not gain a livelihood in any other way.
I was induced to visit the parade where the different guards were turned off", and found the band of wind instru- ments were equal to the drums. Indeed, the excellence .of the military music pervades the country. I had the satisfac- tion of forming an acquaintance with many of the officers, native and foreign, who were well disposed to be communi- cative. I was introduced by them to the Intendant General Soublette, to whom it is the etiquette to be made known, and took the opportunity to request his naming a day when I might wait on him on business, which he accordingly did. I had frequent opportunities of seeing him in public and pri- vate afterwards ; and to form a high opinion of his capacity and talents.
The office of Intendant, under the Republic, differs from that which belonged to it under the Spanish regime. It was not known in any part of America till about 1777, when, at the instance of Galvez, a minister much celebrated in Spa- nish American history, the office was created, in imitation of and with corresponding functions as the Intendancies of France. Their duties were intended to be purely fiscal or financial ; they were also intended as a check upon the ra- pacity which had prevailed, in consequence of the unity of power in the Viceroys and Captains-general ; who, upon the institution of Intendancies, were reduced to the charge of the political and military administration ; and as the Intendant's authority was co-extensive in fiscal affairs with the political and military authority of the Captains-general, he exercised his functions by deputies in the subordinate provinces ; and without the Intendant's concurrence no expenditure could be made ; the nomination also to all offices under his au- thority was in him. In noticing the new institutions, this analogy might, be imperfectly understood, if the old were not referred to ; and it is very evident already, that in the new
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 55
organization of the intendancies, which are now extended to each of the 12 greater territorial departments, the union of the civil and military authority with the fiscal, as was the case be- fore the reign of Charles III, the same room for abuse exists, and if the institution of the intendancies was really remedial, the disease must necessarily be supposed to be restored by the reunion of the functions. It is no more than proper however, to remark, that in that part of the Colombian repub- lic, formerly the Viceroyalty of New Granada, no Intendan- cy was ever established : the venerable viceroy Caballero y Gongora, who was also archbishop, who was in personal con- fidence and correspondence with Charles III, signified that he must decline the Viceroyalty, if an Intendancy was to be imposed on his government ; and he explicitly stated that their only effect would be to multiply the oppression of the people, already too much harassed under the multitude of the officers already existing ; and New Grenada, and Chile, through like representations, were not burthened with Intendancies.
A station uniting all the powers of government which a desire to preserve unity and simplicity under the fluctuating progress of events in the Revolution, like the temporary adop- tion of the Spanish codes, where not repugnant to freedom, was a very delicate and difficult task, and the appointment of general Soublette must be considered as no light testimony of the opinion entertained of his qualifications by those who appointed him.
General Soublette is a native of Caracas, of French descent, and born in the proper time and place to develop his quali- fications and arrive at eminence. The revolution, at its open- ing, was full of hazard and uncertainty, difficulty and peril ; but he, with the generosity and sanguine temper of youth, left those considerations out of view ; obeyed the impulse of the age, and entered the ranks of the army, when about six- teen or seventeen years old, a soldier of liberty and his coun- try. His original destination appears to have been for a
56 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
mercantile life, and the habits of order and calculation, ac- quired in the few years he was in that pursuit, have not been disadvantageous to him. In military service he was soon distinguished, and placed in charge of a company, and his activity and talents, in some arduous campaigns, obtained for him the notice and the confidence of Bolivar ; for a time he was at the head of the staff, and in the sanguinary conflict at Coxede, earned the rank of General of brigade. In this character he commanded a corps of observation, and though the meeting was so sudden, as to afford no leisure to make dispositions, he gained a complete victory over the Spanish General la Torre, who had succeeded in command in Vene. zuela after Morillo had negociated his escape.
General Soublette stands about five feet eleven inches, erect, slender, and easy in his port. His countenance is good, and eye quick and inquisitive ; his manner unconstrain- ed, and courteous ; his public functions are performed with scrupulous punctuality, and his attendance on religious duties regular, which has silenced many pious enemies of the revolution, and sustained its ecclesiastical friends. He is married to a lady as elegant in her manners as himself, and they have some children.
In the station of Intendant, he had a difficult and serious trust to fulfil ; as the whole of the functions of government devolved on him, when the constitution was not yet formed, and his own judgment was to supply the place of a definite system. Besides the skill requisite to conduct affairs at any time, he required moderation and firmness ; he had to guard against insidiousness of pretended patriots, and the jealousy of local self-love, in friends to the revolution, who had not yet conquered all those prejudices of education, which asso- ciate the ideas of office with cast. But he was always prepa- red, ready, and effective, in each department alike, of finance, war, and commerce, to an extent rarely found united in one man, in any country.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 57
I had opportunities of learning much private history, and some secret, in which his capacity was not less conspicu- ous than in public, and as in every revolution, and indeed in every popular government, parties and passions produce conflicts and discolour actions, embarrassing to the public functionary, his constancy, and the confidence of Bolivar, suc- ceeded much better in the government of Venezuela, than any of his predecessors, and whoever he may be that may follow, will be fortunate if he succeed as well.
In 1824 he was appointed to a command in the west, and more recently called to Bogota, to hold the charge of the War Department, on which he has made already a very able report.
The family of General Lino Clemente, whom I had the pleasure of knowing in Philadelphia, I found the same amia- ble circle in prosperity, that characterised their exile and ad- versity, and was received by them with the same modest and unaffected kindness. The general was absent on public du- ty, but his good and lovely lady in his absence performed the duties of the head of the family ; I have seen her, with her lovely daughter, without any superiors in beauty or grace in the ball room ; and the next day, superintending and direct- ing- the operations of the coffee plantation, with the same interesting care and alacrity ; every thing in motion, with- out any appearance of bustle or the care of business.
I had the pleasure of waiting on the venerable patriot Mar- tin Tovar, whose brothers, whose venerable wife, and inter- esting daughters, suffered so much from their devotion to the revolution. The history of their sufferings and forti- tude, which has happily triumphed, would form an interest- ing volume ; I prefer not to touch here what has been made known to me by several friends, lest I should not do it jus- tice, and above all lest I should inadvertently commit some mistake which might for even a moment give any of those estimable people a moment's pain. I may, however, give a short sketch of his public character in a subsequent chapter.
8
58 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
It would be occupying too much space to detail visits of this kind, which go no farther in illustrating manners and the face of the country, to which, whatever I narrate, will be found to have some reference. A few days' residence enabled me to become acquainted very generally, and with the city and environs. On our entrance from the Sierra Avila, the attention was engrossed by too many objects to notice any distinctly. Besides that the streets were none of them more than twenty-five feet broad, many were marked on the fronts by horizontal lines of the three colours, blue, red, and yellow, which compose the Colombian flag and the military cockade ; and, as the first street we entered was named Carabobo, from the signal victory obtained at that place, I found that the streets generally had undergone a similar revolutionary change, among which were Coxede, from another battle, le Calle de la Republica, de Libertad, Colombiano, and Bolivar, &c. The fronts of many houses bore inscriptions in the same spirit and colours, as Viva Bolivar, Viva Colombia, and many others. Some ac- counts I had read, I know not where, had led me to expect hills, or abrupt ascents and descents, in the city ; but, un- less it be the general inclination of the place, the greatest in- clination from the north-west angle to the south-east, and a lateral inclination east and south, I could discover none. Conceive a chequer-board elevated at one corner, the posi- tion of the plain of Caracas may be conceived ; and as the height of the gate of Pastora is computed at four hundred feet above the Guayra on the south side, and the Plaza Mayor or Great Square, which is about midway, inclining to the south-east of the gate of Pastora, is two hundred feet above the Guayra, and the space better than three miles, the slope may be conceived. The ground to the west is not more elevated than the plain of the city to some extent, beyond which there is a gradual rise, though not to the ele- vation of a mountain or a hill ; and from the lowest angle,
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 59
the level line, or nearly level line of the valley of Chacao is perceptible, but not very distinctly beyond the village of Petare, which is distinguished by an elevated white object, which, seen from the distance, appears like a monument or obelisk, distant about seven miles. The length of the val- ley is variously estimated at from fourteen to twenty miles ; this variation may arise from a difference in the points of commencing and ending.
The city is crossed from north to south by three streams, and every stream is called a rio or river. They have their sources in the Sierra, and though their streams are unequal in volume at different seasons, they are never wholly dry. The Caragoata is the most westward, and its bed bearing all the marks of its occasional fulness and violence in its deep and wild furrowed channel, and steep clayey banks ; it separates the quarter of St. Juan from the rest of the city, and winding near the lower part of its course, to the east- ward of south, soon falls into the Guayra. Over the ra- vine there is a spacious and well constructed bridge, of very venerable fashion, but of good workmanship in the fa- brication, with buttresses, and a battlement massy enough to sustain a torrent of tenfold magnitude. The streets ap- proach this ravine, but it is not to be seen without descend- ing into it, and then, unless the lofty Silla, nothing is to be seen but its torrent-torn banks, or its bed composed of rounded stones. This bridge is made memorable, as is the ravine, and elevation west of it called Mount Calvary, by conflicts in the revolution, in which the gallant daring of General Bermudez is spoken of with merited admiration. The bridge is as broad as any of the streets, and the dwel- ling houses advance to the battlements on each side.
The rio Catuche issues from the Sierra more to the east- ward, and is the source from which the public fountains are all supplied, as were the private dwellings before the earth- quake. Many of the houses yet receive a feeble rill, whose
60 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
pipes have not been wholly destroyed. The pipes of con- veyance were of pottery , well made, and very sufficient for all ordinary purposes, and might have st ;od for ages, had they not been disturbed by the agitation of the earth. The fountains which serve the public are built of well- wrought chisseled stone, and I did not hear that any of them was disturbed : the stream is constant, and the water limpid.
Those fountains are among the few good things for which Colombia is indebted to the Spaniards, and the principal cities aad towns from Laguayra to Bogota are adorned and benefited by them. They are generally constructed in the- same style and of like materials, though not of uniform mag- nitude, nor of the same laboured workmanship ; but a de- scription of one will give a good idea of them all. A base of hewn stone, often a single block, of six to eight feet diameter, generally of an octagon form, risies about three and a half feet above a platform which is ascended by two or three steps ; on the upper face of this base or pedestal is scooped a trough or bason, from the centre of which rises a shaft or column, capped with some object, an urn or the like ; beneath this cap, or capital, there is a collar or mould- ing corresponding in place with the astragal on an architec- tural column, but projecting more ; this collar is perforated, and tubes issue from its circumference, through which the water, conveyed along the central shaft, issues in abundant gushing rills perhaps five or six feet above the platform, which descend into the bason beneath ; the overflowings of these issue to the centre of the streets, and serve to keep the gutters constantly clean.
It is amusing to see the crowd which, at particular hours, come to these fountains, generally women ; though there are men who make a livelihood of water- carry ing. The women bring an earthen pot which may contain three or four gallons ; if the crowd be great round the bason from which the pots are filled, with a turtuma, or cup made of a calabash, those who,
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rather than wait, or be jostled out of their turn, bring a tube of bamboo, the calibre of which is equal to that of the tube in the collar of the fountain ; one end of this tube is held to the fountain above, which it closes, and the water issues into the pot or jar ; the carrier bears her tube away for another occasion, and it is a customary domestic utensil preserved for this purpose. Some of these fountains have an outer wall or battlement to the platform, handsomely wrought, with imitation pannel-work and styles, a vase, and skirting and capped surbase ; which answer the purposes of orna- ment, and prevent excessive crowds.
There are five bridges of different degrees of workman- like merit, but all of the utmost utility, across the Catuche ; there may be more, but I did not see them ; these and other bridges have suffered by the war, but the time cannot be now remote, when the restoration of useful and ornamental public works will engage the attention of the public authori- ties.
The Anuco supplies all the eastern part of the city with water. Where this stream approaches the once lofty church of Candelaria, the pious, who, like the Greeks and Romans, personified every stream and tree, have consecrated the Anuco by transferring to it the name of Candelaria ; but the once lofty church is now a heap of dust, a living grave prostrated by the earthquake of 1812, and burying in the earth of its proud and cumbrous walls, the unhappy beings who expected to find in' it a refuge. The revolution too has had influence on the flexibility of the beautiful Castilian language, by introducing a disposition to laconism, and call things by their right names ; the river is once more gene- rally called by its pagan name of Anuco. The pious, how- ever, have been successful in sanctifying the contiguous bridge, which, not being a pagan edifice, is called the bridge of Candelaria. If good taste, public benefit, and skill, were objects of canonization, the builder ought to have a niche
63 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
among the saints, for, besides its light and handsome struc- ture, it unites the plain of Chacao, on the east, to the city on its west side : before the erection of this bridge, the bed of the Anuco was, at this place, a deep, wild ravine, like the upper part of the Caraguata,— -tradition says, impassable at some seasons, and in a Catholic country we must believe tradition : it is now not merely a safe, but a pleasant bridge to travel over, at all seasons, in this delicious climate.
There is a fountain at an adjacent village, a mile distant, which supplies water, said to have peculiar medicinal quali- ties, but I did not see it.
Besides the domestic benefits of those rios and the ^foun- tains they supply, their streams furnish supplies to sur- rounding plantations, to which their contributions are con- ducted by little mounds and banks of earth, which bespeak sagacity and great industry. These streams also conduce to that exemplary cleanliness which strikes the eye even of a Philadeiphian. A citizen of Bath, in England, might find in Caracas a rival, though not in the beauty of its freestone palaces, nor in the breadth of its streets, but in the purity and cleanliness of its pavement. Bath, too, surpasses every town in England for its pavement, but the pavers of Colom- bia surpass them in skill and judgment; and I may as well discharge my ideas on tht subject here as any where else, as I have been labouring under the impression, from the hour I first set foot in Laguayra ; so I shall turn back to that beginning of my subject, and say all I have to say on it at once, for I find topics multiply, and fear, at the present rate, instead of issuing a single volume, to send forth twins.
I noticed the pavements in the entrances of houses, the patios^ the streets, and ascending steep narrow lanes of La- guayra ; the pavement of the causeway, up the Sierra Avila, and down the back of the mountain into the streets, is excel- lent. In spaces nearly level, or but gently inclined, they do not use the minute precautions that they constantly fol-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 63
low in more steep ascents or descents ; but the general sys- tem is not to pave in large spaces the whole length of a street as we do, but in compartments, and the figure of these Com- partments are not regular squares or circles, but irregular triangles. Thus, in ascending the steep sides ofAvila, were the soil naked, it must be inevitably washed into ravines, like those in the route to Honda. On first ascending, the ground being prepared as usual, the line in which water would descend is perceived from the form of the surface, and a short line of stones on the edge are set up at right angles with that line of descent ; out of some part of this upper line, another line of strait stones on the edges is set up, which spaces are filled carefully with stones of round upper surfaces, as nearly alike as conveniently offer ; and thus in succession upward, triangles of pavement are formed, having regard to the dispersion of the descending water, which, checked in small quantities by these traversing lines, pre- vents the accumulation of water too much on one line of des- cent, and scatters it among many lines, constantly interrupt- ing and breaking it again. In the progress of the ascent, care is taken that the water thus broken, do not descend far down ; other lines of more weighty and larger stones, arrest them and carry them over the side of the precipice ; so that, however heavy the rain may be above, it is not suf- fered to pass in a volume down the road, but is at every twenty or thirty yards carried off, as is done on our northern roads, by small banks which turn the water into the ditches. There is this further advantage : I saw a patch of pavement under repair in Laguayra, but the patch broken up was confined within one of those triangles. The stones on the edge did not permit the damage to extend ; in one of our streets, the passage would be interrupted a week to make such a repair as was made at Laguayra, a street not more than twenty feet broad, the great and only thoroughfare, without interrupting the passage for one moment.
64 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
I could not but regret to find that a city like Caracas has no sideway of stone or brick for foot passengers. There are, to be sure, no Wheel carnages for burden or pleasure to endanger the foot passenger, and the centre of the street is the only gutter or channel for the flow of water ; the pave- ment, too, is as good as a pavement of round stones can be ; but then, where the women are so numerous, and so delicate, and their feet so small, to a proverb small, it is by no means indicative of Spanish gallantry, that the streets should be so rough, as if intended to deter them from the exhibi- tion of a satin or a sarsnet slipper on a beautiful foot, or the display of an elegant ankle in a proverbially neat silk stock- ing, in the public street ; I thought, that like the style of the buildings, there was something oriental in it ; for the Mahomedan cities of Asia are thus narrow and forbidding, though not so neat as Caracas pavements, unless in the area of the Zenana or the porch.
This style of paving in triangles is carried out of town, and in a manner to merit the imitation of people more vain of their progress in the arts, however recently acquired. I had made several visits to the valley of Chacao, of some of which I will give an account, because they go to shew the manners and state of society. In those visits, we sometimes passed a ravine that had been tremendous, rocky, and its sides composed of a soapy clay. It was not improved by a bridge, but in a manner less architectural and expensive, yet equally .effective for communication. The steep sides of the ravine had been perforated so as to graduate a road of descent, to a given point of the side of the ravine ; twenty or thirty feet below the line of crossing, a firm massy wall of stone, put together with good masonry, was built across the ravine, which was more than one hundred feet broad ; above this wall, the space was filled up with the excavated earth, and other earth removed from above, so as to spread the water over a .greater expanse, Which was before continually working a
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wedge-shaped trench below. This space, thus filled up and gently sloped towards the transverse wall, was carefully pa- ved with round stones, in the manner before described, and thus when the floods came on, the water having been de- prived of its power in volume, by dispersing it over a pave, ment which constantly arrested and turned aside its current, rendered the place passable with safety at all times ; and the uated access on each side, paved in like manner be- ond the summit, was not to admit of dilapidation on either side. It was a highway, and a great thoroughfare from the adjacent villages. The water which flings itself over the wall in the wet season forms a frothy cascade. I thought it would some day be spoiled, by being drawn off to mills which may require water power only a part of the year.
The characteristic orientalism of the buildings, as well as the pavements, as I mentioned, struck me at Laguayra ; it was more striking at Caracas. The ground plan ample, walls massy, lofty folding gates, with a paved entrance, and sometimes another gate and wicket within the porch — the patio or open square within, the corridore on each face of the patio, the naked tiled floor, the broad, rude, unornamented, steep-stepped stairs of two flights, ascending to the upper floor, the lofty ceilings, or the timbers exposed without a ceiling ; the ample apartments, windows without glass, but closed by Venetians ; no fireplaces nor chimneys, walls na- ked, without ornaments of portraits or other paintings, as if the law of Mahomed had accompanied the style of building, and exacted obedience to the law of Moses, to the letter, against the fine arts ; but I forgot, there is an exception, and it is an exception every where ; there is no house without a whole or half length of the virgin ; I have been so profane at times, as to suspect female influence in this particular, and as the wo- men are really beautiful, and hold a sway over the other sex that is proverbial, they had induced this general devotion to the virgin from the pride of sex. A Bramin once said to me
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in Bengal, that there were churches erected to St. Mary and St. Antony, but no church dedicated to the God of creation; here there appeared to be no divinity, but the favourite of the fair ; I have been told that St. Joseph appears in some of the houses, but I never was so fortunate as to see him ; per- haps he is kept in some back apartment, or in a corner.
The Spaniards had left in some of the houses testimonials of their taste ; the house of Seiiora Antonia Bolivar, the very first I entered, presented one. The house, it seems, had been the head quarters of the last of the royal generals, and he had caused the principal apartment to be decorated, by an intended representation of a railed gallery, in front of a hedge of flow- ers, painted n fresco. The execution was laboured, but the flowers were all monsters, very much in the style of an In- dia palampore, where laurels and poppies, roses and lilies, tulips and altheas, laburnums and marvels of Peru, appeared to issue, like the seven golden candlesticks, all from one stem. The good lady, at the first blush, expressed her disgust at the profanation of her walls, and determined that she should not be reproached by permitting such incongruities to stain her dwelling.
The departure from the Asiatic style of building of dwel- lings, in the omission of flat terraced roofs, surprised me ; because, where there is such an abundance of lime, timber, and tiles, and no frosts to disturb the plaister, no country could be more suitable for flat roofs, nor is any form of build- ing more eligible or delightful in such a climate. The cli- mate of upper and lower Hindustan, is much more sultry than any part of Colombia, with the exception of some parts of the coast ; there the roads are never broken, nor the houses injured by frost. The rains are much heavier than in any part of Colombia that I was in, yet the Asiatic houses are impervious to water ; and for evening recreation, or for so- cial enjoyment in company even late at night, the terrace roof affords an exquisite luxury. I saw only one terraced roof
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in Colombia, that was at Valencia, and, though not construct- cd in as neat a style as those of Bengal, the advantage of it was indisputable. The roofs in Caracas and in other places are of tile, of the C or the S shape ; they are unnecessarily heavy and ill wrought, and the roofs, which are angular, re- quire heavy timber to support them. But the absence of the useful arts in Colombia cannot surprise any one conver- sant with the policy of Spain. Those who were the first conquerors carried with them the Moorish style of architec- ture ; and they continue to imitate them at this day, while other nations have been improving all the arts and comforts of social life ; the Spanish policy forbid intercourse — and the arts were interdicted, lest a knowledge of the enjoyments of foreign nations should endanger the Spanish dominion.
But the materials of which dwellings are constructed is matter of more surprise ; nay a prejudice continues to pre- vail, with the examples of the earthquake of 1812 before their eyes, that an earth, which they say is adhesive, is pre- ferable to wood or stone. This idea has been vindicated upon the ground of earthquakes having occurred, and that if the houses were built of stone, and an earthquake happen, they must be buried under the ruins. Surprising to say, the effect said to be apprehended from stone buildings, has happened from buildings constructed of pita, for this is the name they give the material. The houses of pita have not only failed, but they have become the graves of their in- mates ; the crumbling earth actually forming mounds over those who expected to find security from them ; while the buildings of stone, without any exception that I could learn, have uniformly remained, and continue uninjured. The steeple of the Cathedral had a base of stone of one third its elevation ; the other two thirds were pita, and these two thirds fell, while the stone part stands unimpaired. I went to see a house of three stories, in a street east of my residence ; it belonged to some enemy of the revolution who had fled.
68 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
It was built of stone before the earthquake, and is the only three story house in the city, where it still stands in per- fect order.
Yet these facts have not produced any change. I in- dulged my curiosity in looking at the process of building with pita. The ground plan being measured off with lines, the art of building commences with a casson or box, usu- ally five feet long, two or three feet broad, and the same depth, but without top or bottom. This casson is placed first at an angle of the proposed structure, the earth, said to be adhesive, is brought in sacks of cowhide upon mules' backs, and it is gradually thrown into the casson. One or two men, with instruments like pavers' rammers, place themselves in the casson, and sprinkling occasionally a little water, in some instances some slacked lime, they continue till the casson is full, when they proceed with another, and another, till the first range is completed all round, leaving spaces where doors and windows are to be placed ; they commence to lay another range of pita beaten down in the same way above the first, and so till the wall has reached its proposed elevation ; the wall plates, and principals, and rafters are not placed till a time when it is supposed the whole com- position of the wall is dry and firm. The interior partitions are of the same material ; the floors are composed of tiles about fifteen inches square, and about one and a half or two inches thick ; they are coarse, though well burnt, but con- stantly warped both on the surface and the edges ; no pains are taken to dress them, and make a square form and edge ; the intervals between them are too open to admit of clean- liness but by excessive labour, and I have heard it urged that it was pernicious to health to wash or sprinkle the tiles, so that, in houses of great respectability, these channels be- tween the tiles become the receptacles of dust, and the nur- sery of fleas ; of which, in companies, where the floors are of this kind, there is constant evidence of their activity, as they are reputed to be prone to attack silk stockings.
CHAPTER V.
The Plaza Mayor — described — market abundant — edible roots — fruit — thepl*^ tain and banana — forage for cattle— precautions as to forage, food, and cookery on the road — the Plaza, the place of militia parade and all public festivities— bull-fights, some account of — this Plaza the place where the patriots were executed— and convicted murderers now— Cisneros, a bandit — other Plazas — the University— Library— antiquated learning — the Mathematical Hall— dia- grams fresh on the board— Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton over professors' chair — Students wear a fantastic costume — the productions of the press in circu- lation— state of medical profession — the clergy aim to monopolize education throughout the world — opulence and power of the Clergy— Convents— Ca- thedral of Caracas— Archbishop and Hierarchy — patronage of the church- Bishops appointed by the King since 1508 — now by the Republic.
THE Plaza Mayor, or Great Square, is that of all others which is most remarkable. I have before observed it stands two hundred feet lower than the horizontal line at the bar- rier of Pastora, and two hundred feet above the bed of the Guayra. The street of Carabobo forms its east face, from which it is separated on that side by an iron railing. On the opposite side, with its west end on the street, stands the cathedral. The north side of the square is formed by ano- ther street, also separated from the Plaza by a railing, and its prolonged line is above that of the Plaza, which has been cut to a horizontal plane, and from which there is a flight of steps ascending to the street on the north face, a con- spicuous spot, where pavilions are erected on festive times, and odes and choral music performed. The west face is oc- cupied by a range of buildings of two stones, which is the common prison, but towards the square it has no unsightly appearance ; a street parallel with that of Carabobo is on the outer side of the prison. The south side is also faced with buildings occupied as shops, in which draperies and milline-
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ries are sold ; and on its east side a street, which in the prolon- gation east and west crosses the street of Carabobo. On this street stands the university, of which I shall presently take some notice.
The Plaza, occupying about the same space as one of the manzanas, or blocks of buildings, must be about three hun- dred feet or more on every side ; it is paved throughout ; it is the public market-place, where every kind of food is sold, and where the display of abundance and variety, with the ex- ception of flesh meats, can be no where exceeded. Vegeta- bles and fruit, edible roots, such as are common to our mar- kets, and several unknown to us, such as the aracatcha, yuc- cas, and the apio ; of one description of the yucca, the well known cassava bread of the West Indies, and of Colombia too, is made ; the other yucca is prepared as we prepare tur- nips, but it is a thick carrot-shaped root, white as a turnip, but more substantial when dressed. The apio is the root of the cellery, it is as large as the common beet, but when dressed shows the pale yellow colour of the inner part of a carrot, and is equal to the parsnip, of which, as well as car- rots, beets, and many kinds of sweet potatoes, there are abun- dance ; the common potato I no where in Colombia found equal in quality, or so large in size, as in Europe or India, or our own markets ; the mode of cultivation is bad, and I saw a very learned and wise man, in all other respects, di- recting his paisano to select the smallest potatoes for seed ! Nor could he be persuaded that these stunted and imperfect vegetable roots, would produce a worse fruit than the seed of a full grown and large potato. The pulse are also abun- dant, and of kinds not common in the United States ; beans of several kinds, vetches, caravanches, &c., the sesamum, and twenty "kinds of maize.
Oranges large, rich, and of fine flavour ; the pine apple in the utmost richness and flavour, the sweet banana of dif- ferent kinds ; and the giant banana or plantain, which is to
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the great mass of the population of South America, what the potato is to the Irish peasantry ; it is most abundant, and a nutritious food ; it is insipid in the raw state, however ripe, and is therefore eaten boiled or roasted ; it is of pleasant flavour, not unlike a sweet potato roasted ; when boiled in soup it is mealy, like a good potato, and in this way is cut into short pieces. The plant upon which it grows, though bearing the elevation and appearance of a tree, has no wood in its stem ; it is a fibrous annual plant, and with leaves from six to eight feet long. The plantain does not grow single, but in rows of unequal numbers, on a strong fibre upon which fifty or more grow ; and to the length of nine or ten inches each, some single plantains weighing two pounds. The peach and the quince, in perfection, find their way from places at a distance, and apples also, but not equal to those of the Un ited. States ; grapes, the nispero or med- lar, and many other fruits, the names of which I have not noted, and have forgotten.
The heaps of onions, and mule loads of garlic, are here contrasted with the fragrance of beautiful flowers, the wild cinnamon, pimentOj and other aromatic plants ; red and green peppers of numerous kinds ; the roots in large piles, the lighter articles and fruit in baskets of Indian fabric ; rice of excellent quality, Indian meal, wheaten and barley flour. Bundles of ripe sugar cane, and stacks of molacha, or unripe maize, both brought to market for forage. The unripe maize stalks are the produce of the imperfect grains of maize separated in cleaning ; it is cast without ploughing or har- rowing upon some otherwise unappropriated spot, and is taken away for forage while the plant is young and fit for mastication by mules and horses. Throughout the country the feed for mules and horses is one or other of these articles. The animals prefer the young sugar cane to every other food, but it is not every where to be had ; the molacha, or unripe maize stalks, is next preferred ; and this also is not to be had
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in some places on an interior journey ; barley, not in the grain, but green in the ear, is the next forage, and it is sown with the view to cutting in the green state. These articles are brought to market in the principal cities ; but the traveller who is a stranger, unless he has an experienced servant, will not find it an easy task to procure forage distant from towns ; and it is requisite, in such circumstances, to be prepared in advance, and to carry a supply of Indian corn, as he cannot proceed without it ; and the like precautions will be requi- site in many places, as to the travellers' own food, and such cookery as he may need.
Of the table vegetables, the Caracas markets present as much as there is demand for, and equal to the Philadelphia market in quality, and at lower rates, such as cellery, lettuce, spinach, &c. The markets are held on stated days, early in the morning, but articles of necessity may be had there every morning. The whole marketing is over before noon, and the square is usually swept, unless some public occurrence interrupts the operation.
The Plaza is a place of military parade for the regulars, and of muster for militia. There public festivities and musi- cal celebrations of the festive kind take place, with elegant bands of music and poetical compositions prepared for such occasions ; followed by bull-fights and fire- works. With- out intending or expecting it, I found myself, after a ram- ble in different parts of the city, present at what is called a
' 4>ull-fight, but which I should call a worrying of bulls : I did not regret the incident, however, because no accident occurred, and 1 should not otherwise have been so well able to judge
, of the intrepidity and dextrous skill of those who ventured, with so much confidence, to present themselves on horse- back before an enraged animal. Here it is that thepaisano, or countryman, enters into competition with the city caba- llero, and exhibit their dexterity in horsemanship, and in literally overthrowing the infuriate animal. The labouring
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people of the suburbs and villages adjacent, come hither mounted on horses of about thirteen hands high, spirited, muscular, and well knit, hardy, and well formed animals, and in the most perfect command ; the riders either in the smock frock or shirt over the pantaloons, and the tail or skirts of the shirt in rustic embroidery ; the feet with shoes paramattas, often naked, and carrying on the heel a tremen- lous pair of spurs, or only a single spur. Others with the >mero, sometimes of cotton, with broad stripes of blue ; or the blanket of the same size, that is, about two yards long, and about the centre a slit, though which the head is thrust, and the ends hang before and behind, and being broad enough to cover both arms to the elbows, leaves the limbs free ; others of a degree of opulence more advanced, come in cuerpo, and handsomely dressed ; all with hats of straw or of the fibres of the Cuquisias, (American aloe) or the Palmyra palm : men on foot sport with the animal by presenting themselves in his front, with their romeros or cloaks in hand, which, when the bull charges at them, they dexterously cast over his head and jump aside. Many assail the animal at once in this way, while others seize the tail, which instantly induces a plunge forward ; the horseman takes occasion when the bull escapes from those on foot, to pursue him, and, on horseback, irritates him in the same way ; and it is surprising in what command he has his horse, usually evad- ing the charge, by throwing his cloak, as usual, and, in the language of the manege, by a demi-volt, or a perouette, with- out moving his horse's hind feet from his position, comes round on his haunches ; the poor animal carrying off the cloak, until feeling the efforts of the pursuers to seize his tail, he plunges with more desperation, and, what is very ex- traordinary, among a crowd, to whom, from his apprehensions of his pursuers, he appears indifferent. Six bulls were at one time in the Plaza on one occasion, and some hundred persons on foot, and more than fifty on horseback. But
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the great feat of competition among the cavaliers, is to bring the bull to the ground, not with darts or spears, for these, nor indeed any other weapon but the single hand of the in- trepid horseman is used. It is in the pursuit, when the bull is enraged, and bounds forward in its fury, that this teat was two or three times performed on this occasion. While the bull is in full career, the horsemen contend at the full gallop to seize the tail, and when this is effected, to so twist the tail, as to form what sailors call a half-bight or knot, and holding it so firm that much agony is produced, the rider gives a jerk, and the bull is thrown to the ground. It may be conceived what intrepidity, and what muscular power, the rider must have, who can thus prostrate an animal so powerful and weighty ; for the black cattle of Colombia are, wherever I have seen them, — and I have seen millions, more uniformly fine animals than I have seen in England or the United States.
This plaza, appropriated to so many uses, serves also for purposes more serious. It was on this square that so many virtuous men were condemned and suffered death, victims to the jealous tyranny of Spain, and often to the cruel pas- sions of the local rulers ; men whose virtues were objects of terror, who being beloved by their neighbours, kindred, and countrymen, were therefore guilty in the apprehensions of despotism. I could designate and give the history of some of those victims with which I became acquainted ; and many more of no less celebrity and worth also fell sacrifices, whose memory is embalmed in the hearts of their kindred and fel- low-citizens ; but they belong to history, and I do not deem myself authorised to relate what was made known to me in the confidence of private intercourse — the pen of history is already engaged in preparing the record of Colombian sa- crifices, and the devotion of its martyrs to freedom.
It is in the same plaza that malefactors also are executed ; while I was in Caracas, the neighbourhood, and the valley
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of the Tuy and other surrounding valleys, were infested by a banditti, under a desperado, of the name of Cisneros ; he was in the correspondence and pay of the Spanish general Mo- rales, and committed the most daring outrages, murders, and robberies ; the police of the city had employed every means of stratagem and force to seize him ; for a long time without success : he had the hardihood to enter the city disguised, and send notice to the police that he was there, but not until he had previously prepared to decamp. In one of those ad- ventures, he had two of his band with him, and they were traced to their rendezvous, only a few minutes after Cisneros and one of his band had departed ; the third was, however, taken, convicted, and executed in the Plaza. Whether it was the effect of the war, or some other cause, I cannot pre- tend to say, but although the general rumour was abroad that the convict was Cisneros himself, there were not fifty persons besides the public guard present at the execution.
There are several other open areas denominated plazas in different parts of the city, but none of them uniform squares, nor paved like the Plaza Mayor. That of Candelaria, before referred to, exhibited nothing so remarkable as the ruins of its Church, separated from the street by a fantastic Gothic rail- ing, some of the grotesque pillars of which yet remain, the Church itself a vast mass of earth ; the area was never paved.
Neither was that of the plaza of St. Paul, the church of which stands without any symmetrical relation to the plaza on the S. E. angle, which is passed in the route to Valencia. The exterior of the church excites no curiosity ; but a fine foun- tain, nearly in the centre of this irregular space, is handsome, and when we passed it on our journey, was surrounded by a very considerable croud of females, who I remarked were uniformly round and full, clean in their persons, and their garments brilliant as snow.
The Plaza of St. Hyacinth, within the precincts of the Dominican monastery, is not spacious, but it is neat, and is a thoroughfare.
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The Plaza La Trinidad is devoid of symmetry, and mere- ly an open space.
The Plaza of St. Lazarus is a neat enclosure before the church or chapel of that name : but appears to be rather in a suburb than part of the city.
The Plaza of Pastora exists only in melancholy tradition, and is designated by heaps of ruins, which appear indistin- guishable from the ample barracks, that formerly stood ad- jacent, and fell in the common ruin of the earthquake of 1812. These ruins strike the eye on entering the city from the Sierra Avila, and, unless prepared by some previous in- formation, would not excite emotion ; as where cultivation does not appear, or forests, the appearance of these ruins is that of the arid mountain range, which looks as if it just issued from the hand of nature in a rude unfinished state, calling upon man to go to work upon the raw material.
The Plaza of St. John is rather an irregular long- sided triangle than a square. The barracks here are spacious, and it is the depot for the discipline of new levies and mounted militia.
The college, which was founded only in 1778, a year memorable for its influence on the revolution that is now accomplished, bears the appearance of a structure of the eleventh or twelfth century. It was erected into an univer- sity in 1792. On entering from the street, there is a de- scent of one step ; perhaps the graduation of the street has been much later than the structure. It stands on the south side of the street which forms the south face of the Plaza Mayor. The lower apartments are gloomy — and much more croud- ed than the buildings of Caracas generally. The usual broad staircase of two flights leads to the upper apartments, which are more spacious and airy. The students at this time were about one hundred, and distinguished by a whimsical and certainly useless costume. It was a kind of pale purple or hyacinth- coloured cassock, with a scalloped cap of the same colour,
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the shape of the cap of the priests of the Greek church, id a sort of stole of crimson gave it a fantastic appearance. The youths disappeared, as we were conducted by an amia- ble and intelligent secular clergyman, one of the professors, into the library. I examined the backs of many ponderous )lios and quartos, where the fathers of the Church, and the lonists — Johannes Scotus Erigena, and Thomas Aquinas, hold their long-neglected places ; for the books appear- to be very quiet, clean, and undisturbed ; yet many men of very great eminence and virtue have passed through the forms of this university ; J. G. Roscio, the Toros, the To- vars, the Montillas, Bolivars, Guals, Palacios, Salazar, and many others who have been founders, martyrs, or victors in the cause of freedom, had their education there, notwith- standing the inauspicious obscurity of the lore which encum- bers the shelves. I could discover nothing modern in the library, but a map of the world, suspended so high, as to defy even the aid of spectacles ; one of the ladies discovered that it was turned upside down, and noticed it with the ob- servation, that like every thing it had undergone a rev- olution— which produced a sensation of pleasure in our amiable conductor — It was probably a prank of some stu- dent.
I experienced much more pleasure when we were con- ducted to the mathematical hall, where we found the geome- trical diagrams fresh upon the board. Over the professor's chair I perceived a portrait in the costume not of Spain, but of England, more than a century ago, and learned that it was a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, an incident very significant of the decline of prejudice under the influence of liberty, and a singu- lar contrast with the philosophy of Scotus, the Irish logician. I could not but recollect that Newton was in his own country treated by the orthodox as an atheist, because he would not consent to recognize the thirty-nine articles; here, where
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the inquisition had not yet ceased seven years, the spirit of the age had placed his portrait where probably Athanasius or Scotus had formerly held a place. It marks the progress of generous sentiments and liberal ideas; and it was further interesting from the fact, that the amiable ecclesiastic who informed me of the circumstance, appeared to partake in the pleasure I had expressed. I did not find the Logic of Condillac nor Locke on the Understanding, which I had been told by General Lavaysse were introduced there. Some changes however have been made in the course of studies, though they are still unsuitable to the knowledge of the age ; but there is a necessity for patience, and improvement must follow where the mind and the press are free, and the eccle- siastical as well as the military are subordinate to the social laws. I found Condillac, and numerous other books, in dif- ferent private libraries. The period when the constituted cor- tes existed in Spain, was not all lost : the press of Vallado- lid and other parts of Spain, poured forth many hundreds of important works in Spanish ; originals written for the revo- lution, and others translated from French and English. I found the works of Baron Holbach on the toilette of a charm- ing woman, and ventured to rally her on the subject of the work ; her reply was as wise as it was artless and ingenu- ous : " Truth, Senor, is like a young lady, who, if she expresses apprehension on her character being inquired into by her lover, must at least excite his curiosity, if not his doubts." Books of an elementary kind are found in all parts of the country. The exile of so many natives of Spa- nish America and of Spain, had cast numbers upon Eng- land and France, and the United States, who, being gene- rally well educated and liberal men, and poor, have found sources of support in the preparation of works adapted to the circumstances of the New World. It is a commerce that must augment in a tenfold ratio within ten years. The press
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is not yet in more than its infancy, or about what it was in the United States in 1764.
I understood there was only one student of medicine in the university, and I was not surprized at it, as a variety of circumstances concur in disparaging the medical profession. The prejudices which have been generated by the satire justly cast upon the state of quackery in Spain, were naturally trans- ferred where the language and practice were the same : the cli- mate throughout is adverse to diseases ; many are unknown ; and the calentura in the plains, the goitre in a long range of the interior, and some occurrences of leprosy in particular parts of Colombia, form, with the exception of some diseases produced by irregularities, the only objects of medical ne- cessity. The medical class do not therefore obtain, be- cause there is not so much need of them, the same rewards as in countries where they are more necessary. The opi- nions of a great mass of the population correspond with that which the amusing novelist has given of Dr. Sangrado. In some inland places the medical fee was formerly una real, literaHy the eighth of a dollar ; I have not any where heard of more than four reals, or half a dollar, a visit. I have met some Europeans of the best medical education, but none out of the army, and I found only two natives of Colombia, one of whom found, as he good-humouredly said, that there was not sickness enough in Caracas to live upon, and it became necessary that he should turn coffee-planter, in which he prospered and dispensed the benefits of his edu- cation, though not so profitably, with much credit and satis- faction. The other I shall notice when we reach Tucuyo.
The university of Caracas, nevertheless, as I have said be- fore, has had the honour of many great names among its stu- dents. I have mentioned only a few, whose reputation is in- separable from the revolution ; who, having handled the tools of science at the university, employed them to the benefit of their country and species. The great evil and obstruction of
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science, in this university, is, that instruction is confined wholly to ecclesiastics ; who, affecting more concern for the affairs of another world, in order to hold men in mystical thraldom, endeavour to unfit them or to disengage them from this world, in which it has been the wise purpose of the Al- mighty to place men. The clergy of Colombia are very te- nacious of their authority, and have in fact made education a monopoly. Yet the revolution proves that there is a conviction adverse to these exclusive pretensions, and that the discus- sion of dogmas and mysteries occupies more time and labour than is necessary or reasonable. The Jesuits every where aimed at this monopoly, or a predominance which would en- able them to govern society, by gaining the direction of the public seminaries, the formation of the female mind, and the preference as private teachers ; and their success has been only inferior to that of the Bramins. But surely this is not peculiar to Caracas or Colombia. And, after all, is not the same course pursued, with and without avowal, by those who have withdrawn from the Romish church, and pro- fessed to discard its practices ? Do not the ecclesiastics of every sect and theory seek the same influence over the hu- man mind, through education ? The Jesuits, as well as the Bramins, knew that men must be led away from the exercise of their reason; or they could not be enslaved ; and every day's experience shows that the same disposition to hold do- minion over the mind by means of a partial education, pre- vails among all sects and all religions.
Those who have succeeded or superseded the Jesuits, have pursued, though with less beneficial effect, the same system. The Dominicans and Franciscans were hostile to the Jesuits, as they have been hostile to each other ; as much so as the reformed churches have been hostile to them all. An archbishop of New Granada (Caballero) once exiled the Dominicans to Panama ; they were afterwards restored, and now abound in rich possessions. The Franciscans were at
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a certain time charged with teaching the doctrines called Calvinistic, and were held in abhorrence by the Dominicans. These two orders are now great admirers of the revolution, but look to be exclusively instructors, that they may render the revolution itself subservient to them ; while the Capu- chins, who calculated upon the royal triumph, have been ex- pelled for their treachery, by a decree of 14th September. 1819, ami their convents appropriated to public education — where ecclesiastics still continue to be the teachers of the children of those who have fallen in defence of freedom !
Under the Spanish regime, the opulence and power of the ecclesiastics were as inordinate as in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The principles of the faith they professed to teach, are wholly incompatible with the riches they have accumulated, and the luxury in which they live. It was a striking feature of the despotism, that it upheld those establishments, and those multitudes of consuming, or destroying, and non-productive drones ; but the mo- tives are obvious : they were not to be feared as enemies, and as agents they accomplished the purposes of the de- basement and subjection of the people, so long as the people could be kept in ignorance, more effectually than by an army of bayonets ; and, being divided into orders, they were, when refractory, more easily managed. Besides the orders of monks, who were always wrangling among themselves, the secular clergy were obnoxious to both. The Dominicans disputed with the Franciscans, and both with the seculars ; other regular orders took their sides ; and while they preached " peace on earth and good will to men," they made a trade of spiritual (as it was called) warfare, and traded in those earthly riches which they professed to abjure. The hatred of the Moslem Soonies and Sheas was not more vehement than that of these religious orders; who professed to be the interpreters of heaven, the advocates and exemplars of men, while they deliberately and systematically sought to
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deprive men of the use of those faculties bestowed by the Creator, and, by binding them in the fetters of ignorance, to convert them into a condition inferior to brute beasts. The revolution has had a wonderful effect in restoring to sobriety those perverted men, and perverted institutions, but it is by what they were, we learn to appreciate the benefit which hu- man nature derives from the revolution. They were success- ful for three centuries in subjecting those whom they had restrained from the cultivation of their intellects ; they ex- tracted alike from the acquirements of the very poorest, and the most opulent, contributions so rich and inordinate, that in every part of South America their establishments, whether churches for worship, or monasteries for seclusion and indo- lence, surpass all others in magnitude, expence of erection, interior embellishment, even to extravagance, alike without taste to gratify the understanding, and without the humility, or simplicity, or disinterestedness, taught by their master.
I believe it was De Pons who observed that, with the ex- ception of the Contaduria (office of accounts), the Government had not a house of its own in Caracas ; 'and houses were rented for all other public services.
This fact is very striking when compared with the eccle- siastical establishments, of which Caracas has within its ju- risdiction five parishes, with structures of different degrees of magnitude and revenues. The archbishop of Caracas, un- der the royal government, had a revenue of 60,000 dollars a year. The parishes of the city are those of the Cathedral, St. Paul, St. Rosalia, Alta Gracia, and La Candelaria, besides the churches of other fraternities of various denominations ; the order of Predicadores of St. Philip Neri ; the chapels of St. Maurice, the Trinity, and La Divina Pastora, which, not being parishes, belong neither to convents nor hospitals.
There were several monasteries for men of the Domini- cans, Franciscans, and order of Merced ; the priests of the oratory of St. Philip Neri also have a church. There were
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two nunneries, that of the Blessed Conception, and that of Mount Carmel, and a few females are still entombed within those living graves ; they are, however, old ; and, among the blessings of the revolution, is the abrogation of those inhuman institutions which enabled unnatural parents to sacrifice their younger females to the vanity which would aggrandize one child at the expence of nature, and the justice due to the rest. Females cannot now be compelled to disregard the laws of na- ture, nor the obligations of social duty, before a given age, and I had on a particular occasion an opportunity to hear from the innocent lips of a young lady, an acknowledgment, in the fulness and candour of her heart, that, although she had once thought she must finish her days in one of those gloomy cloisters, in exclusion from the world, she was now well enough satisfied to live among the numerous good people whom she had found in it ; and thanked the revolution for enabling her so to do.
An association more beneficent is a voluntary association of young ladies, of the most opulent families of Caracas, who are not tired of the world, and make it a duty to pro- mote the good of others. They make no religious vows, but devote themselves to the education of young females, and other charities. It must be obvious, that from the very contracted education which females have been hitherto per- mitted to receive, the education they promote must be also limited, and besides that the monks, like the priests of all religions, take care to address themselves to those edu- candctS) because they knew how much the sex holds power over human concerns, and all the interests of society.
The Cathedral of Caracas is a stone building, and, with one third of its steeple, also of stone, remains uninjured by the earthquake ; its appearance is by no means striking out- side ; but within, looking towards the altar in the cast, it is a very respectable, and not so unmeaningly glittering as other churches. It is said to be 250 feet in length, east and west,
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and appears to be about eighty broad in the outer extremity.
It is divided into two aisles on each side of the nave, by four rows of columns of stone ; six in each row : the nave be- ing as broad as two of the aisles on either side, the elevation of the side walls may be about thirty -six feet. I measured nothing, and if there be any error, it must be attributed to the inexactness of my eye or judgment. The roof is well constructed ; and the light, though not glaring, is sufficient fora service where candles arc constantly burning. The ex- ternal light, however, is sufficient to afford a distinct view of some good and some ordinary paintings, which are nei- ther too many for good taste, nor for the purposes of their disposition. They are distributed and placed with judg- ment ; and there are among them some superior to any I have seen in any other part of Colombia. The great altar stands at the east end of the nave, as the altars in all Euro- pean churches do ; though I noticed several churches in Co- lombia and elsewhere, which deviate from this primitive principle, which would have been a fatal heresy in the fif- teenth century. The decoration of the altar 'is not so taudry as in other churches, though some travellers appear to consi- der this as. a fault, which to me appears judicious. There are in the aisles fourteen altars, at which service is perform- ed at particular times.
The high mass, at which I attended, was celebrated with the usual pomp and magnificence of the Catholic ritual on such occasions ; the music, which in every department of Colombia is interesting from its excellence, was here very imposing, and would be perfectly impressive, were not the greater part of the west end of the nave occupied by a cumbrous, gloomy, and uncouth choir, which concealed the choristers, and broke the vibration which gives to church music a great part of its finest effect; besides, those who shared in the service on the floor, had, from the elevation of
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the choir, no opportunity to join in that part of the service, which it is the practice in other Catholic countries to do.
The hierarchy of the church in Colombia, is at present unsettled to a certain extent. There are many sees vacant. That of Caracas is vacant through the adherence of the archbishop to the royal cause, his retirement to Spain, and his subsequent appointment to a Spanish sec. The princi- ples are, however, determined by the republic, and the con- cordat, to which alone the republic will subscribe, is that which existed between the Papal see and Spain. No bishop, or archbishop, or even a curate, could be appointed by the pontiff, but upon the nomination or presentation of the monarch; which the papal authority merely ratified ; nay, the council of the Indies must have approved before the nomination. The republic determines, by a pursuit of the rule, barely transferring to the present sovereign what was exercised by the former. The Spanish court is opposed ta a concordat, and obstructs by intrigue at Rome the conclu- sion of an accommodation ; and it renders an effective ser- vice to the republic, that it should be so protracted, as every day's experience proves it to be superfluous and unnecessa- ry ; as it conduces, in the early operations of the new insti- tutions, to still the agitations which the clerical order can make, from the number of aspirants who look up for those church livings.
The papal bulls, which bestowed the new world on Fer- dinand and Isabella, had lost some of their ostensible sancti- ty ; the revolution totally destroyed it. If the pope should affect to force or disregard the republic, the effect may be the dereliction of all European ecclesiastic connexion, and the constitution of a Patriarchate, independent only in doc- trine of the European pontiff. The ecclesiastics no longer exercise that pragmatic power which gave them a jurisdic- tion, coercive or penal, over individuals. They are them- selves amenable to the ordinary tribunals, unless in cases
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appertaining to their ecclesiastical establishments. Thus, as a decent respect for religious opinions is not irreconcilable with social rights, the clerical order having voluntarily as- sumed the care and concerns of another world, possessing all the security they require, and all the authority that is not in- consistent with the social state, are more at leisure to devote themselves to the future, and to detach themselves from the present. The whole patronage of the church, in Spanish America, was in the monarch — it is now in the sovereign people. The church dignitaries were bound to render an- nual accounts to the monarch; and it was through the church returns the council of the Indies obtained the best statements of the population ; although there were not wanting instances in which those returns were much below the real number : the bishop might apprehend that the souls (contributors) would be deemed too many ; the same im- pression might influence the curates ; so that, by suppres- sion in both cases for the purpose of concealing emolument, the census always appeared less than the real number.
The right of ecclesiastical patronage, in the Spanish mon- arch, was recognised in 1508, by Pope Julius II. The de- tail of the ecclesiastical affairs will be touched on more at large in a subsequent chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
Religious ceremonial processions — some anecdotes concerning — " do in Rome as they do in Rome." — Ambulatory beggings-and chanting in the streets. — Thea- tre— the Intendant a spectator — the character of the spectacle — long drama- tic exhibition.— Country round Caracas — visit a Hacienda of Gen. Clemente re- stored after desolation by the Spaniards — lanes of orange trees — sugar-fields — populous villages— town illuminated as we returned — name day of the Liber- tador— immense throngs in the streets — gaiety — military parades — diversity of military costumes— churches open— high mass— musical celebration and festive odes on the Libertador — tears and remembrances at this festivity — the scene of Spanish butcheries — splendid ball at night.
STRANGERS, who are unacquainted with the institu- tions, forms, and customs of the Catholic church, as they are maintained in countries entirely or predominantly .catholic, are apt to treat the ceremonials which are occasion- ally exhibited in the public streets, with levity, or an indis- creet disrespect. Education no doubt has its share in the emotion which is thus produced, especially in those of the reformed sects, whose discipline and doctrine are most re- pugnant to the mother church. The ceremonial usages of the catholics in the United States and in England, are con- fined to the service within the bounds of their churches, and in fact there is less pageantry, for such it is, and less of the display which appertains to the greater festivals, such as Christmas, Passion week, Easter, and those of Corpus Christi, and the various holidays of the Virgin, in the Uni- ted States, though all religions have an equal freedom and exemption from constraint. Persons educated in the Uni- ted States therefore, even members of the Catholic church who visit Portugal, Spain, or Italy, are not prepared for the difference which is so striking, between the ceremonials and usages of the same church ; and it is perhaps much
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more so in the countries formerly Spanish, than any where excepting Portugal or its dependencies in Asia and Ame- rica, by which I particularly refer to Goa and to Brazil ge- nerally. Nor is this at all surprizing, when it is considered that all other institutions and usages, public and domestic, have stood until the revolution upon exactly the same un- changeable and restricted ground as at the conquest. I had not an opportunity, while at Caracas, to witness the religious processions which take place there on certain festivals, but I had ample opportunity to be a spectator at Bogota, where the pomp and pageantry certainly rivalled in extravagance what I had witnessed at Goa many years before.
There are some customs which I witnessed at Caracas, that belong to the narrative of manners which I have under- taken to give. One of these is common to catholic coun- tries generally, the other may be, but it never before fell un- der my observation. Passing along one of the public streets, I had just turned a corner, when I heard the tinkling of a small chamber bell ; my ear had been familiar to such rounds in the ceremonial of the mass, and for a moment I forgot that it is only in the morning that mass is celebrated ; but my cogitations were soon terminated by the appearance of a small corps of clerical men and assistants in their cos- tume of celebration ; a boy preceded with the bell I had heard, which he tinkled at intervals ; he was followed by an ecclesiastic who carried the sacrament with the chalice, and the usual covering ; he was attended by others ; and a small -crowd of boys and females followed. Upon the approach of this procession, all persons, before passing in either direc- tion, halted, standing uncovered, generally against the sides of the street — the procession moving along the centre. As the procession advanced, the passengers uncovered their heads, some bent a knee, and the women, without excep- tion, knelt wherever they had stood on seeing the procession approach ; and as it is a safe maxim, founded on prudence
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as well as civility, to conform to usages which do no dis- service, but the neglect of which may be injurious, it is best to " do as they do in Rome ;" it was the ceremonial of carrying the eucharist to a person, who was supposed to be approaching death, on which occasion two sacraments, the eucharist and extreme unction, are administered. This cus* torn was familiar to me, but not its publicity, which was wholly unexpected, though educated in that church myself. Returning from a visit, some time after night-fall, I heard the sound of choral music ; for a moment I looked round to see what church it proceeded from, not having seen any in that quarter before ; but the sounds becoming more dis- tinct, I stopt, and was indeed pleased with the strength and concord of the chant, in which, though the delicate tones of many puerile voices were evident, they were happily in- corporated in harmony with a fine tenor. The males and females passing, as soon as this source of symphony became visible, arranged themselves as usual on the sides of the streets, in the centre of which a crowd, only distinguishable, -as yet, by the lighted tapers which they each carried in their hands ; other lights, suspended to a lofty frame, of about seven feet by four, displayed a picture transparency, I could not distinctly perceive the subject, but of course some saint or holy personage ; I believe, however, it was the Virgin. All heads were uncovered, but I saw none kneel ; the paint- ing was carried by persons who sustained it in an elevated, but inclining position, a range of youths with tapers ad- vanced in front, the picture followed, and then a priest, in dark canonicals, with his stole ; they continued the chants till they came in front of the residence of an opulent citizen, where they halted and chaunted for a few moments, when the door opened ; a female advanced and presented some- thing to the clergyman, and the procession was resumed ; and thus it frequently stopped, and was visited from each house in the same way. Passengers, male and female, also
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stepped forward and communicated with the priest. More than one hundred persons followed, many of whom, accord- ing to the ancient practice, united in the strain ; as was also customary among the minstrels of the thirteenth century, who sung romances along the public streets in the same way ; and from whom the practice is probably derived.
This perambulation is, however, a species of mendicity, and, as the churches which are not parochial derive all their resources from the voluntary bounty of the pious, 1 presume these processions have in view the solicitation of contribu- tions. The donations I have been told are very small, una real being the most that is expected ; though the sex are said to be given to "do good by stealth," and bestow much more than is solicited.
The difference of education, and the customs of countries, give to these processions an air of novelty ; and, unless it be the interruption of the streets, and its frequent recurrence, it is a harmless custom. The impressions derived from education among the numerous reformed branches of the Christian church, are, no doubt, adverse to these pompous ceremonials, and the use of pictures and images, much more at the worship expected, or by implication exacted, in uncovering the head and bending the knee during the pass- ing of the sacrament. Yet, after all, is there not as much prejudice on the. part of the offended as the offenders ? Upon a dispassionate examination, it will appear that the pomp of the mother church is by no means greater than that of the Jewish ceremonial, nor more mysterious, and yet the He- brew Scriptures are disseminated as doctrinal There is an allegory in the ceremonial of the mass, in which every action is emblem^c of some event in the passion and death of Christ ; however this allegory may have been adapted to ages of extreme ignorance, when the art of printing was not at hand to inform the great body of the people, an allegory of this description was calculated to engage the senses, and carry,
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with the memory of the ceremonial explained, a solemn im- pression of the event to which it referred. The conversion of ceremonial forms into doctrinal obligations, and the dan- ger of another great schism, which would separate the intel- ligent from the uninformed, has prevented any alteration of moment, in the ceremonial forms ; and if the mind is chained own by despotic governments, and among the rest by the licy of the church itself, this pomp becomes a sort of ne- cessary resort, as the antidote to that disorder which would arise from the absence of a system, as well as of know- ledge. It is to be desired, that all Christian sects would consent, in all countries, as they do in the United States, to worship, without compulsion or reproach, each in their own way. Religion being a matter purely individual, no man being responsible for the errors of another, and opinion being itself derived from the accidental position of the individual in his first years ; the charity of the Christian precept would seem to demand, not merely a right to the exercise of choice, but mutual forbearance among those who profess the worship of the same object, and, in reality, differ only in those forms, or the pragmatic inventions of mystical or bar- barous ages. I have been often asked as to the state of re- ligion, and the influence of the priesthood in Colombia, and sometimes accompanied by a zealous wish that missionaries could be sent among them as among the Indians ! There is some contradiction between such inquiries and wishes, and a complaint that is sometimes made as to the doctrinal tenet of the Catholic or universal unity of the church, and the incidental inference that no one can be saved out of it. Unquestionably, such was the theory of the Catholic church as soon as it had become politically potent ; and, in some countries, it continues to be put forth still. But is not this the tenet of every sect ? Do not the sects of the reformed churches hold salvation as belonging to themselves exclu sively ? Whether avowed or only inferred, the fact is the
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same, every sect must entertain some such opinion, or why form a separate sect ? If the Catholic be not entitled to sal- vation according to any one or more opinions of sects, is not that -the very subject of accusation?. It is lamentable that mankind should be thus held as perpetual adversaries, and the doctrine of peace and good will be made the foundation for discord ! There could be no difficulty in tracing the evil to the cause of its duration — but it might be deemed in- vidious—
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right.
I was led to this digression without premeditation, and it Is not worth while to erase it, by the manner in which some of our young Americans, whom I met in my travels, be- haved on such occasions, and which has caused me some un- pleasant moments. I heard one relate an anecdote of him- self with great self- applause : the sacrament passing, as is customary, the gentleman would neither stop nor uncover his head ; one of the procession party intimated that this act of respect was due, and added, according to his educated belief, " will you not take off your hat in the presence of God ?" (meaning, according to the doctrine of transubstan- tiation, the sacrament) — this liberal, who, had it been in Turkey, and neglected what was expected of respect to the Moslem ceremonial, might have found his head in hands — replied, pointing to the heavens, — " Dios ariba /" God is above, — and he exulted not a little at the act, be- cause he knew he was perfectly secure.
On another occasion, at one of those ambulatory beg- gings, a young American followed the procession, where there was no head covered but his own; the militia had been mustered that day, and one of those who had fallen in with the procession had his firelock ; the American stranger
an
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was requested either to take off his hat or retire ; like Gold- smith's centinel, he conceived his religion in danger, and his dignity called upon to refuse ; the militia-man raised his firelock and fired it in the young man's face ; to be sure the loading was only powder ; but thanks to the revo- lution, which has caused respect to be paid to strangers, and who surely owe respect to decorum at least in return, e matter there ended ; had it been before the revolution, the ball might have been used with impunity. And, after all, was it worth while, for the mere performance of an act of civility, which would be paid to any decent-looking man or woman in the public street, to induce such a reproof ? — in fact such an insult — for the militia -man was not insensi- ble that such an act as his must be seriously felt — and un- doubtedly, if the issue be compared with the cause, that pro- duced it, a person of good sense would prefer to avoid an insult so palpable, by recollecting that he was disregarding the institutions of a whole people, whose hospitality he every day experienced, and from whose laws he expected protec- tion. A man of good sense would say " I am but a stran- ger, the laws have declared that a given religion shall be that of the state ; that no man shall be molested for his opinions ; that no man must disparage the jestablished reli- gion ; it would be absurd for me to set my private educated opinion, acquired in a foreign land, against the acquired contrary opinion in this land, where I am a stranger ; I will not incur the risk of martyrdom for the mere gratifica- tion of setting their customs at defiance ; an act of civil re- spect is not an abandonment of the judgment, or the right of freely thinking, but an act of decorum which even the prejudices of men will not forbid, where evil cannot arise out of it." I have seen a worthy man at Goa, committed to the prison of the inquisition, and very grossly abused, for an unintentional act under similar circumstances. In Co- lombia, the government itself is bound to respect the edu-
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cated habits derived from ages, by forbidding all external religious transactions that might produce contention or vio- lence ; and it is not in such a case for a stranger to say this whole nation is wrong, and I will set myself up to dis- parage it ; he may consider these processions idolatrous ; they believe them holy — the laws say they shall not be treated with contempt — a man, who is desirous of martyrdom, may find opportunities enough to gratify his penchant ; but the preferable course for a man of sense, if he cannot conform to the decorum of society, is not to enter a country where his delicacy may be shocked by the zeal of a fanatic, or the significant hint of a militia-man.
Having some curiosity to see the theatre which Hum- boldt so correctly describes, I chose to go alone, and found admission for una real ; and, hearing that the pit was an open area, I made my way up stairs, and found myself in a box, the door of which had been politely opened for me. My position was in the transverse line of boxes in front and parallel with the stage. Ranges of boxes, all filled with com- pany, principally ladies, occupied both sides of the parallelo- gram ; the ground-floor, literally the ground, was the pit, and the ceiling, the blue serene spangled vault of heaven. The stage was about twenty -four or twenty -five feet broad in front, flanked by what the players call wings, forming two sides of a square. The front scene, by the falling of which the acts were discriminated, was a sort of pastoral picture, such as a century ago were prefixed by sentimental writers to works of the imagination; and when it drew up, displayed such oblique wings as are found in the theatres of itinerants, ex- hibiting columns or trees in bold daubing upon stout pa- per. The flat or back scenes, diminished according to the stage laws of perspective, were changed as the subject called for a camp, the chamber of a palace, a forest, or a shipwreck, all of which appeared in dramatic progression.
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My progress in the language enabled me to catch only a part of the dialogue and the theme, but I found it had a plot, in which Achilles was discovered in petticoats, and Patro- cltis and Hector, besides some other Greeks and Trojans, composed the dramatis persons ; among whom also were Andromache and Briseis, and, though last not least, the frequent associate of Spanish dramas, a buffoon, a sort of Scapin, who made mirth serious and melancholy laughable : as for example, during the dire conflict of arms, for what I know between Hector and somebody from Greece ; this Spanish clown displayed, by outspread fingers, staring eyes, and trembling action, all the contortions of clownish fear — and when the heroes, like the Kilkenny cats, disappeared, the affrighted clown exclaimed " Jesu Christo /" It would be trifling to dwell upon the anachronism; but there was another, the " airy sea" in the back ground, at first calm as the lake of Valencia, was on a sudden disturbed, and a square rigged vessel appeared — it is wrecked with some striking heroine, whom the Scapiri, with great gravity, helped to re- lieve, while the gallant Menelaus, or somebody else, stood on the sea- shore, admiring the roses in his own sandals. The clown was, nevertheless, amusing — his powers of face much preferable to the quality of his jokes, though so much out of place and time; and, though he imitated nature most abominably, in an appropriate drama he would have merited at least as much applause as he got ; which was more than Hector or Andromache could say for themselves. 'After all, the credit of the piece, whatever it may be, belongs to Spain, from which this species of drama, of I know not how many acts, is derived ; for it commen- ced about six o'clock ; and it was twelve when I came away, leaving the play not yet finished.
Soon after I was seated, the intendant, General Soublette,
1 entered, and placed himself on the same bench, and asked
several questions as to my opinion of the drama, which I
answered without any reserve, and in which he agreed.
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This gentleman appeared in his costume as a private citi- zen, and without guards or attendants, like a republican ma- gistrate ; it gave rne pleasure to see it ; and the occasion enabled me to perceive, in the amenity and cordial manner with which he recognized persons of different conditions, how suitably he filled his station. The theatre was perfect- ly orderly, though all parts were full ; cheerfulness and gaie- ty were conspicuous in the boxes, and between the acts, as elsewhere, they chatted in tones not very much depressed, something louder than a whisper — yet perfectly agreeable, with their friends in adjacent boxes. The boxes here, as in Spain, are like pews in our churches, private property, and the owner with the key transfers the right of admission.
The country around Caracas, from the distance, presents an unbroken appearance of prosperous cultivation ; and, un- less where the casualties of the revolution have by the flight of the former owners suffered them to go to decay, the reali- ty is as prosperous as the appearance. We had numerous parties in different directions of the valley, which it would be tedious to particularize, two or three will be selected as sufficiently characteristic. As there are no wheel carriages, the ladies ride, and with ease and self-command. General Ciemente being absent, his interesting wife and daughter made up a party of both sexes, about twenty in number. Their Hacienda, or coffee plantation, lies in the valley of Chacao, about three miles and a half east of the city ; it had suffered from the violence of the Spaniards, while they were in possession of Caracas, as all property of the patriots did ; but the activity and intelligence of Senora Ciemente had already gone so far in its restoration, that when we arrived the do- mestics were already occupied in the preparation of a hand- some crop of coffee, for the process of shelling by the mill. She had replaced the houses demolished by the Spaniards ; but not so lofty, or so large ; she erected what in Bengal would be called a spacious bungalow, but in familiar Ian-
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guage a spacious thatched house, with all the accommoda- tions required for convenience and for comfort ; and here we had a table already laid out with abundant wines, cakes, never omitting the pride of the Caracas housewives, a vari- ety of the finest sweetmeats ; and, as it was a day to take air, and to see as well as converse, we perambulated the ave- nues of the coffee trees, saw those which had escaped ruffian outrage, and the new and vigorous plants in full fruitage, which had replaced those that were destroyed ; we saw the ditches, which deliberate vengeance had dug to draw off the virgin stream, without which the plant perishes, and where it was restored and improved, so as to diffuse its healthful rivulets over a more extended surface, with the enlargement of the plantation. The valley in the rear, or south-east of the Hacienda, is more than 100 feet lower than the planta- tion, and the sugar cane was rearing its golden stems in pa- rallel lines, and the manufacture was already in progress of drying, cleaning, and shelling. The store houses and of- fices, which cannot be too airy or commodious for the skil- ful preparation of the coffee, yet exhibited their wrecks, but were in the slow train of reparation. Until these are repair- ed, the process is carried on only by expedients very slow, but with care effective ; earthen pots supplying the place of steeping cisterns, cowhides instead of sloping platforms for drying, and wooden troughs and hand pestles, the place of the shelling-mill. I felt much satisfaction at the cheerfulness and contentedness of the labouring people employed; there were some women who had been slaves, but who would not separate themselves from the hacienda of their former master, and who appeared to feel the happiness of being restored to the kindness of the excellent family, by whom they were treat- ed as kindly as their kindred.
Lanes of orange trees ornamented the verge of the lower valley, and the extremity of the coffee ground. In the moun- tain, more than a mile distant, but which scarcely seemed a
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stone's throw, one of those chasms or openings, characteristic of the mountain regions, was displayed by the abrupt termi- nation of the hills which skirt the south side of the Guayra, from the westward to this, place ; this leads to other valleys, rich as that of Chacao, far to the south, and west, and east. After spending a delightful day, we returned by a different route, having passed the handsome bridge of Candelaria, over the Anuco, on going out, and the paved causeway here- after noticed on our return. I was not aware that there was so populous a suburb, until this occasion ; but there were several villages on the road, and in full active population, oc- cupied by agriculture ; and many arrieros, with their mules, who transport the fruits of the valley to market. We were overtaken by the light shade of night as we entered the city, which we found to be already very generally illuminated, it being the 27th, and the name-day of Bolivar being the next day ; so that, not content with the birthday itself, they illu- minated the night before, and they continued it on the 29th, which was also devoted to general festivity : we spent an evening as agreeable as the day, the spirits light, and exhila- rated by this delicious climate.
The 28th being the President's birth- day, the voice of the artillery was heard very early in every direction ; and the drum gave "a louder note" than common. The streets of Ca- racas are usually very still, and seldom crowded in ordinary ; on this day they appeared like ant-hills with their inhabitants in motion. The military shone in all their best uniforms — if it be not a misnomer to call that uniform, which conforms to no common cut, or pattern, or colour ; but they formed to a stranger's eye an attractive spectacle, some in blue, red, or yellow short coats, with blue, red, yellow, or white pan- taloons ; waistcoats scarlet, yellow, or white ; and many with each of the three garments of a different colour, blue or red coat, with red waistcoat, and yellow trowsers ; others with trowsers a la Turc, of yellow, white, or crimson, tied above
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the ancle ; some with fan hats, and others with the like di- versity of leather, straw, or Italian caps, and towering fea- thers of diverse hues. There were some officers of the staff, who paid niore regard to military uniformity, who wore their blue coats, fan hats, boots., white waistcoats and breeches, sabres, belts, and spurs. These varieties of colours were not altogether the effect of caprice or vanity ; there was a re- gulation for uniform, but a regulation, could neither import cloth sufficient of a colour, nor pay the tailor ; so that the necessities of the case authorised an innovation, which ^ca- price and vanity improved upon.
This festival drew out all the troops, regulars and volun- teers ; the latter composed, like our own during the late war, of the promising youth of the most opulent families, and best educated, who, indeed, appeared to as much advantage as those whom they resembled : the diversity in the uniform was not so great among these as among the regular officers. The arms were, in general, in excellent condition as to ap- pearance, but some were fit only for a parade of ceremony.
The regulars of the line were in jackets of Russia sheet- ing, Osnaburg pantaloons, shirts, and shoes, and apparel ge- nerally in very good condition, whole, and neat. The caps were the leather caps of the French fashion, a frustum of a cone inverted, with a shield for the eyes in front, in good polish ; belts and other accoutrements neat. Each regiment had a facing, such as red, blue, or yellow, and the cut of the clothing proved that the tailor's establishment was complete.
Such of the officers as rode during the day were well mounted ; and some fine horses, sixteen hands high, ap- peared on parade, the first I had seen of that stature ; bays and blacks, but particularly roans and moose- coloured. I was sorry to see that some of them had been subjected to that cruel, wanton, and pernicious practice of nicking, which undertakes to disfigure that beautiful animal, and to deprive him of the means of protecting himself from insects, and
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often injuring his health and temper. The saddles worn by the mounted officers were the high-peaked and cantled, the only saddles fit or safely to be worn in this steep moun- tainous country. The housings were not agreeable to the eye of those who are accustomed to uniformity ; they were extravagantly gaudy, and no two alike.
I had full opportunity to see the troops move, and they must not have had ears or souls if they did not move well, and in time to their inimitable drums and bugles and wind instruments, of which there were several distinct bands ; their marching was in lively animating triple time, and their attention and silence most exemplary. I could not but recollect my two poor sentinels at Laguayra, and wished they were here to share the new regimentals, or at least a pair of paragattas each, and a part of the good things that were handed along the line. Sal- vos of artillery took place, and the troops went through the usual forms common in other countries.
The churches were all open, and it was on this occasion that with my daughter I attended high mass in the cathe- dral, where the Intendant with his suite were present ; his coat was of scarlet with embroidery of gold, that would not have appeared to disadvantage in the cortege of Napoleon.
After high mass was finished the troops formed in the great square. A pavilion had been erected over the flight of stairs at the north entrance, and a full band of vocal and instrumental musicians performed some musical pieces, and there were recited and sung some odes written for the occa- sion, in which whenever the name of Bolivar occurred, and it was the whole theme, the air resounded with accla- mations, not only from the soldiery, but from the vast con- course assembled. Where I had placed myself, I could hear many exulting expressions and allusions to former times, and to the cruel butcheries that had been committed on that very plaza, which was at that moment the scene of triumph and grateful celebration of the hero, whose con- stancy had surmounted all difficulties, and liberated his
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country. Numerous ladies attended, and the windows of the adjacent houses were crowded with them. Tears of joy and of remembrance flowed in abundance from the eyes of aged matrons, and widows, whose fathers, husbands, bro- thers, or sons, had perished by Spanish vindictiveness, and whose wrongs were expiated by the triumph with which they could not but be assimilated on this occasion.
The evening had been assigned for a splendid ball. A com- mittee was selected from the principal citizens and officers, to whom the direction was given, and who acted as stew- ards, to which we had the honour of an invitation, and of which I shall give some account, as indicative of customs and manners, in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII.
Anniversary of Bolivar, 28th October — rejoicing- and ball— sketches of manners — dancing — music — waltzing. — Customs derived from Spain remaining. — Eti- quette.— Equality realized. — Many beauties absent, royalists. — The magna- nimity of the republicans towards the royalist families, a noble contrast with that of the Spaniards to patriot females. — An exposition of the principles of this conduct by a revolutionary sage. — Dr. JLitchfield. — Party to Chacao. — Evening at Blandin's — plantation described — and house — the excellent means for steeping and preparing coffee — the augmentation of the plantation — kind of soil — females of the family — domestic concert. — Generous feeling towards Bolivar. — Midnight party. — Exquisite climate. — Novel aspect of ruins by night.
THE whole of the 28th was a day of uninterrupted festivity. The climate, always temperate, was, on this occasion, particu- larly favourable to the interchange of visits and to walking. The streets were crowded by the genteel class of young ladies, visiting some hours in their gayest apparel, and di-
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vested of every care but innocent enjoyment. The side tables in every house were covered with refreshments and bouquettes ; and it was not until near night that the neces- sity of preparing for the ball left the streets, for a short time, in silence.
No hall, in any private house, could be procured sufficient for the accommodation of so large a company as was in- vited. One of the largest houses, however, had, besides a spacious hall, a contiguous saloon and corridore ; and these were enclosed and floored for the dance, and the adjacent chambers for an entertainment, substantial and convivial.
The company had assembled before eight — a double band, for relief, was established in a passage between the saloon and the floored corridore, so that two sets might dance at the same time ; and the dancing soon commenced. In the Spanish contra-dance the couples stand as in our contra- dances, and the order is for the leading couple to dance down the whole set. But the musical time and the figures are substantially different. The elastic bounding figured steps, and, in a word, the exercise of our style of dancing, are not known in the Spanish dance ; the time is rather slower than the waltz in general, and, like waltzing, consists more of measured pacing than vivacious dancing ; the figures too are more involved ; for, although they change right and left, and perform all the common movements of our contra-dance, it is performed in graduated pacing, in which the hands partake as much as the feet, and the inclination of the head and in- flections of the person, exhibit the most graceful positions of the figure. At first the force of custom interferes with the idea of pleasure to a stranger ; it had not life enough for me ; but, after a little use, it becomes highly agreeable, and where the dancing and music are so fine, very interesting.
Waltzing followed the first set of contra-dancing, and continued alternately till about twelve, when parties of ladies only were drawn off for refreshment ; after which the gentle-
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nen were detached in turn, so as not to interrupt the gracing.
I had full opportunities to review this new and very inte- resting assembly, on this interesting occasion. The Inten- dant was present, at the birth day of his friend, as the station he occupied would necessarily call for. He was in the regular blue uniform, and took his station at the head of the room, the custom of the Spaniards yet prevailing ; and I found it the same at Bogota. Adopting the Spanish laws, from the very impossibility of forming a new code in the midst of war, the other usages go along with them. It is, no doubt, harmless, that a governor should preside at a festive celebration ; but, as of prescriptive right, which custom, long pursued, comes to be, it is not consistent with the equality of a free state, that the authority, vested as a trust for public be- nefit, should give countenance to a prerogative of precedency, where the principles of equality admit a magistrate to a pri- vate house with no prerogative above that of any other citizen. There was certainly no intention to set up an authority in the circle of domestic festivity, but a free people should not suffer a mere usage, at present not suspected to be evil, that may become one very serious. The Spanish minister Yrujo, during his residence in the United States, attempted to en- force an etiquette of precedence at the entertainments which the President of the United States gave to public ministers and their families ; but it was not tolerated ; the President, with his usual discernment and firmness, saw that it would lead to an endless squabble between the jealous vanity of one sex and the diplomatic artifices of the other. He de- eided that the first lady who came to his entertainment should have the first place, and so in succession. That there were no orders or degrees of priority or precedence in republics, and, if it were not proper that he should discharge his domestic duties, he would give his chair to any of his guests ; for he was only a citizen at the festive board. It is
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but just to say that general Sou blettc neither presumed nor assumed any thing unbecoming, he complied with a custom established ; and no one was offended, or even suspected, 'it would seem, that there was any thing incongenial with free- dom in the usage.
There were sixty couple in each of the two sets on the floor, and in motion at the same moment. As the dancing- rooms were spacious, the intervals behind the dancers af- forded ample space to see all the dancing parties ; and I had an ample opportunity to view the. beauties of Caracas. As the officers of the army every where are acquainted with the ladies, I had selected a friend from that class to be my con- ductor, and, as we passed along the gay ranks, I had the names and anecdotes of all who moved before us, male and female. I treasure nothing up on such occasions unless it be honourable and agreeable ; my memory has no place for any thing else ; and it was with sincere delight, of which time has not diminished the remembrance, that I saw on that occa- sion a scene of concord and liberality, good sense and propriety, which the enemies of the revolution had pretended to he im- possible, and the enemies of that revolution are the enemies to liberty every where, whatever they may pretend to ; I saw in the unaffected and cheerful intercourse and association of that ev- ening, the confutation of those croaking predictions and mali- cious aspersions cast upon the revolutionists, before triumph put a seal upon their cause ; it was predicted that the people of colour could never agree with those of fair complexion. Here I saw beauties as fair as Cynthia, and as ruddy as Hebe, brilliant white and roseate, gracefully traversing the mazes of the dance, with citizens composed of every shade, from fair to the complexion of the native Indian ; women, however, well educated in the best knowledge taught in the country, and not the less esteemed for not being wholly fair complexioned. The apprehensions insinuated by Depons, and attempted to be realized by Spanish emissaries, were here proved to be an
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illusion ; there was no discrimination now made, but by in- tellectual and moral fitness for personal respect or public sta- tion. The native Indian is no more a slave under the pre- tence of being protected, or placed for security in an cncomi- enda ; he is not compelled to abide with a number of others, unfortunate as himself, and to cultivate a piece of ground in common, and pay to his tyrants an annual tribute, only be- cause his ancestors were enslaved by foreign invaders, and the enslavement entailed on their successors. The Indian is now a man like other men, and they have earned it with the blood which they devoted to the emancipation of their coun- try. The obligation is felt, and, to the honour of human nature, it is honestly acknowledged.
I was gratified to see this rational regeneration, and I was surprized to learn, when expressing my satisfaction at seeing so many and such beautiful and elegant women, that all the beauty of Caracas was not there ; my guide informed me, that the ladies of several respectable families were absent, and among them many very beautiful women. In short, he told me that they were females of families devoted to the royal cause, to whom the occasion of this festival was a source of mourning instead of joy, and that they attended no festivity which had approval of the revolution for its object. What a subject for reflection ! How glorious is it for the cause of liberty to inspire and practise so much moderation ! What a contrast does this generous toleration present to that brutali- ty which the royalists displayed to the wives and daughters of the republicans ! I could not but take renewed delight when I saw passing before me the lovely wife and daughter of Lino Clemente, who but barely escaped with life into exile, and now move among the most distinguished of their'coun- try, in celebrating that liberty which disdained to retaliate upon innocent women, actuated by love of their parents to adhere to an unfortunate cause, the injuries which those very
14
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parents perhaps had inflicted on those who now triumphed in glorious joy and more glorious humanity.
In turning this subject in my mind, I became apprehen- sive, that this indulgence, like that to the ex-nobles in France and elsewhere, might prove pernicious ; in conver- sation with a venerable patriot the next day, I touched this subject, and inquired if there was any foundation for appre- hension. His sentiments were as noble and generous as they were wise ; I cannot express them with the sparkling eye and glow of satisfaction which he displayed ; but what he said was to this effect :
It is very true, said he, that those very interesting ladies make it a rule not to partake in any national festivity ; and it is the more to be regretted, because they were foremost in such festivals as were customary when the royalists tri- umphed over our disasters. But they are females, what else could they do? their parents had educated them in those principles, and shall we, who inculcate the duty of children to their parents, punish them for only doing what we cherish, and are proud of our own children for doing in accord with that duty ? They are innocent creatures, nay, I know many of them to be worthy of esteem and admiration. What could they do to injure us? we are not destitute of women worthy to be wives to our sons ; and if those do not marry republicans, they can have no other husbands here ; they cannot live in celibacy fifty years longer ; and if they marry at all, they must have republicans, and then even their children — those children they love, will be Colombians and not Spaniards. It was worthy of a sage like Franklin, and the sentiments do honour to the country and the cause.
It was very late when I retired from this ball ; at which the profusion of luxuries — the abundance of Champaign, Burgundy, Muscadel, and other wines, and the unalloyed happiness and hilarity that prevailed, I never saw surpassed any where.
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our circle of intercourse extended, so did the hospi- talities and kindness of our friends. Dr. Franklin Litch- field, an American, long a resident, married to a lady of un- common worth and fine understanding, had rendered us un- unceasing kindness and service. American visitors to Ca- racas found in him an invaluable and assiduous friend ; his appointment to the consulate at Puerto Cabello, while it does credit to those who appointed him, deprives the American vi- sitors of Caracas of a sure resort whenever aid was necessary. He made us acquainted with Mr. Blandin, a name familiar to travellers, and proverbial for his hospitality.
A party, of both sexes, was formed to visit Mr. Blandin and family, at his residence about four miles east of the city, and about a mile and a half from the south base of the Silla, in the valley of Chacao. The residence is more than a mile from the road to Petare, and leads along the trench through which the stream that irrigates the coffee plantation, finds its way to the Guayra ; it was bounded by a hedge of lime trees, not very much attended to, but bearing fine fruit. The coffee plantation stands between the road and the dwell- ing, and the beautiful erithryna^ with its wall-flower-like blossom, more abundant than its foliage, intercepted the view 'of the house, until close upon it. Our path to the house was amidst the avenues of the coffee-tree, beautiful, luxuri- ant, and loaded with fruit. The young people were busy with their delicate fingers, picking, with skilful dexterity, the brown berries from the long beads among which they had grown, and depositing them in neat baskets carried on the left arm ; the fruit being in every stage of growth, at the same time, and the tree never ceasing to bear.
We entered the court-yard from the east side, through which a handsome stream made its way, gurgling and fall- ing over little steps, dividing and occupying two channels, one of which rambled along a bed of pebbles in front of a platform raised about three feet above the spacious area in
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front of the dwelling, the other rill discharging its water into a capacious circular bason of masonry, which stood two or three reet below the surface of the area.
We had crossed this chattering rivulet, and passed the left wing of the dwelling, when Mr, Blandin came forward, called servants to take our horses, and, when he had seated us in a spacious hall open to the south, he welcomed us seve- rally, and ordered some fruit, sherbet, and other refreshments. The iaoy of the house, and her sister, and a daughter of about twelve, soon after came, and we were all at our ease in a few minutes. I left the ladies to their own discourse, and visited the various parts of this truly splendid and perfect establishment.
The dwelling itself, was exactly like a real bungalow of Bengal, in form, spacious, lofty, and made of the like ma- terials. The conviction of the danger of pita walls, after the earthquake of 1812, determined this judicious planter to erect a dwelling, of which the walls should be bamboo ; and, though ihe climate is not sufficiently warm to produce the bamboo there, the valleys south and east afforded him am- ple supplies. I did not measure, but I guess that the front of the dwelling must be more than sixty feet. A neat apartment of about twenty feet in front, and about the same depth, occupied each extremity ; the space between these two apartments is open like a corridore with bamboo pillars, which sustain the front of the roof, not less than twenty feet high, at the eaves ; and forming part of the single roof, that covers the whole extent of the dwelling ; which ap- peared to have several excellent rooms within the verandah, as it would be called in Hindustan.
In front of the house, and of the offices on the west end, a spacious paved area, forty or more feet broad, extended east and west about two hundred yards ; the mills, pounding house, cleaning and store houses, occupied a very ample space ; the stream, which had its source in the Silla, was con-
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ducted, by ingenious contrivances, to turn an overshot mill wheel, which performed the services that employ human la- bour on other plantations, various means of cleansing and separating the clean gram from the husk. There was a smithery, carpentery, and other workshops, which required only occasional employment, but, where artisans and imple- ments are not abundant, were essential to an establishment so ample.
The raised platform noticed before, ranged east and west on the south side of the paved area, along the whole front ; it was of brick work, about three feet from the pavement on the inner side, six or eight inches lower on the outer side, so as to have a gentle slope, and receive the full force of the sun's rays, when the grain was spread, before or after steep- ing, or drying for packing up ; several steeping cisterns, with trap doors, were placed at equal distances in the plat- form, so that in the various processes of steeping and drying no extra labour was required, nor time lost in shifting it from one place of the operation to the other. The stream which was noticed at the entrance, after being dipersed to various points ; after turning the mill wheel, supplying domestic uses, furnishing the kitchen, the laundry, and the bathing apart- ments ; reunited its dispersed rivulets, in the circular bason constructed of stone south of the platform, in which silver and gold fish sported ; and the redundant water overflowing through several prepared spouts, again dispersed over more depressed courses, through which it spread and meandered, through channels prepared and graduated to conduct it over the whole coffee orchard.
The number of bearing trees at this time was about ten thousand, and their average product gave a dollar a tree per annum. A more ample field was in preparation ; east and south-east of that already in production. As the ground was naked, I had an opportunity of distinctly examining it ; the soil was of a dry light composition, rather resembling
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wood ashes, mixed with pulverized schist or slate , and dim sparkles resembling mica, but not so large or bright. Even this soil was thin and scanty. Fire had been employed to clear several acres of brambles and exuberant wild briars ; the space uncleared was covered with the common bramble, Rubus Coryfohus, and cloud blackberry, Rubus Chamamo- rus ; and other wild brambles peculiar to the climate, and not named in our botanical works. The rocks appeared nearly as abundant as the surface covered with the scanty soil, and, in truth, the whole plantation on which the coffee plant was thus luxuriant and prolific was of the same description, so that climate and irrigation appear to be the essential requi- sites. The theories of writers who have not seen this culti- ^vation, are therefore not to be wholly relied on. Depons, with all his experience, says that it is requisite to be at some distance from the sea, the air of which withers the coffee. Mr. Blandin's trees have the screen of the Avila mountain and the peak of the Silla between them and the sea, but at Curucuti, on the north face of the Avila, in sight of Maqui- teia and the Caribbean sea, and open to the north and north- west, the most pernicious winds of that region, the coffee- tree flourishes in the same beauty and abundance as at Mr. Blandin's. The father of this gentleman was the first who in- troduced the coffee culture here in 1784 ; he had been a planter in the French colonies, and his respectable descend- ant, when he received us, was in the usual attire of the West Indies, a loose robe, or morning gown, and a cambric hand- kerchief in a negligent state covered his head. Well-dres- sed female domestics performed the services of the house, without any appearance of direction or command, but the exactness ; and their cheerfulness was manifest in their hap- py visages. Chocolate and ice-cream, and the never-failing nor ever- cloy ing sweetmeats, and indeed all that might be expected at an opulent West India planter's, and given with such kindness, as seemed to infer a compliment in the ac-
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ccptance. As the sun advanced westward we were conduct- ;d to the sitting room, where we found a most elegant or. janized harp of French manufacture. How it came there, or how brought, was the sentiment which succeeded the sa- tisfaction of seeing and hearing its excellent tones. Some of the officers of the army, who were of our party, and the la- dies, soon formed a concert, and executed some symphonies of Mozart in a perfect style. One of the officers proved to conceal beneath a modest deportment a most accomplished performer, and in a fine style accompanied with his violin the pieces which the ladies executed on the harp ; the infant daughter displayed evidence of the care and success with which her ear had been formed, and her voice and finger practised. The order and happiness of this family was en- viable, not because they could be less than they merited, but because it would be desirable that all human beings should partake the like felicity. The respectable master of the house, though he spoke not a word while they were singing and playing, was visibly the soul of the concert ; he watched and enjoyed the performance with a delight that would seem to belong to those only who were for the first time made partakers of his hospitality and its pleasure ; in- deed, his delight appeared increased with the satisfaction and the enthusiasm of some of us. He did not sit down during the performance ; his stock of music was ample, and appeared to be kept in so much order, that he never looked at the piece which he drew from the ample bureau, but pre- sented it to his lady or her sister, or to the gentlemen who led in particular pieces. I could not avoid complimenting this worthy man, by telling him he need not envy the condi- tion of any man on earth. " Yes," said he, " there is one man whom I envy, though I love," and pointing to the only picture in the apartment ; on approaching it, I found it to be Bolivar. His expression of countenance and eye, which seemed to twinkle with delight, conveyed sentiments
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more expressive than any form of language. I was silent for a few moments, for I did not desire to disturb either his exquisite feelings nor my own ; but I endeavoured to trans- late his thoughts, which seemed to say, " It is true, I am happy in the midst of my family and in the affection of my friends ; I want nothing for comfort, enjoyment, or gratifi- cation ; but what are the enjoyments of a single household compared with the felicity of soul which that man must en- joy, who, by years of disinterested labours, dangers, and indescribable sufferings and sacrifices, has led his country- men to triumph over a pernicious government, and not only given freedom to his contemporaries, but secured it for thou- sands of generations that are to come?"
Our delight stole away our time, and we certainly must have trespassed on the domestic regularity which was every where so manifest ; and when we stated our apprehensions, we were assured that they were not the slaves of time or ceremony ; that, as it was in their power to compensate by sleep at any other time, the hours devoted to agreeable inter- course, it was only painful when it was not continuous. We, however, decided — our horses were soon at the door, and taking leave of these happy people, about one o'clock in the morning, we retraced our way through the now dark shadows of the beautiful Erithryna, and the avenues of the coffee tree.
The night was, as it is usually at the season, serene, the bright blue canopy, studded with its splendid host of bril- liant worlds, and the air so pure and transparent, that the apparent monument at Petare, three miles east of our path, was distinctly visible ; and otic of the lofty churches of Caracas, in the west, as distinctly marked.
We passed by a plantation on our way home, which be- longed to a gentleman, a native of Caracas, who, after study- ing medicine, could not find, in a population of 30,000 souls, enough of sickness to live by, and therefore determining not i
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" die of the doctor?' had established himself here, and was already rich.
A ruin, which we were too busy to regard on our way to Blandin's, now, in the silence of the night, attracted my atten- tion ; it stands close under the south-west foot of the Silla, and close to the ascent ; it bore the ruined appearance of former splendor, and like a solitary palace of Persepolis, the roofless walls and columns still standing. It had been erected by some former chief ruler, and occupied later by a man of wealth, who proved faithless to his country. Many structures of a similar character are in a like state. Oppor- tunities were frequent, when, by returning to their first love, those mistaken men might have been reconciled to their country ; but the infatuated could not be persuaded that the untutored soldier of Colombia could ever resist the veterans of Spain. These mistaken loyalists now find, too late, how little of gratitude is due to the monarch, who, by his relent- less disregard of every consideration but his* own despotic will, continues to augment their sufferings.
The republics, however, have no reason to regret the royal infatuation. The venerable Charles Thomson, secre- tary to the Revolutionary congress, once said to me, that " the Revolution of 1776 was obtained too cheap, and be- fore the acquisition was duly appreciated ; the greatest of its evils were produced by natives, who had deserted their coun- try, and misled the British ministry ; when the object was accomplished, the same class of men, those who had been false friends, and those whom the generosity of the republi- cans had permitted to return, expected by treachery to ac- complish what had failed by arms — they failed, but the mis- chief they have done proves the mistake of those whose ge- nerosity they abused." The South American republics are exempted from this experience by Ferdinand VII.
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CHAPTER VIII.
Preparations for departure—friendly solicitudes for our safety on the journey-- pictures not exaggerated, — advice and precautions founded on our subsequent experience. — No wheel carriages, — no hotels or taverns, — no beds, — how to provide in various particulars-— comfort after fatigue no bad thing, — what it is necessary to provide for comfort and safety — hammock, blanket* suitable saddle, — a hint to guard against unpleasant company, — oil-cloth cloak a good thing.— Romeros what they are,— hints on saddles, bridles, and cruppers— and on the knavery of the muleteers, — maps and itineraries, — the uncertainty of computed distances in leagues, — no dependance on muleteers on this sub- ject— some functions of alcaldes — direct the supply of mules — the advan- tages of this usage — purchase of riding mules — provide for the exigencies of the road — experience as to provisions — loading of mules — hire an hombre de provechero and cocinero, — vary their names, — impose on us as to their fitness for guides, — travel armed, — mules unladen on halting, — mode of bivouacking in the forests, and on the paramos, — fingers, and thumbs, and calabashes, exis- ted before knives, forks, and spoons ;— a good sharp tomahawk,— tinder and matches, — good economical articles — prepare to march.
OUR residence at Caracas was now short of a month ; intimacies had been formed ; and attentions, kindness, and hospitality, had been so constant and so generous, that the approach of the period of departure on our journey became irksome. Elizabeth had been repeatedly solicited by Se- fiora Antonia and her daughter, and by Senora Clemente and family, and others, to remain till my return to Caracas, (as was my first intention) — it was represented that no lady had ever attempted such a journey before — that her delicate frame was not such as could encounter the fatigues, hazards, and privations which were inevitable, from the total want of roads, and the desolation of a great part of the route by the Spaniards. Indeed, friendly admonitions and persuasions were so unceasing — that the perils attending las tierras montanoso y seco — los paramos fno — las ttuvias ponderosos —
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as noches petigrosos — and las llanos acalarados — were so constantly rung in our ears, that, although there was really 10 exaggeration in the description, we found ourselves less disconcerted when the toils, privations, and fatigues, were realized, than we might have been, had they not been de- picted and reiterated with so much kindness and truth. Elizabeth had not, however, undertaken the journey to be deterred by those difficulties of which she had, from reading, anticipated before she set out, and her usual reply was, that she had her father and brother with her, that she could go any where they could go, and live upon whatever would subsist them. Indeed, her health, which had been feeble, and the restoration of which was a principal object of her undertaking the journey, had been already much improved ; and at all events, she said, separation from her father was out of the question. Accordingly we set about our prepa- rations.
Travellers in distant countries, owe it to those who are to follow in the same route, to afford such information as may enable them to provide against incoveniencies, of the mode best to be pursued to facilitate travelling, and to avoid what may be inconvenient. It is peculiarly necessary to be pre- pared in advance, in a country like South America, which may be said to exist now in the same state in which it came from the hand of creation. Travelling in Europe or Asia, is quite another sort of affair. Europe may be traversed from one extreme to the other, in one or another kind of wheel carriage ; Hindustan may be traversed asleep or awake, in a palankeen,.without exerting a muscle ; and if the traveller thinks fit, he may read sitting or reclined, rest or move on, and is sure to meet with population and subsist- ence in abundance every where, and at a small expence. In those countries where Spanish policy has arrested the activity of man, and palsied his genius, there are neither wheel carriages nor palankeens, the mule is the general
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bearer of all burdens : it is therefore specially necessary to understand the prices of mules, the mode of obtaining them for purchase or hire ; the kind of forage to be procured in different parts of the journey ; the kind of subsistence or provisions which may or may not be procured at different points of the route ; and to be prepared in advance where none is to be purchased ; the money current in different parts of the country, and the probable amount requisite. And to render all these things acquirable, .where the language is not well understood by the traveller, or even where it isf a person, as a guide, who understands the two languages, and is really acquainted with the route, and the mode of ob- taining what is necessary, is absolutely indispensable.
For the same reason, (that is, because there are neither hotels nor beds,) a good hammock, and the best is always the cheapest ; the best in Colombia are made at Victo- ria, in the valley of Aragua ; yet, it may be more prudent to purchase at an advanced price in Caracas, than risk dis- appointment at Victoria. So it is with mules, the best kind are high priced at Caracas, and lower priced further inland, but they are not constantly for sale in small towns, being sent to the best market when they are for sale.
The traveller in these countries, if he passes but a day's journey from the capital towns or cities, should not move without his hammock. Many persons affect to think that the traveller is effeminate who is anxious to provide for his comforts on the road. I can subsist on as plain and as little food, and as rough cookery, as any man ; but if I can sustain my strength, secure a delicious sleep after fatigue, and snatch natural pleasure from the midst of difficulties and perils, I am not the less able or willing to undergo the hardships which are unavoidable. Too much care cannot be bestowed on the hammock, blanket, saddle, and saddle-crupper ; they are objects called for by economy and comfort, as well as by health and security. The hammock should be provided with
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suitable cords properly fitted, and, I repeat, the best kind arc the cheapest. The most commodious mode of carrying the hammock is rolled like a dragoon's cloak, and thrust into an endless bag adapted to its size when rolled, and the cords in the midst of the roll ; this bag keeps the hammock clean, and, if there should be rain, secures it from wet. A good blanket, folded, should cover the saddle, and serve, in case of rain, as a romero, or cloak ; and if the nights should be sharp and keenly cold, as we found them at St. Pedro, only one day's march from Caracas, and subsequently at Mucha- chees and Pamplona, the blanket is an invaluable part of the traveller's baggage. The traveller should make it a positive rule not to suffer his blanket or hammock to be transferred to the baggage mules for accommodation ; unavoidable ac- cidents or the waywardness of the muleteers may separate the traveller from his baggage mules ; in which case the muleteer will not fail to use them ; and the owner may the next night find himself sleeping with disagreeable company. A prudent traveller will not repent of providing himself with an ample oil-cloth cloak and hood, and at least two full capes over the shoulders. In our whole route, of 1274 miles, we encountered, out of shelter, only three showers ; I had anticipated and provided against this exigency, having procured a sufficient quantity of a good linen oil-cloth from M*Cauley, of Philadelphia. Lieutenant Bache preferred to convert his oil- cloth into a romero or poncho, as it is called in Chile ; it is no more than a square cloth with an aperture through its centre to admit the head ; one end hangs in front, and the other behind ; the breadth being ample, the shoul- ders, arms, and sides, are better covered than by a sleeve, while the arms are perfectly free for any required motion. It is common to use a blanket for a romero by the natives, but there are stuffs of wool, cotton, and fibrous substances, pe- culiar to the country, employed this way ; some are of very tasty colours, striped and checkered ; and, in some of the
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districts, I have seen a^Jdnd of manufacture for romeros which I can compare with no article which it so much re- sembles as the hair-cloth with which we cover couches. But it was absolutely water-proof. The traveller should have a fair weather or light chip hat, and another for foul weather; both sufficiently broad to shelter the head and face from rain or sunshine. Senora Bolivar was so kind as to present me a hat made of the fibre of the Cuquisias, or Aloe, which was so well made as to serve me for all circumstances, not only to Bogota, but thence to Carthagena and home, in the worst weather ; and, in the hands of a skilful Indian, it might be now made a handsome article.
The saddles and bridles fit for riding mules, should not be such as are used in riding horses : and the saddlery sent from some of our cities, besides being ill adapted to the uses of the country, as far as I had an opportunity of seeing them, were by no means calculated to do credit to the workmanship or the morals of American manufacturers. They were un- suitable in pattern, and made so feeble, where they should be strong, as to render them unmerchantable, and to spoil the market. The British, more judicious, obtain information and patterns, and adapt the fabrication to the convenience and the use of the articles ; and unless the manufacturers of the United States provide suitable articles, they will have cause to complain of disappointment ; which, as on many other occasions, they make a matter of reproach to the country which they fail to abuse. The prices exacted are alike enormous, and the South Americans will, probably, be designated as bad customers, when they do not pay fifty or sixty dollars for a saddle that might be bought in any of our cities for seven or eight dollars.
The saddle, for South America, should be high pommel, or peak and cantle, like the manege saddles of the Prussian school, and sometimes mistakenly called hussar saddles. The nature of the country, steep ascents and abrupt de-
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scents, render them not merely comfortable, but more safe ban the plain English fashioned hunting saddle. The Tupper staples, and the cruppers, should be of triple the jtrength required on a level country ; and the girths, sur- cingle, and martingal, or breast-band, should be stout, and strongly affixed by firm swivel staples to the front of the saddle-tree ; and spare girths in the baggage will not be re- pented. The buckles of the horse- equipments, if made merely to sell, may sell too dear, as they put human life to hazard. The pack, or cushion of the saddle for the horse of sixteen or seventeen hands high, with a broad round back, cannot be suitable for the back of any, even the largest rid- ing mules. Two days' journey would ruin the best mule, with the horse saddle. The pads, or cushions, should be very full and well stuffed, so that the spine of the animal shall not be touched by any part of it. For the same rea- son portmanteaus, or even a pad with a cloak, cannot be carried on the mule, behind the rider, unless he rides in the Spanish cavalry saddle, of which the tree sends out two limbs behind the cantle, three or four inches higher than the mule's back ; we had one of those saddles in our party, which would be a good pattern, even for the travellers of the United States, as these limbs afford an easy space for a light portmanteau, without touching the animal's back.
The strength of the bit and bridle is alike necessary, for, although in riding the mule in ordinary, on the plain, or the steep, or the descending declivity, the safest course of the rider is to hold a loose rein ; there are cases in which the mule will require the pressure of the bit, and the rider's hand, which experience only can teach ; inefficient means, in such circumstances, often involve destruction. The large Spanish bit is in universal use, and, though of a contrary opi- nion before this occasion, I acknowledge my conviction of its importance, indeed, of its indispensable necessity. The rowels of the spur, in general use, are universal, and prove
12U VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
to be the masters of the manege ; the mule is not obedient without them : when satisfied of their necessity, 1 mounted them, and I found that it was not necessary always to use them, as is required with our small ro welled spurs, constantly, with some horses of a bad temper. The attire of panniers, and ropes for baggage-mules, are always provided by those who hire out the mules — the pilfering of curb chains, ropes, horse- halters, spurs, and other loose articles, are as much the objects of thievery among muleteers, as among the hostlers and jockies of other countries. The domestic or attendant should be responsible for such things.
A good map of the country, and the best itineraries of the proposed route, are highly useful. The best -maps current, it is true, are very deficient, and some extremely erroneous ; but none of them can mislead as to the general face of the country, or the relative positions of the principal cities, towns, and rivers.
I had been in possession of much matter of this kind be- fore, but in Caracas I procured a copy of an itinerary, which I found to be most exact and useful ; it was that of the Ca- non of Chile, Jose Cortes Madrigada, in the year 1811-12, He marked his morning hour of departure; his breakfasting stage, his dining stage, and where he slept, and the computed distance of each day's journey ; which last, though the only uncertain part of the itinerary, I shall preserve, and give the exact copy in the appendix No. I. Another itinerary of a military officer, No. II, which will serve to compare with the first, is also given ; as I am speaking of itineraries, I .shall give the route from Bogota by the Magdalena, No. Ill, with such other information of the same kind, as I transcribe my jour- nal, and such illustrations as may render them useful.
The traveller may find in Colombia, what is not unfre- quent in what are called old countries, a constant contra- diction as to the distance between places, as he will seldom find two whom he may inquire of on the route, who will agree
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within two or three, or half a dozen miles ; and the last to •e trusted in this particular are the muleteers generally, and ome of the alcaldes, both of whom have sometimes an in- srest in adding to or taking away from the account. Some iotes of the various modes of stating or estimating, or gues- ing the distances in leagues, will be given in another place. The mention of alcaldes renders it proper to notice the re- lation in which they stand to travellers. The title answers to the general term magistrate, but that particular office referred to is the alcaldes of cities and towns, whose functions em- brace local police, the administration of justice summarily in the lesser districts of civil administration, and, as part of the duties of police, the protection of strangers. It is to the alcaldes (where the place is not exclusively a military post) that application is to be made for the supply of mules, and for lodgings, which the alcalde is not bound to provide in any other way than to issue his orders ; and I have been told that the alcalde is bound to keep a registry of mules within the bounds of his jurisdiction, and from these he orders in rota- tion the number required, leaving it to him for whose use they are, to agree upon the compensation. There is usually a market rate or price per number of leagues ; and here, if the muleteer and the alcalde have an understanding, the route becomes more or less long or short, as the traveller appears to be uninformed. Gil Bias, in relation to muleteers, is no fiction ; those of Spain have their pendants in South America, though it is no more than truth to say, that there is less of knavery of that class among the alcaldes in Colombia than in Spain, though I have met a few who would rival the worst of them. I have found more than twenty to one, fair, honour- able, and obliging men.
The exigencies of the revolution, which rendered it im- practicable to give the institutions of Colombia a new orga- nization in all the necessary details, went no farther in chang- ing the municipal and social forms, than became indispensa-
16
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ble to the good order of society. The administrative power retained the same gradations. Cities, towns, and villages, which are the concerns with which we have here to do, were, as in former times, governed, some by a military comman- der, others by cabildos or corporations, who were elective, and in which the alcaldes were chosen by the cabildos ; some villages and towns had their alcaldes, first, second, third, and even a fourth, where the population required them.
The functions of the alcalde more remarkably resemble those of the Cauze in Asia than our mayor; for, besides his authority in matters of police and small affairs of a pecuniary nature, which he decides summarily, he is the guardian of the police, and the director of all matters that are not exercised by authorities of a higher degree, such as judges and military commanders ; with their jurisdiction he does not interfere ; but all that they have not authority to do, he has authority to perform under the recognized laws and customs.
When we were about to proceed on our route, as pass- ports continued to be necessary from the then state of war, \ve applied to the superior power, and obtained our passport; the next recourse was to the alcalde ; for there is at Ca- racas a military governor, chief Jcalde and subordinate al- caldes de barrio* or alcaldes of wards.
The application to the alcalde specifies the number of per- sons, principals and domestics, and riding mules required, and for each load of baggage, a mule; the destination to be mentioned, and the time proposed to set out. The alcalde's duty is to order mules, and to see that they be provided. Each alcalde keeps a registry of the mules in his jurisdic- tion, which is of advantage to the public, to the traveller, and to the owner of the mules ; for, as the purpose of keep- ing mules is for hire, though the call for mules may be oc- casionally an inconvenience to the owner ; yet, when they are required for travellers, the charge is usually more than when called forth on the public service or private mercantile
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transport. No fee is paid for passports under the republic ; it was otherwise under the monarchy, and frequently a source of great vexation and exaction. When the alcalde's order issues, the ariero (or mule owner) presents himself and makes his bargain — and the price, though there is a custo- mary price per number of leagues, is also influenced by the apparent quality, or the ignorance of the language, or any exigence or eagerness manifested by the traveller to get for. ward. The muleteers, owners and drivers, are usually as shrewd, and sometimes as knavish, as the itinerant assistants in other countries.
We purchased four prime mules at S160, 150, 120, 110, one for each of us to ride, and the fourth as a relief mule, which we did with mature advisement, and found, upon ex- perience, the pecuniary advantage, as well as the comfort, in following the advice, in passing the " antres vast and de- serts wild" of the Andes. We required a man to provide food and forage, and cook, and, as the stealing of mules from travellers was not unfrequent during the war, it was prefer- able to hire a servant to take care of them, than risk the loss of a mule in the deserts, remote from places where mules might be, or not be, procurable. We procured two per- sons for these purposes. As chocolate is not only a nutri- tious but refreshing beverage, and easily prepared after the manner of the country, the traveller should ascertain the dis- tance he may have to travel, and the quantity of chocolate and other things required daily for the required distance ; bread, where it i§ to be had ; poultry and eggs may be pur- chased on the road; but where the war has depopulated ex- tensive districts, and the forests and mountains present vast intervals uninhabited ; the value of a guide and the accuracy of his knowledge are beyond price. For the first hundred miles, or from Caracas through the valley of Aragua, pro- visions are to be had at very moderate prices, as the towns and villages are numerous, and even after the war were opulent.
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we passed through, though the marks of the deso- lation of war were very evident. Fine fruit, particularly oranges, and sweet bananas, are abundant, wholesome, and cheap; and it will be very prudent, where they are plenty, to provide in advance. No wine is to be had but in pri- vate houses; but we found no inconvenience from the scarcity ; those who require it must carry it ; but the cost and damage will too probably overbalance the gratification or use expected. New milk may be had on the road, but as the cows are never milked but once a day, and the calf always attends the cow, and the richness of the pastures ren- ders the milk not so mild and palatable as in our temperate climate, it will be always prudent to boil or dilute it with water ; but to use little in the warm plains, though we have often taken it fresh from the cow, equal in sweetness, and palatable as our own : butter is not to be had but in the capital cities. The edible roots of the country are fine, va- rious, and abundant in every inhabited place.
The lading of the mules is a very important consideration j if a mule be overladen, the traveller is retarded in his pro- gress, or the mule may break down where no other is to be had — so that not only delay and expense, but loss of baggage may be the consequence. The usual and fairest load required by the muleteer is about 250 pounds weight. The best mode of carrying baggage is in two leather trunks, (all leather, with good locks and keys) — so that the weight may be equally distributed. The mules furnished on hire are not always the best, and it requires to guard against this contingency. An acquaintance with the language is of the greatest advantage, as well for obtaining provisions, as for a knowledge of the right road. As far as San Carlos, it is open, spacious, and well marked by the beaten track of mules, who concentrate in that neighbourhood, or between that city and Valencia, on the route to Puerto Cabello, the Valley of Aragua, or Caracas. After leaving that city, on the routes
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* Diith-west or north-west, the country becomes wild, and the c ourses perplexed. A knowledge of the language may ena- l le the traveller to obtain directions, but without this know- ixlge, an hombre de provecho, or purveyor, to procure subsistence and forage, to wait upon the alcaldes, to guard against imposition, and to perform domestic services, is in- dispensable ; a stranger may very easily, or almost to a cer- tainty, go astray, if he moves at all. We had found a native of Caracas, who called himself Manuel, recommended him- self by an assurance that he had been a domestic of the liber- tador's, and said he was perfectly acquainted with the whole route, that no man understood better than himself the care of mules or horses, and that he would ask no more than eight dollars a month, to which we agreed. A St. Domingo negro applied under the name of John, who said he knew every thing, and had been every where, cooked a fricasee as well as any Frenchman, and spoke Spanish, French, and English, like a native. We found, very soon, that Manuel's name was Vincente, and that John's name was Pedro; that neither of them had ever been beyond Truxillo ; but both turned out to be excellent cooks, and altogether not bad servants. Pedro's English was not good, but his Spanish was negocia- ble. Their ignorance of the road was, by an accidental oc- currence, rendered to us unnecessary, as will be seen on our leaving Valencia.
Although we had no cause to complain "of danger or mo- lestation on the whole route, we were advised, and indeed I had anticipated the advice, to go armed ; and to assume a military appearance, which, however, had its inconveniences. The state of war had sent abroad many vagabonds, but as lieutenant Bache and myself, and our domestics, wore sabres, and we had good pistols in display, and gained an auxiliary on the way, probably our state of preparation may not have been useless.
1S6 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The mules are unladen whenever the traveller halts to dine or sleep ; if in the forest, on the paramo, the plains, or the side of a rivulet, and the country is every where exuberantly watered, the servant in charge of the mules forms them into a circle, and each mule must have a strong halter for the purpose. The forage is placed before them, and the fire is made and the food prepared the while. A trunk formed our table, and others formed our chairs, and in this way we have partaken of a most delightful breakfast, dinner, or sup- per ; sometimes, in the warmer regions, hanging our ham- mocks on the trees of the forest, and taking a sweet sleep in the pure air and the shade of the trees. Our feast, on such occasions, consisted of poultry and eggs, cooked according to the judicious caprices of our cocinero. Eggs and poul- try are standing articles — sometimes we purchased a kid; one of our people skinned, and displayed it ; what was not wanted for the instant was tied, exposed to the open air, and carried in that manner untainted, there being none of those flies which injure meat in other climates. Vessels of more than a pint measure are common in the country for prepar- ing chocolate, but it would be prident to be provided with good tin vessels, knives, forks, and spoons ; all that 1 had proposed to provide was not completed — I had committed to a friend the charge of this provision of these conveniences, but my friend, as he afterwards with great simplicity ac- knowledged, had not provided knives, forks, or spoons, be- cause he concluded that wherever meat or soup were to be had, those instruments would naturally be found also ; the earthen platter of the country, and the cooking utensils of red pottery, supplied the place of utensils more refined ; and the calabash shell furnished us with turtumas, of various sizes for water- cups, soup-basons, milk-cups, and even substitutes for spoons; they served to sip our chocolate or coffee in the midst of the forests, our lemonade in the mid-
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127
day, and our punch when no better beverage was to be had but the raw milk of the paramos; and good wine, when it could be had, lost none of its flavour by being drank out of a calabash cup.
The traveller will often have use for a good sharp toma- hawk, which may be hung in an eye-strap at the bow of the saddle ; if he is under the necessity of sleeping in the woods, or making a fire for the cookery ; or if he wishes to hang his hammock conveniently for a fellow-traveller, or near his mules, the tomahawk saves time as well as promotes com- fort. A flint and tinder-box, and steel, with matches, serve the same purposes of facility and efficiency in travelling ac- commodation, and without them he may go to his hammock supperless, or suffer privation in addition to fatigue.
The 13th of November was devoted to visiting and taking leave of our kind friends, completing our equipments, and preparing for our departure on the following morning.
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CHAPTER IX.
Leave Caracas on the fourteenth of November— friendly cavalcade — bank of the Guayra — venerable family of Toro — Antimano — pass La Vieja — reach Las Juntas-— the junction of the San Pedro and Macaro with the Guayra — halt at zpulpureia — first taste of domestic cookery — country articles — a posada or tavern for muleteers — the social economy — a refresco — ordered without garlic in vain — moderate charges — refresco a fine subject of fun at parting— the heights of Higuerota — Bonavista — view of Caracas — excavated road — a fine specimen of asbestos — General Paez and suite — meet young troops — above the clouds — appearance— Bolivar the theme of songs every where — laborious and dangerous descent — forsake the clouds, and see the verdant earth— the deep blue canopy appears— warmer atmosphere— reach San Pedro — adventures there — piercing cold night —Sacristy of the Church — hang up our hammocks effigy of the virgin — no disturbance all night — moved through Loxas— more soldiers — characteristics of — Cuquisias — Consejo- halt to refresh —the river Tuy, its course.- Valley of Aragua — appearances— lodged — order of our establishment -hospitality — hammocks how hung— moved early the sixteenth— appearance of the country — flowering shrubs— mountain range — peculiar features of — limpid rills. — San Mateo. — Estate of the President Bol- ivar— fine sugar-mill, and plantation — halt there — entertained.
OUR departure on the morning of the fourteenth had col- lected, according to the usage of the country, a numerous cavalcade of our friends, with the intention of escorting us out of town, as had been done at our coming. The route lies over the Garaguata, by the ample bridge before noticed, and leads through a spacious street in the quarter of St. Juan, to a considerable distance beyond the regular line of the streets ; the road had been paved three or four miles be- yond the inhabited range, and had a gradual ascent ; but the advantage of good paving was here manifest, in the ex- cavation of the road by rains, where the pavement had been broken up ; the firm pavement standing on its first surface a foot or eighteen inches above the surface now washed away, which had been formerly a part of the same causeway. We soon reached the plunging current of the Garaguata, the
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jighbourhood of Antimano, seven miles from Caracas, em- bosomed in verdant hills, and rich in its tillage ; after a tem- porary halt, to pay our respects to the venerable general To- ro and his family, who resided there, we soon crossed the Guayra, leaving the small hamlet of La Vega on our right, as we entered the little valley of Antimano ; and reached Las Juntas, or the junction ; the little river Macaro, and the less rivulet of San Pedro, here uniting with the gur- gling Guayra, plunging in its descent over a bed of small rocks, and bounded by many rocks of more magnitude. Las Juntas is about twelve miles from Caracas, somewhat elevated above the valley ; there are but a few houses, the principal of which is a pulpureia^ literally a huckster-shop, in which the ordinary articles of vinegar, oil, candles, lard, seeds, and garlic, are sold, and where we had bur first spe- cimen of the entertainment, cookery, and guarapa, with which we were to be thenceforward regaled ; for there was a posada or country tavern contiguous, or rather part of the pulpureia. Here our friends alighted about nine o'clock. Groupes of muleteers and mules were busy in taking their refresco, and I had much amusement in witnessing the cu- riosity and wonder of my young fellow-travellers, and I shall describe, once for all, the interior, the entertainment, and the accommodations of a pulpureia and a posada ; for the manners and entertainment at this place, so near the city, was such as prevails among the most distant population.
The establishment consisted of a long thatched or tiled shed, parallel with the road ; one half of the front was open to man and beast, the other half presented a long counter, upon which were displayed, as the principal commodity, a multitude of ropes of garlic, strings of sausages, and puddings of formida- ble magnitude, and through their thin transparent coats re- vealing the excellencies of the fat and the lean pork, and the garlic, of which they were fashioned out in nearly equal quantities; they were rather dusky resemblances of the
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130 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
columns of the Capitol, in the variety of their shades ; coils of T-jyo, that is ropes of dried beef, concerning which I shall speak hereafter ; callow candles hung against the wall ; and the other merchandize were disposed, without much regard to shew or order, on massy shelves. The pulpero was em- ployed very busily in serving his rapid succession of cus- tomers, while an assistiente, stationed at a large jar of some twenty gallons measure, served out to his class of customers a liquid which my turn had not yet come to taste ; it was Guarapa, and when I come to relate how partial I came to be to this fermented liquor (when nothing else could be had), the future traveller may anticipate, however deli- cate his palate or choice in his liquors, that he will cer- tainly find himself in a position to render Guarapa desira- ble.
Our friends, resolving to enjoy the first effects of the fine light air, into which we had ascended, ordered a refresco for us and company ; and, desirous of partaking of the good things of the new world, gravely directed it should be the best, and without garlic. I suppose my articulation rendered my injunctions unintelligible, for we were shewn into what may be called a room, because there was a space of about seven feet by six ; a sort of old door on a truck about four feet from the floor, which was intended for the table ; there was only one chair, and that had lost half a leg, per- haps in the war ; a large wooden dish was placed on the ta- ble, as I may cull it ; some of us contrived means to place ourselves in a position for the attack on the salt pork junks, from which issued vapour and perfume of garlic, quite enough to satisfy curiosity. I tasted it, and it was actually well cured with salt, and if the dish had been something, to appearance, cleaner, and the garlic dispensed with, I could have made a good breakfast of it. Finding that chocolate and some eggs could be had in the pulpureia^ and some Caracas bread, this I preferred to the casava, which was
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brought to table in a pile, with some cups of tolerable Ca- talonia, we continued to finish our refresco — without very much reducing the contents of the wooden dish.
If the table was not covered with delicacies, the charge was moderate ; and we prepared to separate from our friends, who partook with us in the pleasure, and the fun produced at our feast. We mounted, and pursued our way up the winding ravine, which forms the road to the mountain of Higuerota. and reached Buenavista, said to be five thou- sand feet above the ocean, from whence we had a delightful view of Caracas. The morning was charming, and luxuri- antly refreshing ; and we frequently turned round to take a last look at a city where we had found so many friends, parta- ken of so much kindness and hospitality ; and winding our way, indicated by our silence the emotions and anticipations of the past and the future.
The ascent had been here graduated by labour into a spacious road, of sixty feet broad, the sides, impending banks of t-arth. Lieut. Bache discovered some specimens tf asbes- tos of considerable length of fibre, which was in great abun- dance. Soon afterwards a number of youths with musquets met us as we descended the mountain ; and soon after a general officer and his suite, dashing desperately down the steep descent ; it was general Paez, who simply touched his hat to us without halting. We soon after met a numerous detachment of soldiers, marching without order towards Caracas; arid from a sub-officer, whom I addressed, learned who they were that passed us, and that the troops he was with, were principally recruits marching to the depot ; and with more than usual communicativeness, observed that the general was not going to Caracas with troops for nothing.
We were soon involved in a thick mist, which to the first seeming had fallen upon us, but in fact the clouds were suspended in an horizontal range, that left an unclouded space beneath, out of which we ascended, and entered the stratum
132 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
of clouds ; from which we very soon emerged again into a bright sun, and, while our heads appeared to reach above the clouds, our bodies were yet involved in the shade. This moment of immersion presented a most sublime spec- tacle ; we seemed to stand upon an island in a vast, but tranquil ocean ; no part of the country was visible but the summit of the long ridge along which we travelled ; and the sides of its really steep precipices appeared to be but the shores of the sea; while our course above the horizon of that sea, was in a bright but not offensive light. The ridges of Los Teques, which border on, and separate this ridge from the Caribbean sea, were not discernible, though unquestionably higher than the upper surface of this cloudy horizon ; we passed a posada, where muleteers were carousing, and the name of Bolivar was, as usual, the burden of their song.
Having passed the summit, and commenced our descent, we now seemed to enter a veil of vapour, which continued to involve us a considerable way down. The road on the summit was a level well- beaten track, our route now was through a rugged ravine, the surface, partly covered with a rubble of angular stones ; the earth, which was a grey gritty clay, had been washed away, and knolls of a more adhesive yellow earth were left standing in the road ; which rendered the descent not only fatiguing but dangerous, and I found it it prudent, in passing some of those knolls, to throw my- self off my mule, rather than risque worse consequences, which I accomplished without any unpleasantness besides.
We had now descended below the stratum of clouds once more, and could enjoy, with great satisfaction, the richly verdant country, now and then illuminated by a sunbeam breaking through the clouds. The vapour on a sudden cleared entirely away, and the deep blue canopy was unspot- ted, but the atmosphere became warmer with the sunbeams, and the sierra stood in dark sublimity, on our right, ranging from west to east ; and the mountains we had passed seem-
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ed to turn their backs upon the sun, and fling their long sha-
rws obliquely across the valley. We had sauntered above the clouds without any other thoughts than those which were produced by the grandeur and beauty of the scenes before us ; but the difficulties of the descent retarded us so much, that it was an hour after night set in before we gained the brow of the deep valley of San Pedro, computed to be about thirty miles from Caraccas. We had here some new experience of the importance of good servants. Vincente, being a native of the country, was dispatched in advance to seek the alcalde, procure accom- modations, and refreshments. This valley, though very deep, has its line of direction apparently from north to south, and a piercing cold air passed through it, which we felt the more, as we were much fatigued, hungry, and in need of repose. Having descended to the village, Pedro found a posada, which we entered, and there found that Vincente had ordered a supper : two wooden dishes were laid on a table containing some rank sausages, two cold roast fowls, one of which had been -winged by some preceding sharp-shooter ; some coarse bread, and two bottles of muddy Catalonia wine. The in- variable fragrance of Spanish cookery was not yet so fami- liar as to find acceptance, even with keen appetites; as before, we shifted with the bread and bad wine, which, as a substitute for the dead stock, was to us as welcome as Bur- gundy. We however obtained some chocolate, and were as content as if our entertainment had been luxurious.
Vincente had not succeeded in finding the alcalde ; but Pedro had obtained some bundles of young sugar cane, which came from the warm valleys, and is the common food of mules, as barley is the forage of the cooler regions, as well as molocha, that is, the stalks of maize in that state before they shoot out ears. The maize in grain is also given for food.
Vincente at length returned with an order for quarters, and it was no other than the sacristy of the village church, which
134* VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
we had left half a mile above the village as we descended. The domestics having procured a torch, we soon entered the church-yard, which, under the circumstances of novelty in which we were, had a strange and ludicrous appearanct . Our baggage mules, with a torch, led the way, we followed in Indian file, the lieutenant first, Elizabeth next, and I brought up the rear ; another torch came soon after. The piety of the concerned in the church had placed on the stone pillars of the fence which surrounded the place a number of human skulls ; the sacristy stood at the north or extreme end, and thus we passed to our appointed quarters. The sacristy was about twenty feet in length, and twelve or thirteen in breadth, and adjacent was another smaller room ; we hung up our three hammocks for the first time here, and Elizabeth's ham- mock being placed in the middle, our two domestics, and the muleteer who was attached to the baggage mules, occu- pied a corridor, where they slept on cow -hides, having made a fire in front as a security for the mules, for which forage had been provided for the night. The cold during this night was intense, notwithstanding a figure of the Virgin, large as life, but rather ordinary in costume, stood at the end of the chamber in which we slept.
It was our purpose to move before five in the morning of the 15th, but we could not get the mules laden at that time, and having in the mean while procured some chocolate for our road stock, we moved off about seven o'clock, ascended the mountain of Cuquisias, passing through the village of Loxas without halting ; ascended through another water- worn ravine, and were passed by about two hundred soldiers straggling slowly towards Caracas, the greater portion of whom appear- ed to be about fourteen or fifteen years old, but full of heed- less gaiety. Their cheerfulness and alacrity surprized me ; the muskets they carried were of the London Tower pattern, and must have weighed nine or ten pounds ; they wore cross belts, cartridge boxes, and bayonets; a leather japanned cap, a
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shirt and pantaloons of oznaburgs, and a jacket of duck or Russia, which once had coloured facings. They had none of them shoes, but several wore a sort of sandal called pa- ragattas. About two miles farther west, where there was a level road, we met a corps of about the same number march- ing in good order in double files ; and after them, at various distances, several women, some on foot, and some mounted with the military accompaniments for cooking, and as usual, young children. We entered Cuquizias at half past ten, and here took some of the country beverage called chiclm^ and eat a luncheon from our own stock.
The village of Cuquizias consists of not more than a dozen cottages, scattered on the ridge which it occupies ; the sum- mit is prolonged in a south-west and north-east direction, and is no where more than 100 to 150 yards in breadth; the sides are steep and precipitous — the plains, on each side, present the most exquisite pictures of nature; di- versified by cultivation, and hamlets scattered at unequal distances. We reached Consejo, at the foot of Cuquizias, at twenty-five minutes past one, and the heat of the day in- duced us to halt and refresh there — as we were now within a short distance of several towns. We halted at a well-or- dered pulpureia, where there was an active traffic in pur- chase and sale ; I slung up my hammock, at the invitation of the hospitable pulpero, in the spacious store, which ap- peared to be a central resort from the surrounding country. He was an obliging man, he presented my daughter some excellent bananas and oranges; and, with some wine, we found ourselves, by three o'clock, fit to march. The pul- pero would not accept any remuneration ; he was frank, po- lite, and communicative, and, on being informed we were North Americans, his fine black eyes appeared to scintillate — he took some pains to direct us, and appeared much inte- rested in us.
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The river Tuy passes under a rude wooden bridge, close to the pulpureia ; a limpid stream, having its source in the valley of San Pedro, about thirty feet broad, winds from the north- east, chattering over its pebbled bed ; and, turning off be- fore us to the west, holds its way at the foot of the group of Cuquizias, which here presents a receding slope on the south side of the luxuriant valley which it irrigates, and gives life, and beauty, and vigor to the plantations of sugar-cane, that occupy its sides ; when again winding round the base of this group of these ever-green mountains, takes a direction south, variably south-east, and meandering through the val- leys of Tocata, Cura, Sabanade Ocumare, St. Lucia, and The- resa, unites the volume of its accumulating waters with the Guayra ; and affords, among the other benefits of its beauti- ful stream, water sufficient for the navigation of small boats, upon which the excellent cacao, coffee, sugar, and other pro- ductions of the course which it fertilizes, are transported to the neighbourhood of Cape Codera, and is by light craft thence diffused along the coast east and west, where cargoes are made up. The Tuy, and jhe Tuyco, which falls into the Gulf of Triste, west of Puerto Cabello, are the only rivers between Barbaruta, west of Puerto Cabello, and the Yara- cuy, in Cumana, that are navigable. The Tuy is susceptible of considerable improvement, by the mere application of ma- nual labour to the removal of the obstructions formed by the accumulations of forest trees, which have been deposit- ed by floods, and which produce most pernicious inunda- tions, in seasons when the rains are more than usually heavy in the mountains, whose waters are concentrated in its mean- dering bed. The Spanish authorities, in 1803, caused Pe- dro Caranga, a skilful engineer, to make a survey and report on the practicability of improving the Tuy, with a view to revenue, by preventing those desolations by flood, which repeatedly destroyed many rich plantations. His report shew- ed, not only the greater advantages, but the little expense or
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lifticulty required to accomplish it ; but the Caracas influ- ict- , calculating that they must be ruined, if the adjacent valleys prospered, the affair was buried in the archives, until a more generous and wise judgment was directed to it since the revolution ; believing that the improvement and enrich- merit of any part of the same country must, under a liberal system of government, benefit the whole, it continues to be one of the objects upon which the public providence will act, now that peace and independence admit the faculties of the republic to be taken from war and directed to economy. The Tuy forms the line of separation from the valley of Ara- gua and the road lying on its right bank, until it suddenly winds off to the south within a few miles of Victoria. From my own observations, I believe the Tuy and lake of Valen- cia may be united and rendered navigable.
Our mules had abundance of fodder, and, after a hearty repast of molocha, sweetened off their meal with the most delicate green sugar canes, and on this, as on many other oc- casions, we found the benefits of such good provender in the proportionate alacrity of our mules.
This part of the valley of Aragua presented a different as- pect from that of the city of Caracas— the space was not here a uniformly flat extensive plain, but consisted of what we should call rolling ground, hills and dales, in which light and shade gave infinite diversity of field and fruit, deep and dark verdure relieved the foreground, and the enamelled leaves of numerous plants cast forth a tremulous light, giving the whole that kind of effect which the bright tints of Chi- nese pictures yield, while the receding shade of the hills in the distance, south-east and south, presented a line which appeared orderly, well defined, and unbroken ; but this was the illusion of distance and indistinctness ; we had in a few days after a demonstration both of the enormous elevation and broken texture of these spurs of the Cordillera, which
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appeared as airy and light as the lace on a lady's morning cap.
After half an hour's ride along the brink of the pebbled bed of the Tuy, it disappeared in the opening of an appa- rently narrow chasm ; but our route continued nearly a dead level. Sugar, indigo, maize, and cacao plantations, and vast fields of maize covered all within the range of our ob- servation ; cultivation was both active and prosperous, and, did not a brighter sky and the presence of tropical plants arrest the impression, we might suppose ourselves in Pennsylvania at harvest time.
It was half past five, and being recommended by a friend to spend a day with an officer resident at Victoria, we sent Vincent forward, who soon found the place; the officer however had gone on a visit to Achaguas, a kind of Mont- pelier ; but the house-keeper, on presenting ourselves, threw open the doors, prayed us to alight and walk in, and without waiting for an answer, directed the servants to the coral, and how to provide forage. The coral is simply a yard or en- closure for horses, mules, or other animals, and, as there is no ingress or egress from any house, but through the one gate, the coral comes within the domestic precincts, and animals are kept without danger of going or being led astray.
We had entered Victoria by the Calle de Colombia, which lies north and south ; it is the main street. The external appearance of the houses is cleanly, neat, and handsome ; though there are none of more than one story, they are lofty and spacious, as is most suitable in a warm climate. The white-washing outside and inside I found to be here a stated periodical practice; and there were numerous shops, in which, like the stores in our interior, were exhibited and sold all sorts of commodities, food, raiment, and frippery.
We had already found it expedient, though small as our corps was, to distribute and assign duties, so that no excuse for neglects should be shifted ; to Vincent was assigned, as a
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live, and having something of personal vanity about him, to our agtnt with the alcaldes, in the business of mules, quarters, and whatever appertained to him. To Pedro was as- signed the purveyorship and cookery. The first step in quar- ters was to select the positions for our hammocks, so that Elizabeth should have the most suitable place, and ours be so contiguous as to leave no cause of apprehension. After the hanging of the hammocks, the standing order was chocolate immediately, and as it is consumed by all descriptions, and made up in balls ready sweetened, the operation does not require more than five minutes, as a single boiling with a due agitation in the process is sufficient. We therefore took care to be provided against any scarcity that might happen in our route ; but the trusty domestic had acted in the way I presume her master, Major M'Laughlin, was accustomed to do ; chocolate was presented to us before Pedro could provide his boilers. That we should not tax the civility of the domestic in her master's absence, we had directed Pedro to prepare a good ragout of fowls, and no one certainly could do it better ; but the domestic appeared to think her- self outwitted, perhaps her services disparaged, and resolved to be even with the cook, by laying some ready prepared rice-milk, eggs, and wheaten bread, with some decanters of excellent wine on the table. These little incidents are given, not because they are particularly important, but it is because they indicate the character and manners of society. Eggs and omelets, spinach and other vegetables, entered into the routine of our travelling fare ; and sometimes mutton, kid, and very well cured salt pork, made a further variety. It may be proper in this place to notice a particular that might not be anticipated by a stranger. In building houses, where the climate is warm, and hammocks the most convenient and comfortable mode of going to rest, stout iron rings are af- fixed in an eye bolt or swivel, about ten feet from the ground on the opposite sides of the sleeping-rooms ; cords for sling-
140 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
ing are usually purchased with the hammock ; and, as there is a little knavery in all trades, there is some skill required in choosing such cords, and it is a part of the knavery of muleteers and others, to appropriate such cords, if care be not taken in putting up the hammock to roll it firm, and place the cords in the inside. The hammock usually hangs, when occupied, about three or four feet from the floor ; higher according to inclination. Certainly, in a climate ivhere acute cold is unknown, no bed is so comfortable as a hammock after a few days habitude.
We were mounted and on our march, before six o'clock on the 15th, in the splendid valley of Aragua ; the space oc- cupied by the whole range of vision appeared a level plain, here and there diversified by clumps of lofty trees, a fantas- tic thicket clothed in flowers of brilliant tints, but particu- larly the morning glory, which, in different places, assumed different colours, so that I have seen in some of the coffee plantations desolated by the Spaniards, the elegant cones that had escaped, covered \\ hh this beautiful sycophant ; the different trees with different colours from the rest ; and this beautiful dress of the wild tufts and low shrubs conti- nued where the temperature was the same, through our whole journey. The hedges were formed by the accidental direction of a mule track, which seemed as if like quicksets they had been planted by art, and all wore this brilliant livery.
The mountains, in the valley of Caracas, bore a strange- ness of figure and order, that I had not seen in any- other part of the world ; this dissimilarity became in the valley of Aragua, and as far as the extent of the range east of Barquisimeto, more remarkable, and such as I had not seen described by any writer, so as to leave an impression of the characteristic forms, and their conformity in a long range ; I shall give my impressions hereafter. The rivulets which crossed our path, flowing from the chain on our right which separated us from the ocean, were numerous and re-
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i ashing, limpid, cool, and murmuring ; they led their way tD the rich plantations which filled the spaces on our left; our route being west of south, variably a point more or less west < >f south.
One of those rills, more loud and gurgling than its neigh- bours, attracted our notice ; it was quarrelling with a small brick arch of excellent mason work, but either the workman did not fit the stream, or the stream had outgrown the arch, rnd seemed to wrangle for a passage. The water which is- sued from beneath the arch, now spread into more than a dozen small rivulets, and wound their way round the foot of a projecting mound or spur of the mountain, which also in- tercepted our view to the south.
A very spacious, though rather dilapidated building, sur- rounded by a wall of pita, stood on the brow of the hill which the road separated from its main stock ; the building had certainly been battered by the war, and violence had thrown some parts down ; it still indicated some former opu- lence ; it was as commodious as our Pennsylvania barns, and though we could not discover what it had been, or to whom it belonged, from the passing muleteers, our progress brought us into a position which opened to our view, a quar- ter of a mile below, an immense field of sugar cane, which appeared to cover the plain as far as the eye could reach ; beneath the foot of the hill which we were now descending, appeared a busy scene, crowds of men and mules coming and going from a group of buildings which bore the aspect of freshness and prosperity ; at the north-east angle of the spacious sugar field, the valley appeared about two miles broad, and a handsome river flowed on its south-east side to the eastward ; the extent in the prolongation could not be less than four or five miles, I was told five. We descended to the valley, and found this scene of activity, which did not cease for several hours that we halted there, was a sugar- mill, from which the mules were carrying away loaves of
142 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
fine white sugar, of much greater magnitude than is usual with us ; the loaves were placed in bags, and the bags slung across the mules. The road at the bottom wound off to the south round a steep but not very elevated hill, on the sum- mit of which stood a handsome pavilion, which, though not in entire ruin, was in some respects shattered, and to appearance uninhabited ; the style of the building was tasty and neat ; the fences in its rear were in ruin also, and showed where a spa- cious garden had once stood, now disordered with wild weeds, and desolate to the foot of the forest which clothed the moun- tain to the summit ; it was San Mateo, the estate and pavi- lion of Bolivar, and the battered venitians and walls perfo- rated with bullets still remaining, showed who had disfi- gured this beautiful place. Senora Antonia Bolivar had written to Sefior Martin Duran, the major-domo of the pre- sident, to receive us as her friends ; it was kind, but he would have done so himself; the spirit of the owner per- vades every thing at San Mateo. We halted here till four c'clock.
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CHAPTER X.
Some account of San Mateo— the Major-Domo an intelligent man— our enter- tainment—the acene of the gallant self-immolation of Ricaute— the economy of the sugar mill — the sugar fine — an unceasing demand — anecdote — dinner — the pavilion— the barbarian Boves — historical facts — Tulmero— Maracayo — our arrival anticipated and quarters provided — industry proverbial here — wise conduct of the government to soldiers' widows and orphans — leave Maracay — lake of Valencia— pass of La Cabrera -various historical events there—attempt to assassinate Paez— frustrated by a child.
COMING upon the view of this scene, without being aware where we were, was certainly an augmentation of the plea- sure. Had we been prepared, the reputation of the owner would be the predominating impression on the judgment ; that little area which had attracted notice, if it had been known to be the work of Bolivar, and that those streams which issued and wound round the hill, and formed a pro- longed and ample current at the foot of the hill just above the long range of the sugar- field, with its sluices prepared to open and supply the vegetation beneath ; all these would have been diminished in importance connected with a name so celebrated ; but, seeing it in its single character of a work of art and skill, very rare in this fine country, the sa- tisfaction was more ample ; when we were introduced to Se- nor Duran, and seated at his hospitable board, the gratifi- cation was indeed great.
A good wall of stone, built with lime, surrounded the spacious area of this sugar-mill, and the entrance was on the road by which we must pass ; he had descried us on the brow of the hill above, and came to the gate, without affecta- tion, habited as if he was immersed in business ; a cheerful visaged little gentleman. I inquired the name of the place, and, with a smile, he signified it was St. Mateo, the planta- tion of the President of Colombia, and entreated us to enter,
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a servant having previously opened and kept the gate extend- ed— that the day was warm, the young lady would need re- freshment— and our mules would travel with better spirit after taking some young sugar-cane. We entered, as we in- tended, and had been enjoined by the President's sister, and were conducted into a paved hall, at one end of which was the dwelling of the major-domo and his family, whom he made us acquainted with ; fruit of the finest flavour, lemo- nade, and chocolate, succeeded each other as a refresco; and we were invited to see the various processes of the sugar refining, distilling, and to visit the grounds, the ac- tivity going on having excited expressions of surprise and pleasure.
As I had been familiar with the name of this villa, and the gallant self- immolation of the young patriot Ricaute had given it a celebrity that must endure with the republic, I intended to go up to the pavilion and visit the scene ; but was informed that the pavilion was out of repair, that it had still the marks of military violence and Spanish wantonness on its walls ; but he pointed the way and led us to his apart- ments contiguous to the sugar-mill, and we sat down in a porch truly Moorish in its structure — where a spacious ta- ble was soon after covered with a fine damask cloth, and salvers of the most delicious fruit ; light wines, and a ser- vice of chocolate — with hot rolls of as good a quality and as well made and baked as we could have had in Philadelphia — eggs and butter, and sweetmeats — and a handsome case of liqueurs covered the board; the spouse of Senor Du- ran, with her lively children, soon presented themselves ; and some visitors from the neighbourhood filled the table, though spacious as it was — our appetites were good, and our host and hostess perfectly delighted, and appeared to en- joy our familiarity without reserve, and the pleasure which we could not but manifest, from an association of ideas, in which the place, the owner, the contentment, the abundance,
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ind the activity which pervaded this delightful villa, were ivery instant manifest. After we had been some time at able, the worthy host proposed to show us the establish- ;nent — we descended half a dozen stairs, which brought us on the floor of the mill ; an overshot wheel of excellent me- ohanism, of about eight feet shaft, or sixteen feet diameter, mrned a set of three massy iron vertical cylinders, of about icwo and a half feet diameter, which were supplied by two hands with ripe cane ; and gave full employment to a con- stant succession of mules, which brought their loads of cane, discharged them on the floor, and carried off to the distillery the trash (as it is called in the West Indies), or squeezed cane. The vat, or reservoir beneath the cylinders, though spacious, was kept constantly full, though two hands were unceasingly employed on it ; one skimming the floating fe- culence from the surface, which appeared to be tending to fermentation ; this scum was carried into the distillery, which was established in a building forming an angle with the mill on the east end, and beneath Which the stream of water passed, supplying the uses of the distillery before it reached the sugar field, which, by happy contrivance, was so con- ducted as to irrigate the whole of the vast field of cane we had seen from the summit of the hill.
A second man, with a bucket ladle, poured into a line of spouts the skimmed liquor from the vats ; these spouts led to the apartments where the sugar was boiled, on the west angle ; contiguous to which were apartments appropri- ted to moulds, and the process of claying.
On the east side of the coral, in front, toward the road, was a commodious house, built of stone, as was the mill and offices altogether, — this was a drying house for the loaf sugar, a series of very large coffers — resembling, in their form and mode of use, the drawers of a bureau, which were placed beneath the eaves of the drying house. The loaves of sugar taken from the moulds were placed on racks
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146 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
within those drawers, and, if there was an apprehension of of rain, those drawers, which were exposed toth-/ sun while requisite, were shoved beneath the eaves, and above the ceil- ing of the house within, which was the lodging apartment of a certain number of the labourers.
While I was viewing this excellent contrivance, the busi- ness of sale was going on. Several persons rode into the yard, tied up their horses to a rack ; persons were employed in weighing the loaves of fine white lump sugar, upon which I found marked 22, 25, 27 pounds. The purchasers brought mules with sacks, suitable for the service, and placing a loaf or more at each end of the bag, tied the bags to the pannier, said little, paid their money, and moved off. Some horsemen purchased one or two loaves, and carried them across the saddle bow.
The appearance of every thing, and every face of this place, spoke contentment and abundance. A domestic at- tached himself to me, and we ambled over the cane field — an avenue or bank, which runs along the north side of the val- ley, retained within a ditch the lively stream we had seen at the bridge, and had heard forcing its way beneath the artifi- cial arch. A stream that gives to the domestic economy a never-failing fountain, activity to the ponderous mill, sup- plied the distillery, and now rushed gaily along the lane of sugar canes, and, by well contrived demi-sluices, at con- venient distances descended to the inclined plane of the sugar field, thence conducted as experience required to any part of the vast field ; those channels were so well contrived, that all the field, or any part, could, by closing or opening small sluices, be irrigated at discretion.
As the efforts of a stranger to speak the language of a country, are in almost every country treated with respect, and as if complimentary, and being desirous to make myself familiar, as well as to be informed, I spoke unreservedly with those whom I met on the plantation. I addressed my-
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self to a well-looking negro, with a sleek shining skin, and ask- ed him whom he belonged to. He looked at me with a smile something between surprize and gravity, but spiritedly told me, there were no slaves connected with Bolivar ! The feeling with which it was uttered was delightful, and I apo- logized by assuring him of the satisfaction he had given me : he was at once at ease, and informed me, that though he might go where he pleased, he preferred to remain where he was, and would ever remain with the libertador Bolivar.
Though our desayuno, or dejeune, had been luxurious and abundant, dinner had been provided while we were traversing the estate in different directions ; and the time elapsed so ra- pidly, that it was already two o'clock when we were re- quested to sit down. On the first entrance, the necessity of attending to personal civilities and conversation, rendered it inconvenient to bestow attention on objects around us : the hall in which we were now entertained was paved with rounded pebbles, and the ingenuity of the paver had been exercised, in giving, by means of- different- coloured pebbles, an imitation of Mosaic ; the table was massive, and to ap- pearance as ancient as the sixteenth century ; the chairs were not a century more youthful, only that the backs and seats were of the dried cowhide of the country, though wrought upon with more than ordinary skill ; heavy carving on the backs and frames ; the table utensils of silver, as forks and spoons, were in the same antique style ; but there were the best of Claret, Madeira, Muscadel, and, what we least ex- pected, American porter and ale, from Philadelphia, in good condition : we were generously and kindly entertained. But it was necessary that we should part, though it was evidently with reluctance all round ; and our mules, as ordered, were ready to mount at three o'clock, though we encroached half an hour on our regulation in respect to our worth)- host.
The ascent to the pavilion I did not attempt but Lieut. Bache ascended, and traced the position of the Spaniards by
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the direction of the bullets, which continued to hold their places in the wall. The outhouses of this villa, during the diversified war of the close of 1813 and the beginning of 1814, had served as depots for the patriot armies, who had beaten the monster Boves at Victoria, and Rosette on the Tuy : these sanguinary and relentless, but intrepid Spanish partizans, though defeated, had in their defeat destroyed a full third of the patriot troops opposed to them. Boves, after retiring to the plains, soon returned with reinforcements of natives of the country, whom he had compelled by terror to enrol in his ranks, and whom he retained by the same system of fear, coupled with the terrors of future torments, preached by the royalist monks attached to those ministers of massacre. Generals Marino and Mariano Montilla, by uniting their forces, repelled the royalists ; while Bolivar, with another division, which maintained the valley of Aragua, gained an- other victory, fought on his own estate, and in which signal acts of self-devotion were displayed by many of those negroes, and their progeny, whom he had previously emancipated, and whose affection and devotion led them to follow his for- tunes and contribute to his safety. These triumphs, ob- tained at a few miles apart, and unknown until success had removed the enemy, obliged the royal generals Calzada and Cevallos to retire from Valencia.
But though the Colombian revolution has been character- ised by acts of valour and heroism, as much as any similar event in any age or country, the heroic daring of young Ri- caute, a native of Bogota, which was exhibited at St. Mateo, cannot properly be passed over by the traveller. He was in his eighteenth year, and distinguished for his great self-posses- sion, and devotion to the freedom of his country ; he took his station, during the attack, himself, in charge of the ma- gazine, with a trusty detachment. He had kept a vigilant watch for the enemy, who had resolved to seize upon this magazine : the enemy's numbers were as four to one ; Ri-
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caute determined upon the course that became a hero ; hav- ing ordered the whole of his own party to take a private path, which led through the hills towards Tulmero ; intimating that if he survived he should follow, as he was preparing to frustrate the enemy. They had not marched a mile in the mountains, when the Spaniards determined upon an assault, surrounded, and entered the magazine ; Ricaute alone stood to receive them ; he had so disposed of the powder as to ac- complish his purpose most effectively, and the Spanish officer was about to seize him, when he put a match to the train he had prepared, and perished with the whole of the Spa- niards who had entered the place, and came to be his captors.
The line of march from Caracas inclined very much to the south of west, as far as Consejo ; the course by Victo- ria to San Mateo was still more westwardly and irregular ; on leaving San Mateo the direction was soon directly west, and by Tulmero, a great mercantile depot and aduana or custom- house under the monarchy, and containing at one period about 10,000 inhabitants : commerce has not wholly forsaken it, but the establishment of the republic has enabled every man to " smoke his own segars in his own way," unbur- dened by too much regulation. The road which leads ta the left and to the south being the shortest by some miles,, our mules took the shortest route, and moving off to the south, we avoided the inconvenience of ascending and de- scending steep precipices, and wound round the foot of the mountain, entering the neat but noiseless town of Maracay, in a north-west direction.
This place was subject to a military commandant ; our hombre de provechero, or man of service, was dispatched to seek quarters, but the commandant, who had also gone to Achaguasj by some means had heard of our coming, and before Vincent had returned, a subaltern officer approached us, and in a polite manner signified the absence of the com- mandant, but presented an order for our accommodation on
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Senora Moreno in the Calle de Bolivar, and he was so oblig- ing as to pass with us to the house.
The spacious gates of this casa were thrown open, and we rode into the patio, or open court within the house, where we were received by two or three ladies in mourning, of very respectable appearance and manners, who showed us every attention, gave us the two best apartments in the house, of which the windows open upon the Plaza or Great Square. They were particularly delighted with the Senorita Ameri* cana del Norde. The usual routine of unloading baggage, putting up hammocks, preparing the chocolate, procuring bread (and here it was to be had of fine quality), and in short the travelling meal ; the provision for the mules and such services, all took precedence of every other business, and when once done, left whatever time was to be spared to con- versation or any other occupation. Elizabeth had brought with her a well-assorted apparatus for needle-work and em- broidery, and when we anvVed early in any place, where there was no opportunity or object worth walking to see, she opened her box and went to work, much to the admira- tion of the ladies, whose habits, though with exceptions, are yet too much Spanish in most parts of the country to derive any pleasure from such occupation.
This town of Maracay, though we found it silent, and the streets without any idlers, but some of the drones in .cas- socks, is celebrated for its industry ; indeed, the population of the east end of this valley, from the Tuy to Maracay, makes a strong impression ; the good order of their planta- tions, the exterior neatness of their habitations ; and, what was most striking to me, there were none of those mendicants which annoy by their importunity, and offend sometimes by their impertinence, the passing stranger, in all the cities and most of the towns we passed through. Here the best and neatest hammocks are manufactured from the cotton which grows on trees as large as our apple trees in all parts of Co-
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lombia, in a temperature of about 70 deg. It is a perfectly republican town ; and their hammocks, counterpanes, and napkins are in demand and esteem from Cumana to Menda, and are sought at Bogota and Carthagena ; the inhabitants are also as much distinguished for their probity in dealing, their exemption from the stateliness and inane pride of the Spaniards, as for their good dispositions and industry. The good lady at whose house we quartered, had lost her husband and some other male relatives 'in the revolution ; and, as she expressed it, her towns people never thought they contri- buted enough to her pleasure and comfort. The mother and sisters of the good Senora, were solicitous to make our short stay as agreeable as possible, and nosegays, and some choice fruit were presented by them to my daughter, with a most interesting candour and desire to please.
The government is provident in many cases of this kind ; those ladies are allowed an annual stipend, under an implied condition of affording lodging to respectable persons whom the government may think proper to compliment in this way, by which I understood, that it was thus, through some means unknown to us, our arrival was anticipated and lodging thus provided.
We departed from Maracay at half past five on the morn- ing of the seventeenth of November. The whole road from the banks of the Tuy to this place might be travelled by a boy on a velocipede, and it so continued to be level until we reached near Valencia. About half past eight we had the first delightful view of the lake of Valencia, as the sailors would express it, on our larboard bow ; the sweetness of the atmosphere, its serenity and tempered light, with a slight ripple from a breeze on the expanded lake ; the mountains on each side receding and ascending ; at the base gradually curving until near the summit, their declivity or uprightness conveyed the idea of that kind of parabolic line, formed by the sides of a large punch bowl, the lake itself did not seem
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continuous, from this point, but as if composed of several lakes, from the intersection of promontories, and the apparent continuity of land, when, in reality, an island distinct from the shore filled up with the ground line in some places ; but which soon opened, when the position changed, as we advanced through the small hamlet of Tapitapa, along the winding beach of the lake, which, like the sea shore, was thickly pebbled. The coast of the lake here forms a cove locked in on the west, north, * and east sides ; the east side being forest, in a gradually sloping line inclining to the lake, and its base forming a curve, along which the road trends on emerging from the immensely lofty trees that skirt the road from Maracay to Tapitapa, on the east ; the slope rises rapidly, and when two thirds of the semicircle of this cove are passed, it is a vast ridge, forming one of those spurs which characterise the whole chain from the Silla of Cara- cas to Barquisimeto, and of which more will be said in no- ticing the country round Valencia, or such other position as may invite elucidation.
This lofty ridge, on the right, is extremely steep, but co- vered with forest trees of great magnitude and elevation, and the base of the mountain is covered with wild shrubbery and brilliant foliage ; the lake on the left during the semi- circuit presents a most enchanting spectacle ; the verdure of the surrounding banks, the blue canopy over head, contend- ing with the bright mirror of the lake, to impress each their peculiar hue on the other ; the commixture of colours, and glassy sparkling light, resembled the corruscations of the Aurora Borealis* such as poetry might make a theme of, and if the poetry were equal in beauty to the object, would divest works of imagination of a great part of their interest.
Ambling along this pebbled strand, charmed by the va- riety, grandeur, and multitude of objects, the lofty ridge ab- ruptly terminated, and opened a more extensive view of the lake beyond it ; but its abrupt termination, and its shaggy
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and summit ceased to be interesting in a moment, and it instant produced a train of new sensations. The open- ing which exposed the lake, was just so broad as to permit a horseman to pass, and the opposite side presented an im- mense cone, rivalling the mountain in altitude, but without verdure of any kind ; it stood erect, a scarp of naked clay, of which the breadth, at the base, was not one third of the elevation, and cast its shadow on the trembling water ; such is its declivity, that it would seem hazardous for a goat to climb it ; a mule, with all its security and firmness of foot, could not ; but man has found his way in confidence to the summit, and established not only a dwelling, but a military work on its apex. A plate of this position, which is called La Cabrera, fronts the title page.
This position has been frequently made memorable du- ring the revolution. After the fatal earthquake of 1812, when the country was deprived of so many of its veterans, and their arms buried with them ; when 8000 stand compo- sed the whole armament of the republic ; and 2000 of these were not fit for service ; when the monks had been taught to preach and inculcate, that the earthquake was an indica- tion of Almighty vengeance against the revolutionists, and Monteverde, seizing upon the fanatic fears of the multitude, and their panic, compelled Col. Carabano to retire from San Carlos, Miranda, with only 2000 men, evacuated Valen- cia, and resolved to concentrate his forces at this distin- guished pass. Whether it be from the difficulty of access by the long and circuitous route on the skirt of the lake, from St. Joa quin to La Cabrera, every foot of which might be defended by a small force against a greater ; or the singular form of the cone, the security it afforded from its steepness against attack, and against shot from its elevation, it was se- lected with judgment, as the best position to repulse and ar- rest the march of Monteverde. But some men faithless to their country, who had traversed the mountains as smug-
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glers, communicated to the Spanish general, that there was a secret path by which the defile of La Cabrera could be avoided. In consequence Miranda was obliged to move upon Victoria, which he gained before the enemy. But in the month of June following, Monteverde determined on a night attack, and before day-light surprised the patriots in Victoria. Miranda rallied them like a gallant soldier, and drove the enemy before him for more than a league, when the troops were called in, and the fugitive Spaniards were thus enabled to. escape. It is considered, by men of good judgment, that if the pursuit had been continued with the same spirit that the attack was begun, Monteverde must have taken refuge in Puerto Cabello ; but that incident with others led to the fall of Caracas.
La Cabrera was again distinguished in 1816, when Bo- livar landed from the West Indies at Choroni and Ocumare ; general M'Gregor was then charged with the advanced guard, not amounting to more than 500 men ; by rapid marches from an unexpected quarter, and taking precautions to intercept intercourse with Valencia or Caracas, he, by a skilful stratagem, surprised the Spanish picket posted at Cabrera, and, while they were carousing at the Posada, at the foot of the cone, he occupied the place by scaling the ordinary path, and making the Spaniards prisoners ; he then pursued his march, and took Maracay and Victoria before the Spanish general Morales could arrest his progress.
After the war of extermination had been proclaimed, the affairs of Colombia had become very gloomy. When the patriots were made prisoners, the practice was to publicly or- der them to be conducted to a depot ; but a private order was given to execute them on the way, for which a fit officer was always selected ; they were directed to be pierced with a a lance, in the first thicket they approached. Colonel Rivas, a friend of Bolivar, having fallen into the enemy's hands, his head was cut off by one of those Spanish monsters, placed in
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sack, and sent, after the Turkish fashion, to his insulted and friend. The flower of the army and the population at this period undergoing a progressive extirpation ; des- pair had overcome minds of a weak temperament, and others of lax principles no longer hesitated to talk of reconciliation with Spain. Antonio Jose Paez, a native of the plains that border on the Orinoco, had signalized himself by his match- less intrepidity ; many persons having retired to the plains, he reproached those wavering men, and concluded by declar- ing, that if there could be wretches so abject as to abandon a cause in which so much blood had been generously sacri- ficed to give them freedom, they must not expect counte- tenance to their perfidy from him, nor the opportunity to corrupt others by their cowardice ; that he would not com- promise for a miserable existence the independence he had fought for ; he would rally all of his countrymen whose vir- tues were unshaken, and taking possession of La Cabrera and the lake of Valencia, he would carry on an interminable war against the Spanish tyrants and all who should submit to subjection ; and there it would not be in the power of all Spain to dislodge him.
Near this place an action, very desperate but decisive, was fought in 1818. The Spanish general Morillo, had been in the Llanos, or plains ; Bolivar formed a plan of campaign against him, with Paez and Cedenio as his lieutenants. Three successive actions were fought on the 12, 13, and 14th Fe. bruary of that year, and Morillo was obliged to make a concealed retreat with a few horse towards the valley of Ara- gua. But the fugitive was pursued and overtaken with a body of fresh troops that had been marched to his support ; these were attacked on the 16th, and on the 17th; in this ter- rible attack, the royal troops were cut to pieces at Sombrero, a town on a branch of the Guarico, and about fifty miles north of Calabozo, where Morillo escaped by crossing the
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Guarico to Ortiz on the right bank, and thence fled to Va- lencia.
The lake is computed to be forty-five miles in its greatest extent, from east- north-east to west-south- west, of a very irregular form, indented with little coves and bays ; and varying north and south from fifteen to twenty-four miles. The islands, which are many, are covered with vegetation, and some, with lofty trees, are very picturesque. The absence of boats, on a lake so ample, appears extraor- dinary. Colonel Todd, who preceded us a fortnight, obtain- ed a rude sort of canoe, in order to view the lake ; but the pleasure did not compensate the inconvenience.
The geologists allege that the singular cone of Cabrera was, at one period, a continuation of the granitic promon- tory coxered with forests, and known by the name of Puerto- chuelo, and that the valley was closed, until this defile was separated from the contiguous mountain. But there is also a prolongation still further towards the south ; a long range, partly rocky, and covered with vegetation, not so lofty as La Cabrera, but separated by a larger defile on the south side. As an object of great curiosity, it is here noticed ; the conjec- tures concerning its primitive form do not carry conviction to the understanding. Certainly, if supplied with boats for communication on the lake, it would be an invulnerable po- sition under such an officer as Paez.
The constant pursuit, and the severity of those battles, day after day, with scarce time for rest or food, obliged Bo- livar to suspend further pursuit ; to call in subsistence, and refresh his troops. But Paez, meanwhile, was detached to repossess St. Fernando de Apure. As soon as the march of Paez was known in Valencia, Morillo renewed his opera- tions with the troops in Valencia, and all the wrecks of his force that had escaped from the plains marched eastward. Bolivar, with not fifteen hundred cavalry, and less than half the number of infantry, and part of these, as well as all the ca-
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/airy, armed with lances only, had cantoned his troops, with lis advance, in the villages of Guacara, and St. Joaquin — some fresh troops occupied the pass of La Cabrera, and lis main force was at Maracay, La Puerta, and Vittoria* Morilio lost no time, aware that every hour would augment Bolivar's strength ; that Cedeno and Paez, who were absent, might be ordered to rejoin the Libertador. The pickets, at Guaycara, were ordered to retire deliberately upon St. Joaquin, and to defend this pass, and, if necessary, to retire and make a stand at Cabrera. From the 13th to the 17th of March, was an unintermitting course of actions ; I passed over the scene of these conflicts, with a full recollection of these historical events, as I had before known them through authentic channels. It was evident that the warfare here must have been a war of detachments, or guerillas, as the nature of the ground did not admit of the combat of troops with an extended front, but was admirably adapted for de- fensive war and ambuscade.
In those conflicts on the plains, Morilio received a thrust of a lance which pinned his body to the ground, and it was believed that he had perished, as the soldier who had strick- en the blow related the fact, and had left his lance in the body of the royal chief. Though the wound was not mor- tal, it compelled Morilio to devolve the command on Gene- ral La Torre, a gallant and experienced soldier, but an hon- ourable character.
The renewal of the war had reached the plains, and Paez and Cedeno rejoined the Libertador. La Torre had advan- ced to Ortiz, on the Guarico, and there he was attacked, his position stormed, and the avenues between Ortiz and Va- lencia having been pre-occupied, the royal chief retired to the plains and occupied Calabozo. This campaign had such signal influence on the affairs of the revolution, that I have not hesitated to narrate such events as were connected with this memorable pass of La Cabrera. But it is not in those
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battles alone, so full of event and powerful in their conse- quences, that La Cabrera is remarkable.
Morillo, as soon as he was able to take the field, marched to the south-west, crossed the Aguare, with an intention to attack Paez, who was in that quarter covering the supplies from the plains, and intercepting those destined for the royal force.
General Paez took a position on the spacious plain of Coxede, near the confluence of the small streams Aguyral and San Pedro with the river Coxede, a few miles south of San Carlos. The position commanded the highway be- tween the plains from which the Spanish armies drew cattle for their subsistence ; and its occupation much embarrassed the Spanish army. Morillo determined upon a movement through a defile on the left of the Colombian position. Paez had at the same time resolved upon a movement upon the right of Morillo, and the two operations were going on at the same instant : as these dispositions on both sides led to consequences which neither contemplated, the casual discovery by each, that the other was in motion, deranged the plans of both, and led to a conflict, in which the valour of the troops, and the military talents and resources of the commanders, must determine the issue. Perhaps no battle of the revolution was more desperate or sanguinary ; it was a series of manoeuvres, determined by the position and the coup d'ceil of the commanders. The Spanish chief selected a position from which he could direct his operations. The Colombian chief gave a general order to the chiefs of his di- visions, to maintain a certain line, and to move upon each of the enemy's columns, front and flank, at the same time; Paez himself holding two columns of cavalry lancers to co- operate. Soublette, who was chief of the staff, in this battle acquired and merited great distinction. The conflict was of several hours' duration, and so fatal to both sides, that the battle ceased from loss of men and fatigue. Morillo found
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it necessary to retire upon San Carlos, though he claimed a victory. Paez remained in possession of the field, and had to inter the enemy's dead. The great object of covering the source of supplies from the plains was effected, and the Spanish army disabled from prosecuting military operations for some time. The battle of Coxede is therefore considered as one of the most important in its consequences, as well as the most sanguinary of the revolution.
As Paez was the hero of this victory, and his intrepidity and self-possession the principal impulses of the triumph, it may not be impertinent to state in this place an anecdote, which, though it relates to the campaign on the plains near Calabozo, shews the impression entertained by the Spaniards of the formidable character of this chief. Many attempts had been made to assassinate the President, by the Spanish emissaries ; an attempt was made for a similar purpose on Paez. The nature of the country, a very warm climate, as well as the deficiency of resources, rendered the appearance or apparel in both armies very much alike : this rendered it sometimes difficult to discriminate between the soldiers of either force. A party had been selected on the plains, who were to use the facility which was given by these means to deception, and they were directed to rendezvous on the bank of a rivulet, at a short distance from the camp or bivouac of Paez. Some emissaries, who found treachery to their country a motive for assassination, had ascertained the tent or hut of the general. A slight hut had been occupied by the general's hammock, and some friends occupied other births ; the do- mestics and orderlies were at hand. A small sprightly boy, Antonio, had a sleeping place there also ; this boy had rambled along the margin of the rivulet, and night coming on, he was alarmed by some voices very near him, and listening more at- tentively, heard enough to induce him, with instinctive dis- cretion, to return precipitately, and reveal what he had heard. Paez instantly changed the countersign, selected a few officers,
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with orders to move circuitously, and concentrate as near as possible on the point designated. The picket was directed not to interrupt the entrance of any stranger ; and so well was the Spanish party entangled, that the emissaries entered the general's hut, and found it empty, only the moment be- fore they were seized. Not one of the party escaped, and some of them revealed the whole design ; others were de- tected as deserters, and they were, by a sentence of a court martial, disposed of as traitors and assassins. That intelli- gent and prudent boy, Antonio, the adopted son of General Paez, is the youth who is now admitted for his education at the United States Military Academy, West Point.
CHAPTER XL
I-ake of Valencia — road along its coast — the soil invades its bed and grows tobacco — St. Joaquin — Guacara desolated — warm day — halt to refresh — dipt hedge of lime trees loaded with fruit — St. Diego — aspects of the Plain and Lake — confidence of the people restored — figure of the Mountains — sudden appearance of Valencia — the Glorieta Bridge — the Patriot Officers work as bricklayers on this bridge — the present Commandant of Valencia, Col. Urslar, so employed — difference in appearance from Caracas — the military numerous — the Plaza Mayor or Great Square — house of Senor Penalver — hospitably received — quite at home — female curiosity — amiability — ideas of travelling — the Commandant — Gen. Paez — good breeding and amenity — evening vi- sit at Col. Urslar's — the tatoo beat off in superior style — Anecdotes of Col. Urslar — commands the Grenadiers of the Guard — Bolivar negociated his ex- change— happy military self-possession — by strategy counteracts Morales at Nag-uanugua — nature of the ground at and near Valencia — military operations and strutug-ems — evolutions and partial action — arrival of Paez — Morales de- feated—effects of the battle of Naguanagua.
UPON entering the pass of La Cabrera, the lake opened to the eastward to an extent not anticipated, and the shore on the south side, with the mountain range in its rear, capt with clouds which threw a shade over the distance that
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gave a strong relief to the brightness which intervened and extended over the lake. The detached promontories which now revealed themselves as islands, were exquisitely beauti- ful. After passing to the westernmost side, the lake appear- ed to extend very far to the north along the base of the ridge of Puertachuelo, and our road lying along the shore more than two miles; it was, however, comparatively a small in- let, perhaps three miles from the opposite side, to the cone of Cabrera, and narrowing as we approached its northern ex- tremity, round which, and along the opposite shore, the road still continued. At this northern extremity of the inlet, the soil, from the elevations by which it was surrounded, had en- croached upon the ancient bed of the lake, and some fine to- bacco was now flourishing where the water formerly flowed. Our course was very variable from Tapatapa, a hamlet of comfortable houses which we passed on coming to the strand of the lake; it was first south-west, then west — west-south-west, and south ; we entered the pretty village of St. Joaquin about nine o'clock, and did not halt till we reached Gua- cara a quarter before twelve. Our course had now been west to this place, where the day being more sultry than we had yet experienced, we halted. This place was in a state of impoverishment, and the desolation of war ; we passed along the principal street which we had entered, without perceiving any house in which the accommodation of even a temporary rest was eligible ; we turned the angle of the street to the south, through which a stream of pure water rambled, and finding a shop in which " cocks and hens, and all manner of things," were exposed for sale, we were ac- commodated in an angle of a room, the greater part of the other end being occupied by a billiard table ; some of the poultry and the eggs, onions, rice, sugar, and some fruit, and small baskets we purchased ; our chocolate was prepared while a hollaca of stewed pork, peeled potatoes, with spices and onions, was under way. The pulperia was very com-
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municativc, and indulged her curiosity in turn ; but she was perfectly obliging, and her charge for what she sold was so small, that I was apprehensive she had wronged herself; but she insisted on the hermosa senorlta (lovely female) taking some fine oranges for what we had overpaid her.
The population, if there was any at Guacara, besides a few old men, and some females, did not appear ; and until we had entered this place, there was not, on the ground we had passed over, any appearance of poverty, though there were some wrecks of the war. In the morning, about four miles before we reached Guacara, we saw a beautiful dipt hedge in front of a flourishing plantation ; it resembled in form those yew hedges so much in vogue half a century ago, or those dipt quicksets which are seen in the state of De- laware, but neither yew nor hawthorn could rival it for beau- ty ; it was composed of lime trees, and the fruit in every stage of growth were abundant, pale and deep green, pale and saffron yellow ; a civil domestic, who was as curious in his admiration of us as we were of the hedge, ingenuously pluck- ed a couple of dozen, and handed them to us, highly gratifi- ed as it seemed that they were acceptable.
After leaving Guacara, at some distance, we passed through a small, but not so impoverished a place, called Guaco, and being not very distant, we proceeded slowly along through St Diego ; permitting our mules to take their own impulse, and at half past five crossed the plain, upon which the principal street of Valencia opens its rising length. On the line of our approach to Valencia the whole way from Tapatapa, we had the mountain ridge on our right, nearly parallel with the road, only where the limbs thrown out from the mountain side rendered it preferable to make a small circuit rather than climb its sides. The lake was constantly on our left, at times intercepted to the view by plantations in prosperity or in ruin ; many were in the latter condi- tion ; though we saw, in the course of our journey, that
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)me had been already redeemed, and were undergoing the jparation for culture, or in actual production. Many houses that bespoke former sumptuousness, were in the state in which the war left them ; contiguous to one of these unal- tered ruins, the ground had been handsomely fenced with saplings, six feet high, and four or five inches apart, laced near the head and base with those natural ropes (bejuca) which grow in such variety and abundance in the ever-present for- ests. Within the fence an elegant picture of an indigo patch was distinctly seen through the fence, the green tops of the plants, just rising above the ground, forming long selvidges, at about six inches apart ; but this newly restored plantation appeared like a gap in the long line of wild vege- tation, which rose round it on all sides ; several roads or lanes led towards the lake, which was about from three to four miles on our left ; but in other places the scene of hus- bandry was pleasing, as well for the activity as the gay as- pect of the cultivators, who, when sufficiently contiguous, generally gave us a complimentary nod and smile, and some phrase of satisfaction which we could not distinctly under- stand. Confidence every where appeared, which I had not expected, because Morales was at that moment desolating and plundering the country contiguous to Maracaibo, and menacing Truxillo, Merida ; and Puerto Cabello, only twen- ty-two miles from Valencia, was still occupied by the Span- iards. So confident had the people become, after Morales had been defeated at Naguanagua, within sight of Valencia. The road, as we approached Valencia, was at the very skirt of the mountain, which threw out many limbs in a fantastic, and yet a sort of uniformity of projection, present- ing between them, nooks or recesses, in which towns or vil- lages constantly appeared. As we came within a short dis- tance of Valencia, one of those promontories thrust its pro- longation across the line of our march ; it was covered with shaggy forest trees, and its sides steep, and the extremity
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on the plain exhibited a vast body of stupendous rocks, which appeared to threaten all things beneath their shadow, but were held together by the thick twining limbs of some giant sycophants, which entwined the rocks, resembling ivy in the manner of vegetation, but of greater magnitude ; we were under the necessity of winding round this rude pro- montory, which was between two and three miles from the city, which now broke upon us, in a very impressive pic- ture. The line of the great ridge had receded with the south- west side of this savage declivity, which presented aa arid face, furrowed by deep ravines. At the distance of four miles, a spacious verdant plain, which inclined on our left to the lake three miles distant, and to the low plain of Naguana- gua on our right, presented the numerous horse and foot paths which led to and concentred in the city, indicating a considerable population.
We had crossed the plain, better than a mile, when a spa- cious street opened upon us, in its length sloping towards us ; and a lively rivulet cast out numerous rills, winding towards the valley on our right ; a bridge of unusual neat- ness crossed the rivulet, and nearly as broad as the street, of which it was the eastern extremity ; a spacious semicircular platform was constructed on each side, over the arch, with benches of masonry, of excellent workmanship, and covered with a coat of lime plaster, wrought in great perfection. It was the Gloriete, the work set on foot by Morillo, but wrought by patriotic hands ; in the execution of this work, Morillo employed the officers of the Colombian army, whom the fortune of war had placed in his vile hands. They were brought from their prisons in irons, and with irons on their legs ; they were compelled to execute this work, under the charge of miscreants whose orders were any thing but hu- man ; in this warm climate, for the sun's rays are more ar- dent here than in any part of the valley of Aragua or of Cara- cas, they were compelled to make the mortar, carry loads of
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brick and stone on their shoulders, and execute their task in the mid-day heat. We viewed the workmanship with pe- culiar gratification, not knowing its history ; but we had some compensation for the pain with which we heard its history narrated by a colonel, who was one of the constructors of the Gloriete, whom we had the plea- sure to know in Colonel Urslar. He now commanded in Valencia, and had but a short time before given the Spa- niards a signal defeat at Naguanagua, within three miles of Valencia on the north side : the action was witnessed from the streets, and even from the Gloriete, being the last attempt made by the Spaniards on that city.
We continued to ascend the sloping street, and it being Sunday, the appearance of our costume attracted many a bright eye, and particularly the rosy-cheeked member of our party. We also glanced at the beauties of Valencia, as we had heard they were more proud than the ladies of other cities ; they did not appear as fair as their country-women at Caracas, but their features were striking for regularity — and they seemed to know they had eyes — with which perhaps their brilliancy made them acquainted. Whether it was tha£ they put on their best apparel and their best smiles and dimples, for the sabbath-day, it is certain they looked lively and interesting.
The barracks stand on the left of the street, and the offi- cers appeared to have just left parade, and gazed with as much apparent curiosity as the ladies — and put questions, such as are asked every where in such cases, but which none of them could yet answer. The prolongation of this street continues the whole length of the city, and about half- way its length forms the south side of the Plaza or great square. Our courier Vincent had already found the residence of the respectable patriot Fernando Penalver, a senator of Colombia, which stood in the continuation of the street, which forms the west side of the Plaza. The church is on the east side ;
'166 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the north occupied by spacious dwellings, and the west side with some spacious houses two stories high, one of which at that time was military quarters for the staff, and holds a melancholy but signal place in the history of the revolution. It was half past five when we rode up to the ample gates, which were instantly thrown open, and we entered the neat portal to the patio; where we were cordially received by Senorita Penalver, the niece of the respectable owner, who eonducted Elizabeth, and invited us to a spacious saloon, and ordered refreshments. The domestics of Colombia, in families like this, are diligent, obliging, and punctual ; or- ders do not require to be repeated, and the hospitable usages are so well understood, that orders are never necessary. We were already at ease, and treated like old acquaintances. Se- npr Penalver was at his plantation, about ten miles south, and restoring it frorrthe dilapidation which his virtues had earned from Spanish vengeance ; he was a widower, and his niece, and a daughter of eleven, were the only inmates ; his nephew, Ferdinand, a noble youth of sixteen, was with his uncle.
Our mules had been carried to the coral, forage ordered, and, as night came on, a crowd of the pretty faces, perhaps some of whom we had seen on our way, thronged in, some of whom, in the simplicity of their hearts, with witty mirth enquired whether the bonita Senorita purchased the colour on her cheeks at the modista's, or had it in the natural way ? The company for the whole evening was numerous, and of both sexes ; and as we were not profoundly ready and conversant in la lengita Castellana, the good nature of the young ladies was exercised, in the desire to understand as well as to encourage the Senorita Americana to hablar. I have no where seen people more cheerful and innocently gay, or unaffectedly solicitous to render themselves agreeable and useful, than the ladies whom I have had the pleasure of knowing, in their families, in Valencia. This disposi-
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167
ion indeed prevails every where, and I have not seen more
ti one or two in the country, who from their demeanour Id be suspected of affectation.
The good Senorita took my daughter to her own cham- oer, and lieutenant Bache and myself had each a chamber assigned to us. The first night's rest, and the first morning's intercourse, made us as much at home as we could be where usages and language were not the same. It was Monday morning, the 19th, and the climate was sensibly warmer than that of Caracas ; the freshness of the air, after a balmy night's repose, bid us be up and doing very soon. The journey had been rather desultory than fatiguing or rapid, and might, with good horses, be accomplished in two days without any fatigue. But mules being the only mode by which baggage is transported, and in a country where there are neither taverns, inns, nor beds on the road, and their own kitchen and couch, food and raiment, are indispensable to those whose habits are foreign, the sober passage upon mules is the best adapted to the actual state of the country ; for, al- though the route from the foot of Cuquisias owes nothing to art for the construction of a road, yet the unbroken level of the plain of the valley of Aragua may be travelled on a velocipede ; there are no wheel carriages any where in the country, and, if there were, they could not, without some im- provement of the mule path, pass even between Victoria and Valencia ; and, after passing the field of Carabobo, the path is scarcely safe on horseback, and mules alone afford con- fidence and security.
I had scarcely prepared my face and apparel for the day's intercourse, when the military commandant, Colonel Urslar, was so obliging as to tender his good offices, and placed in my hands letters fowarded to him from Caracas, and one from General Paez, intimating a wish that I should remain a few days, and that before Thursday he intended to be in Valencia. His chief of staff, Colonel Newberry, repeated the same wish,
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and I assented. The general, however, had received orders to concentre a force at Tulmero, and to pursue a plan which had in view the expulsion or capture of Morales — and I had not the pleasure of the proposed meeting. Monday was, therefore, devoted to the household gods, and the inter- course incident to that innocent curiosity excited by the first visit of an American young lady to their beautiful city ; and we had much reason to be gratified, as well by the numbers, as by the courtesy and unreserved familiarity of the ladies whom we had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with. There was no ceremony or constraint, beyond the mere ci- vilities of reception and the complimentary adios at depar- ture ; and, notwithstanding some deficiency on both sides of our respective languages, our occasional stumbling over the moods and tenses, genders and persons, cordiality became our ready interpreters, without for an instant disconcerting us by that grin of inanity and indubitable folly, which so often, in some other countries, treats the stranger with vulgar and stupid sarcasm or satire, for no better reason than that the stranger's knowledge of the vernacular tongue is not equal to that which the native has no other merit in knowing, than that of being habituated from infancy to its use !
Many military gentlemen, foreigners and natives, were our visitors, and I had the satisfaction of acquiring the esteem, and its manifestation in practical good offices, of the worthy veteran Colonel Urslar, then in command, during the ab- sence of General Paez. The mid-day was devoted to the perusal of my letters, and answering letters to be dispatched by a friend, who was to proceed the next day for Caracas, and the evening carried us, on the invitation of his good lady, to Colonel Urslar's, where we found a number of agreeable persons of both sexes; and entered into entire sympathy with the worthy colonel's excellent suite of military musicians, and the style in which they beat off the tatoo from his quar- ters at nine o'clock. Indeed, I never heard a finer corps o*
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ms and fifes. We spent the evening agreeably, had the chocolate with coffee served around, cake, sweetmeats, those who chose it, liqueur or claret ; and retired, as is usual, about ten o'clock.
Colonel Urslar is a native of the left bank of the Rhine, I think of Alsace, that country so fruitful of able and gallant soldiers. The wars of the French revolution, which had made, him a soldier, left him a reduced captain, at about twenty- five years of age. The difficulty of the times, and of forming new habits, led his mind to the new world, where a field for renown and fortune appeared to be prepared for the disbanded soldiers of Europe ; he arrived at Angostura, in 1817, and the discernment of Bolivar placed him in the rank of major. He was thenceforward engaged in all the battles and marches which occurred in the plains, at Coxede, Victoria, in the two battles on the same glorious field of Carabobo, at Boyacca, and was distinguished alike by the discipline of his regiment of grenadiers of the guard, to which his talents had promoted him, and by the hardiness and cheer- fulness with which he endured the privations of those inde- scribable conflicts— for months without a shoe, and often re- duced to the ordinary Osnaburg shirt and trowsers, and a straw hat, in common with the rank and file ; rarely mount- ing a horse, though entitled, by his rank, to do so ; prefer- ring, by his example, to inspire his corps with respect and confidence, and to assure discipline, without the imputation of having spared himself in the discharge of his duties.
In passing the handsome bridge on our entrance to Va- lencia, I noticed the labours prescribed for the Colombian officers. The fortune of war had made Urslar a prisoner to Moriilo, and the colonel repeatedly pointed out to me the positions and the parts of the structure to which he had con- tributed his manual labour, nearly destitute of clothing, and without hat or shoes, bearing a manacle and a burden, ex- posed to a fervid sun, but a most scorching and more in-
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170 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
sufferable and constant vituperation and insolence from the Spanish soldiery ; and, sad to say, not from the humblest of the troops, who rather compassionated than aggravated the evils of their condition.
The history of his campaigns would interest any man of sensibility, and would afford an example and an illustration of the hardships borne by the Colombian army, such as have probably never been endured and overcome in any part of this globe. On more than one occasion he was marked out for military execution, but rescued by some casualty, which he said bore an appearance of miracle ; he was, however, at a favourable moment seized upon by Bolivar, who appreci- ated his worth, exchanged, and restored to his companeros the grenadiers ; and a few months before we reached Valen- cia, he had the gratification, by skill and intrepidity, and the reputation he held in the estimation of the enemy, to out- general Morales at Naguanagua, and lead to the defeat of his veterans with a handful of raw troops.
Morillo having secret communications from the city of Valencia, stating that the force in garrison at that city had been reduced by detachments to Caracas, which had been menaced for that purpose, resolved to march from Puerto Ca- bello for Valencia with 1200 men of his best troops. The first intimation of his approach was the appearance of his ad- vanced posts on the heights above Naguanagua, about four miles distant, and in full view of the city.
Valencia stands upon the summit of ground not suffi- ciently elevated to be denominated a hill; on three parts of the ground, that is, the south, east, and west sides of the circle, the streets decline in a gradual line from the Great Square, which is the most elevated position. The ground on the west side is not embraced in this range, being itself a gradual ascent from the Great Square, to the foot of one of those characteristic points resem- bling promontories, which overlooks the whole city and
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plain, at a few yards from a suburb ; . all the streets, like those of all the towns and cities we saw, intersect each other at right angles. The lofty mountain ridges of the chain presented themselves on the north; the lake of Valen- cia to the south, and extending to the full capacity of naked vision to the south-east, the plain sloped in a gentle descent from the line of approach from the eastward to the lake, and from the same road line had a more steep descent towards the west and north-west, or mountain side. The whole of this circle was commanded by the view from the Great Square.
The mountain ridge on the north presented its bleak and arid sides to the south, an apparent but broken semicircle or half moon, of about two miles diameter, from east to west, and three miles depth from south to north, of which the mountain spurs in front and rear of the city, formed the extremities or horns of the crescent, between which the city stands elevated, and the space between is occupied by an irregular platform or flat valley ; beyond this the vast body of the mountain protrudes and bellies in, within the line of the half moon formed by the superior ridge. This body, which appears like a mountain which had slidden down from the side of the Paramo, bears the name of Naguanagua, and a small village immediately at its base bears the same name. The common track to Puerto Cabello lies over this lower plain and protruding mountain, and takes the usual winding course of ascent common to such steep and rugged declivi- ties. Some huts occupy little platforms, on the points where the direction of the path is changed : and the track becomes indistinct from the city, as soon as the summit or ravine^ on the north-east side of this lower mountain is passed.
The appearance of the royal force, at only four miles dis- tance, spread consternation in the city. There was no ex- pectation of such a visit, and but few troops ; but the com- mandant was to perform his duty ; and his first measure was
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to put the drums and bugles upon immediate service. The regular beats of discipline and alarm were arranged, and re- gularly performed, as if he had five thousand men ; while the whole population was called forth to sustain their homes and families. So long as the royal troops lingered on the sides of the mountain, halting at every angle to bring up strag- glers,— as not more than one person at a time could descend or ascend through the greatest part of the way, — so long did the tardiness of the royalists afford time to put muskets in the hands of men and boys, who had never before handled fire-arms : such as had horses or mules he ordered to come forth, and formed into squadrons with lances, and taught them, in the very act of presenting themselves on the face of the city, in sight of the enemy; he taught them to march by files, and face to the front or flank ; to break off at com- mand and form again"} and, being all expert horsemen, he made them move rapidly into sections of eight and twelve in front, and to wheel in the same order. These drills of the few militia and the regulars were kept incessantly in mo- tion, by having two parts at rest and a third at exercise, and in small divisions at the extremities and centre of the north face of the city. Both forces were thus in view of each other two days, distant about three miles ; the royalists, as soon as the night of the third day came on, descended to the small valley and the village in silence ; and in the morning ap- peared drawn up in order of battle, in the plain below. The patriots were immediately formed in line ; their regulars, amounting only to three hundred men, forming an advanced corps, took a conspicuous rising position on the left, or on the enemy's right flank ; while the militia were formed into two columns, a hundred yards in the rear of the right flank of the regulars ; the cavalry, and even the inhabitants who came, only as spectators, were persuaded to assemble, and form a line on a platform oblique to the Spanish left, with an assur- ance that their presence was -all that would be required.
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Meanwhile, couriers had been despatched to seek General who was on his march, to advise him of the exi-
icy, and the presence of the enemy ; stratagem was thus resorted to, in order to induce the Spanish commander to believe that General Paez, with a strong division, and the grenadiers of the guard, was on his march, and hourly ex- pected. This display, in the face of the Spanish force, had all the effect that was proposed ; and other incidents, to which the circumstances gave rise, contributed to make a strong impression : for the Spaniards, instead of marching directly to the city, which they could have done, halted, and assumed a corresponding position on the base of the mountain, where they could not be attacked in front. Colonel Urslar had been previously so much indisposed, as not to be able to march with General Paez, as was expected, when the ge- neral left Valencia ; and though he put every thing in mo- tion, and saw all the dispositions he had directed, it was not supposed, by the Spanish chief, that he was at that time in Valencia.
Before the dawn of the next day the patriot troops were ordered to descend, and appeared on the verge of the valley, within a mile and a half of the enemy. The citizens, who were only ostensible soldiers, continued posted to the right, on the brow of a ravine, which lay obliquely to the right of the patriot line, and closed the path, which extended at ^respectful distance, upon the left flank of the enemy ; answering every purpose of an efficient force in reserve, and actually prevent- ing communications by emissaries ; the left of the patriot line was covered by the steep inaccessible declivities of the western horn of the natural crescent. By a predisposition it was contrived to be communicated in the Spanish camp, that Paez was expected ; and Urslar, having overcome his indisposition, by the exertions he had found it necessary to make, appeared in his usual conspicuous uniform, and on his well known roan charger, in the plain in front of the
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enemy. A fugitive from punishment, who had been a do- mestic of Urslar, had been taken into the service of Morillo, and was the first to make known to the Spanish chief the presence of Urslar, whence it was inferred that he had ar. rived by forced marches, and that Paez was not far off. The royalists had no cavalry, they would have been more per- nicious than useful on the ground they occupied ; but, in order to profit by the absence of Paez, and accomplish the destruction of the force drawn from the city, they sent guerilla parties into the valley near the village. A small squadron of about ninety volunteers, mounted, and with lances only, and and some expert Colombian marksmen, were precipitated into the plain, and succeeded in cutting off many of the Spanish cazadores, and compelling those who escaped to fall back upon the village. At the same moment that this evolution xvas so happily accomplished, the regulars were thrown out in loose order, with directions to form at a spot designated, and visible from their position, and be prepared there to move in column under the smoke of their own volley — Urs- lar led this column in person, formed them as proposed, commanded the fire, and kd the charge with a musquetoon, which he discharged as the signal for the bayonet ; the mi- litia were directed by skilful subalterns who understood their chief, and as the main attack was directed on the right of the Spaniards, and their left had been disconcerted by the havoc committed among their light troops, either through panic or surprise, or a persuasion that the patriot force was more than superior in numbers, and that the troops under Paez were al- ready present, they fell back ; the prompt and compact move- ment of the centre was equally successful. The brunt of the conflict, however, was on the right, which Morales himself commenced — the Spaniards were once rallied, and formed to attack the gallant battalion under Urslar, who had already formed his column on a natural jettec projecting from the mountain ; this position had the advantage of fire, and was
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adapted to fatigue the enemy, if he should attempt to ascend ; but an accidental approach of the squadron of cavalry from the left, placed the Spanish right in such a position as to enable the cavalry, by an easy evolution, to charge their left flank ; and this they were ordered to execute, while the in- fantry, passing from thzjettee, attacked the right of Mora- les' line — who did not wait for the close encounter, but re- tired in good order up the declivity beyond the village, where they were suffered to remain unmolested in consequence of the closing of the day. The citizens, who had rendered such good service by their bare appearance, were now ordered to return to their repose ; and a courier announced that Paez would be in the field early in the morning. He arrived at midnight; his troops had bivouaced on the plain, seven miles from the city, where they were furnished, -by the ac- tivity of the citizens, with every comfort that they required. Before dawn the patriots were in motion, and a select corps had scaled the heights and taken a position, unseen, in the rear of the Spaniards, separated by a deep and steep ravine. But the attack was made consentaneously on the village and on the heights upon the enemy's rear ; the resistance was, as Urslar nobly acknowledged, unquestionably daring and valorous. The patriots, either from the difficulty of the ascent, or from design, retired by the west of the village, and there formed ; the Spaniards, elated by this mistaken ap- pearance of discomfiture, again moved down to the plain in good order ; but they had scarcely passed the west side of the village, when Paez, who had posted his lancers on the east, charged upon their left flank and rear at the same in- stant, and the struggle was short but sanguinary : the battle of Naguanagua became a victory which merits admiration ; two hundred of the Spanish troops were made prisoners with their arms; three hundred remained on the field dead or wounded ; and much ammunition was taken ; Morales re- tired to the Sierra with the remains of his for£e, and pro-
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ceeded with celerity to Puerto Cabello, about twenty miles, by the road of La Trinicera. The defeat was signal in every respect ; the Spanish force never after appeared in that quar- ter. Valencia had suffered preeminently by the war, and the brutality of successive commanders ; the recollection of the butcheries and perfidies this city had suffered, under every chief, from Monteverde and Morillo, to Boves and Morales, rendered this victory a subject of just and general congratulation. The valour and judgment which had, with a small handful of regulars, not three hundred in number, directed by a man of experience and intrepidity, maintained the position, baffled a veteran, and held him in check with so much skill and success, were justly appreciated. Urslar, as he merited, had the thanks of the general, and possessed, as he merited, the esteem and love of all classes. We found him in possession of ihese most grateful of distinctions and honours, as high in the public estimation as in the devotion of his gallant grenadiers, whom he had so often Jed to vic- tory. He had a short time before our arrival married a lady who appreciated his worth.
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CHAPTER XII.
Grenadiers of the Colombian Guard— compared with other troops — resem- blance of Bengal sepahis— general ideas of the military of Colombia— foreign troops cannot act in Colombia— nor they in a cold climate. — Privations of the war— the roads— useful precautions to travellers.— Our party augmented by a Sergeant of Grenadiers as a guide — character— anticipations of roads— delay at Valencia — cause. — Dr. Murphy — Senor Penalver.— Horrible treachery and massacre by Boves — Dr. Pena evades assassination.
THE grenadiers of the guard, with a band of wind in- struments, and a corps de tambour, equal to any I had ever heard, seduced me to the parade, where I had the gratifica- tion of seeing military movements and discipline to my taste. This corps is acknowledged to be the best in the service, and was as much distinguished for its valour in the field as its character in quarters, and generous esprit du corps. On parade, and in motion, they presented to my eye a very strik- ing resemblance of some corps of Patan sepahis of the Bengal army. The greater number about five feet ten inch- es in height, some about six feet, none, apparently, below five feet eight ; the prevailing complexion, a weather-beaten fair or brunette, with some bloom ; about two of ten, brown or darker shades ; and one or two in a company with crisp- ed hair ; these appeared to be selected on account of sta- ture and robustness. In no part of the world are the people, generally, more athletic, muscular, and fine formed, than in Colombia ; the grenadiers appeared as if picked for models ; in fact they were a selected corps. The hair lank, black, and cropped, features generally handsome, some, particularly the pioneers, of hard features ; their aspects cheerful ; and none seemed to be above twenty-five, nor under eighteen years. These were my first impressions : there may have been some
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younger men, and even some as old as thirty'; but a very large portion of the Colombian troops, in all parts, seem to be under twenty years of age. The grenadiers were, there- fore, the more remarkable and imposing, but I never saw a like number of men in finer health, nor so uniformly har- dy and athletic.
The select regiments of Patans, Ouriahs, and Rohillas, of Hindustan, are perhaps taller, but with rare exceptions, and not so round or full, though of equally handsome visages, and equally susceptible of the highest discipline ; but they could not sustain the marches and privations which a Colombian army undergo with alacrity, and without a murmur. The grenadiers would have furnished excellent models for an Apollo, or a Perseus. Their perceptible characteristics, self- satisfaction and energy. This corps too had their light uni- forms well preserved, and it was the only corps I had the opportunity of seeing who were uniformly well shod. Their training was a modification of the Prussian and French sys- tems, and their movements in elastic triple time, which gave an ease and grace to their motions, and prepared the habit for an increased celerity of movement. Their arms and accou- trements were in good order. The inverted conical leather corded cap, with a quitasol, or shade over the eyes, a tri- co- loured cockade and a small tuft, composed the head-dress, in ordinary ; but, on extraordinary occasions, they were pro- vided with the lofty mitre-shaped bear-skin caps, with large tassels, and a platted cord, such as were worn by the French grenadiers, having a gilt grenade in front, as well as on their coat collars, and the skirt facing. They marched in perfect time, and wheeled with precision on the shortest lines.
Of their faculties for war, the state of their discipline and the victories in which they had participated, at Coxede, Ca- rabobo, Boyacca, and in numerous minor conflicts, but, above all, the constancy and fidelity they had displayed in circum- stances most appalling and disastrous, had given them a very
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high reputation ; indeed, if their conduct be contrasted with the condition of the population from which they were drawn, at the commencement of the revolution, their discipline and character altogether present a most extraordinary example, and the evidence of what may be done by a mild system, and the example and familiar intercourse of officers with their comrades : for this is the Colombian system ; neither blows nor stripes are permitted ; they could never succeed there ; they never succeed any where to make soldiers that can be relied on.
The facility with which such men were converted into victors and veterans, must be a grateful subject of reflection to the friends of freedom : men who, in 1810, trembled at the flash of a thimble-full of gunpowder, and contemplated a firelock as a demon, became so indifferent to the fire of battle, that they have frequently attacked the artillerists at the muzzle of their guns, with the bayonet ; often by charges of cavalry, carrying no weapon but the lance. It may be pertinent to remark, here, in relation to some notions which prevail as to the horrible consequences of a whole people being rendered so susceptible of military enterprise ; the truth is, that the troops of Europe are incompetent to make any durable impression in those countries — within forty miles of the ocean they must perish of the climate — beyond that distance, of hunger ; they must retreat or starve. On the other hand, the Colombian troops could not sustain the rigors of a cold climate. They are happily adapted to the defence of their own country, and invincible to 'all the world, when conducted as they have hitherto been. Indeed the whole population, and both sexes, have undergone a change of character, produced by the duration and savage character of the war, as carried on by the Spaniards. The frequency of peril, has taught them caution as well as courage ; they do not now apprehend danger when there is none, and are prepared against it when it happens.
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In reference to the disinterestedness and constancy of the native troops during the revolution ;— the vicissitudes of mili- tary marches, and the scantiness of subsistence, were not the only traits of fortitude and fidelity — none of the armies of Co- lombia had magazines for subsistence, nor hospitals, nor even pay or clothing ; a whole army has been without a single shoe, or a second shirt. The climate rendered the want of tents not so great an inconvenience, but clothing of some kind was of absolute necessity — and that necessity could not be supplied for many months together. Occasionally one or two reals a week were issued, some weeks not even a real ; an occa- sional arrival, from the United States, brought a few suits of clothing ; hut the credit of the government was low, and the artifices of the Spanish agents in the United States, who, by what means is not certain, had secured many presses in the United States, p_t)duced discredit, by pouring forth calumny on the revolution and its leaders, and represent- ing the cause as not only desperate, but despicable. These odious doings cost many lives ; and interfered materially, not only with the supplies, that would otherwise been have furnished, but on the government of the United States. The wants and sufferings of these people were proportion- ably aggravated, and in contemplating their constancy, and their triumphs, admiration is augmented, as the par- ticular facts are discovered. The troops, nevertheless, did sometimes shew symptoms of discontent and disappoint- ment ; but there is no instance of their disobedience to or- ders, or refusal to meet an enemy ; even their miseries were forgotten in the presence of an enemy, whose barbarity was perhaps a very powerful spring of action, and cause of uni- on among the native troops. Danger seems never to have been apprehended, when they had officers who were brave and kind to them, and whose talents were known, and cour- rage exemplary ; with these the roar of artillery, and the re- verberations of the Andes, made " cheerful music." They sometimes developed faculties adapted to particular service
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an extraordinary manner. The riflemen of the valley of le Cauca, I have been informed, were equal in coolness precision to our own ; and their cavalry, where the country was adapted to their operations, had no superiors — they were as expert horsemen as the Arabs or Persians, and of more resolute courage than the Tartars ; for daring and dexterity, in the use of the lance, and the management of the horse, perhaps they have no equals.
Those who have not traversed the Andes considerably, can have no adequate conception of the marches and servi- ces of the armies ; nor of the unfitness of European troops, to strive against them. It was the boast of the soldiers of the revolution of North America, that the path, over whicli they marched, was frequently stained by the blood of their shoeless feet ; and it was too true. But in Colombia there was neither a shoe nor a road any where, the prepared work of art; the best, which occasionally offered, was a track beaten by the feet of mules, on a level, or on a yielding mould ; and the range of military action, was not always, as at Carabobo and Boyacca, on a highway ; but on the sides or summits of rocky steeps and precipices, where wheel carriages were never seen, and could not move. The coun- try east of St. Carlos is comparatively level ground ; after passing the battle ground of Carabobo, it is a broken and ever varying wild, unless where the population is somewhat numerous ; cultivation and the pasturage present some scenes rescued partially from natural rudeness. All the rivers rise in these vast mountains, and the routes of armies, as well as travellers, are directed to the loftiest ridges, because it is on- ly by that course the crossing of the torrents is to be avoid- ed. I have been placed on many occasions in positions, in which, if I had not been so fortunate as to have obtained an experienced and expert guide, I should have gone astray, or been entangled in ravines, and precipices, from which ex- trication would seem hopeless.
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There are certain peculiarities in the track that must or' necessity be travelled, which, though stated here in advance of the experience by which they became known, may serve to show the reader what difficulties the traveller, as well as the soldier, had to overcome. The route generally through the populous countries is traced by the mules, on soils which receive the impression of their feet ; in thickly wooded re- gions, or in the savannas, where the rapidity and rankness of vegetation give a velvet sward that bends elastic to the tread, or grass so tall as to rise above the rider's head, the track is seldom visible below. In such cases the guide is like the pilot on a coast, he looks out for some headland ; and the waving lines and fantastic forms of the summits of the Cor- dillera, show peaks, which, like land- marks seen on the ocean, tell the bearing or direction of the route.
The experience of the commandant at Valencia, and an examination of our servants, had pointed out the necessity of our having some better guide than either of them. A Serjeant of the grenadiers, who had been somewhat disabled in the feet, was attached to him as an orderly, and having consulted the serjeant, he was proposed to us as a guide ; he had travelled the route five times before, and we gladly ac- cepted the favour, and with gratefulness, though far short of the thanks we afterwards found to be justly due.
Our guide had been attached to the commandant since 1817, and he wore the yellow ribbon and medal of Carabobo at his button- hole ; he was a vigilant and faithful soldier ; as we proceed he will be better known ; it is merely enough to say here, that he was an Englishman of Suffolk, and had been a seaman at the battle of the Nile ; he had the dry humour of an Irishman of the same class ; and the same never-ceas- ing flow of animal spirits, vivacity, and inclination to mirth : upon occasions, such as the apparent inextricability of a savan- na, forest, dry river bed, ravine, or bleak paramo, I was accus- tomed to provoke his drollery for pastime, and as it was the
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only compensation he was allowed to receive, I endeavoured to make up in confidence and kindness for the good which he most cheerfully and unceasingly rendered to the very last moment of separation.
I was accustomed to ask of him : " Serjeant, have we not lost the road?" " What road?" asked the serjeant; " there is no longer any king's highway in this country ; they have all become republicans." " But republicans must travel." " Well then, look at that peak to the south-west." " What, the highest peak of all ?" "Ay, colonel, the very highest of all." " I suppose our route lies near that?" " Near it, colo- nel ! yes, faith, over the very tip-top of it." "This is not the first time that I observed our road lay over the highest places." " Faith, colonel, you may take it as a rule, that, if any mountain higher than another lies in your way, your road lies over that ; it was the way with the Indians, and the way with the Spaniards after them ; and it is, as you see, the way still." " I suppose, after the war is closed, there will be bet- ter roads, and over shorter spaces ?" " That, colonel, is none of my business ; I belong to the grenadiers of Colom- bia, and when they give us our arrears of pay and allowance of land, I may be able to talk about that."
According to the theory of our military conductor, the policy of impassable roads, or of no roads, belonged to the aborigines ; being in constant conflict, they had for purposes of defence, as well as offence, selected the most elevated and difficult paths and passes, from which they could discover an approaching enemy, or descend upon him by surprize, or annoy an assailing force, by rolling ponderous masses of rock down the the line of approach ; a stratagem repeatedly practised, with terrible success, against the Spaniards, du- ring the revolution. The policy of the Spaniards, he said, had adopted the plan, to prevent communication between adjacent provinces. The theory was plausible ; indeed the only communication permitted between Bogota and Caracas
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was that of the correo or postman, which took forty days to perform ; stations were assigned, at which the runners were changed, and as the package was often light enough to be carried by a pigeon, the labour was not very great, nor the speed expedient. Private individuals obtained permission to travel, with difficulty.
I have introduced these particulars here, because they serve the double purpose of illustrating the marches of ar- mies, and preparing the traveller for the roads he is to sur- mount.
Our stay at Valencia had been prolonged, from respect to General Paez — but he had been ordered on service in a different direction ; an accident, however, made my stay eleven days. The commandant, in his desire to afford me and my companions every gratification, intimated that the lake could be seen to advantage from the terraced roof of an adjacent house, which stood on the corner of the Pla- za, now occupied as a barrack. On the twentieth, we pre- pared ourselves with our glasses, and ascended, and here it was that I found a terraced roof, such as are found on all well constructed houses in India. The lake lay between three and four miles to the south-east of us, and the prospect was cer- tainly grand ; the Serrania of Ortiz, which runs in an apparent line from east to west, on the south side of the lake, appear- ed like a changeable silk scarf in the distance, a sort of van- ishing and returning mirage ; while the lake, changing from the aspect of a broad sparkling sea of quicksilver, appeared diminished into a narrow gulph, of which the extremity was imperceptible. The mountain ridge, which separates the valley from the sea, when we looked along the lake, seemed to present shadows of an ochreous hue, interspersed with dusky green, and from which a scintillating transparent va- pour appeared to rise, which seemed to give substance to the atmosphere.
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After gratifying our curiosity, we were about to descend. The stairs (unfortunately for the occasion) were not the Gothic double flight of ponderous brick, but of wood, with four landings. Some of these landings had been stript for fuel, by the cocineros of the barrack, and more apprehensive for Elizabeth, than careful of myself, I for an instant for- got that the landings were stript, until I found myself seat- ed on the ground floor beneath the stair-case, through which I was carried by my own weight ; my first impression was to halloo — " all's well," though I found myself not quite well enough to stand upright, and crawled on all fours from my place of deposit. I was a little stunned, and so much bruised, as not to be able to mount my mule before the twenty-eighth. The accident was more than compensated, by the acquaintances it had procured me, and the kindness it produced ; it procured me the intimacy of Senor Penal- ver, who, hearing of my arrival, had returned the very eve- nihg this accident occurred.
The physician of the division of the army stationed at Va- lencia, on hearing of this accident, called upon me of his own kindness, and I had the benefit of his skill, and the gratifica- tion of his intercourse. Dr. VVm. Murphy is a native of Sligo, in Ireland ; he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied medicine, and took his degree there. As a catholic, and a man of talents, his own country was the last in which he could expect to prosper, or to live in quiet without base- ness, and Colombia presented to him a field where his qua- lifications and virtues promised to place him on equal terms with men of virtue and worth. A townsman, youthful com- panion, and college friend, Dr. French Mullery, similarly circumstanced, associated with him in the emigration, and both had risen to the rank of surgeon- major in the military establishment. I met Dr. Mullery afterwards at Barquisiine- to. Both these gentlemen were held in the highest estima-
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tion, as well for their professional merits, as the exemplary integrity of their social character. If word- could convey sufficiently the sentiments with which these worthy Hiberni- ans inspired me, I should not be so sparing of my expres- sions of esteem and gratitude for their generous and disinter- ested attentions to me and to my family party, as Dr. Mul- lery significantly described us.
Obliged to remain four days in a reclined position, I had ample opportunities from the kindness of Si nor Penalver to converse on every kind of subject — the revolution ; the bar- barity of the Spanish chiefs ; the ruinous effects on families ; the early distractions and parties arising out of unsettled •views ; the inexperience of free government ; the force of lo- cal predilections ; personal ambition ; jealousy of men with better talents ; the remains oi Spanish attachments, which nothing could have completely eradicated but that very bru- tality and ferociousness, which characterized every governor and officer of Spain, from the commencement to that very hour when Morales was spreading desolation, and accumu- lating by plunder a fortune, to be transferred to Europe, where he meant to retire as soon as it amounted to what he deemed competent to his future designs. The characters of men of eminence, living and dead, were happily and perspi- cuously reviewed, and the proud prospects which the revolu- tion presented for posterity, but which had cost so much misery and ruin to the generation that had accomplished it.
I learned that he was the only survivor of seven brothers; the rest had perished in war or by assassination ; one niece, and one nephew of sixteen, and a daughter of eleven, were all who remained of a numerous family ; their estates had been de- solated ; he had been in voluntary exile from his home, and his niece had suffered all the hardships incident to a flight by sea, in which she had visited the West India islands, return- ed by the Orinoco, and thence by land to her native home;
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and who, in doing the honours of his house, left us nothing to wish but that it were possible we should never be sepa- rated.
In the various interesting transactions related while I was thus delayed, was a horrible act of deliberate perfidy and as- sassination by a Spanish general : the campaign of 1814 was most calamitous to the republic ; the wants of the army could be supplied only by its separation into divisions, to equalize subsistence on different parts of the republic ; the Spaniards had distributed their forces under a number of partizan chiefs; and it was deemed by the republican chiefs the safest policy to meet them in that mode of operation which they had pre- ferred, a guerilla war. But the result to the patriots was disastrous : in the plains, in Coro, and other places, they suf- fered defeat. The ferocious Boves entered Caracas in 1814, and the casemates of Laguayra became the prison and the grave of many generous men. The siege of Puerto Cabello was obliged to be raised. Valencia yet held out with suc- cess, though not without disaster ; every thing after the first battle of Carabobo, 28th May, 1814, appeared to reverse their good fortune, and it became necessary for Valencia to capitulate upon a proposition very plausibly made by Boves.
The utter disregard of treaties and promises which had uniformly characterised the Spanish commanders, led to the insertion of an article in the capitulation, which the Valen- cians hoped to find more solemn and binding when sancti- fied by their most sacred solemnity. It was agreed that the capitulation should be ratified at high mass to be celebrated in the front of both armies, where, in the presence of the sacred emblem of the divinity, each should swear upon the host to observe the conditions faithfully. The solemnity and the oath having taken place, the city was surrendered to the royal authority.
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The calm which now succeeded appeared auspicious : a disposition began to be manifested which preferred submis- sion to the further prosecution of war. Alas ! this calm was but the precursor of a sad catastrophe. The custom of cele- brating important events by festivity and feasting pervades Spanish America. The city was tranquil, and the remem- brance of past evils had lost some of their acuteness. To give testimony of his satisfaction at this quiet state of things, JSoves signified that he would give a grand entertainment. Notifications were circulated, and all the principal persons of both sexes were invited to a splendid supper and ball : it was even hinted that absence would be construed into dis- loyalty ; the effect was such as was intended.
Upon festive occasions, where the company is numerous, it is customary with private families to borrow from each other their plate and ciher conveniencies. On this occasion it could not be supposed that the Spanish general was pro- vided with plate for the table to supply such a concourse. Every family was eager to contribute whatever remained un- plundered ; and they were the more eager, as it seemed to promise more favour. There were few articles of plate re- maining in any private house after this contribution ; and the feast was accordingly sumptuous. The day was spent in consolements and condolements, regrets for past afflictions and compliments that they were terminated. The evening seemed too long, and night too hasty, to the dancers. The music already enlivened the halls, and the streets exhibited a social holiday. In one saloon the youth of both sexes " tripped on light fantastic toe," in another the flask circu- lated with unsuspecting freedom. The females were nearly all left to dance alone, such was the attraction of momentary conviviality — a few only refrained from the indulgence — in the midst of this double career of enjoyment, the folding doors are suddenly thrown open ; soldiers occupy them with their sabres and bayonets, and a general massacre of the men
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instantly takes place, amidst the shrieks and cries of females in the adjacent apartments — wives, mothers, daughters for- get their own safety and rush into the midst of the mas- sacre, vainly seeking husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers — whom they find bathed in their own blood, and in the ago- nies of death.
It would be fruitless to offer any commentary on such an atrocious deed. It will occur to every one that the mas- sacre reduced the plunder of the plate borrowed for the fes- tivity to a petty outrage. Some subaltern officers, who were not among the guests, had the honest imprudence to avow their execration of the deed — they were not long concealed from the tyrant Boves, and were unceremoniously executed, along with some soldiers, who had uttered similar indigna- tion, on the very spot where the solemn mass had been per- formed in ratification of the capitulation.
Among the few who were so fortunate as to escape the general assassination, I had the satisfaction of being intimate with one at Bogota. Senor Miguel Pt na, one of the judges of the Supreme Court at Bogota. This gentleman was among the guests invited ; whether from a distaste of ca- rousal, or some movements which he happened to notice, which induced him to caution, he had retired to the lower apartments, and contrived to obtain the habit of a monk, in which he found no interruption ; and intuitively made his way to an adjacent mountain, and to a village on the oppo- site side, where he awaited to ascertain the truth or error of his apprehensions, which, when he found realized, he lost no time in retiring out of the range of apprehension. He con- firmed the story to me at Bogota.
The narrative here given was made from memory, after a casual relation by a contemporary resident ; some incidents have escaped my memory of an aggravating kind ; but I prefer stating substantially what I heard to risking an imper- fect or mistaken point in a transaction sufficiently detestable and abhorrent.
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CHAPTER XIII.
Aguas Callientes — prepare for marching — charges for mule hire — our part) augmented — depart the twenty-eighth — charming country — vast range un- cultivated— description of our party — proper to travel armed — it is the cus- tom— aspects of the country — promontories issuing into the plain — divergen- cy of the route — towns on the line of march — the field of Carabobo — conduct of Morales — quarrel of the Spanish chiefs — La Torre retires — Morales' conduct — manly declaration of Captain Spence — towns on the road — warm climate — travel by night — Palmas — river Portugueza — accommodations at Palmas — good-natured fat acalde— some particulars of the customs — style of building — recollections and comparisons — smoking — the custom abating.
BEFORE the accident which detained me at Valencia, I had contemplated an excursion to the Aguas Callientes, or the warm springs, in the neighbourhood of Puerto Cabello, which is about twenty-two miles from the city ; but it would have been impracticable, the Spaniards holding Puerto Cabeilo still, and a picket from Valencia being posted at the princi- pal pass in the mountains, with absolute orders not to permit any person to go or come between the two places. Lieut. Bache, however, obtained a passport, with a view only to visit the springs, his curiosity being excited by the descrip- tion of Humboldt; but the picket would not permit him to pass; and he returned, though he was compensated by viewing the ground of the battle at Naguanagua, and the steepness of the cordillera, over which the route to Puerto Cabello lies.
Having so far recovered, as to be able, with some altera- tions in the seat of my saddle, to mount my mule, it be- came necessary to provide mules for the baggage and ser- vants. The charge, for a single mule, from Caracas to Va- lencia, about 107 miles, was five dollars ; the demand made for nearly the like distance to Truxillo was ten dollars each mule ; at first sight, this seemed like extortion, but Colo-
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nel Gomez, formerly an aid of President Bolivar, satisfied us that the nature of the country made the difference justifi- able. We had experienced, from every officer of the Co- lombian service, the kindest attentions, and Colonel Gomez took upon himself to provide an ariero who would accom- pany us : the master muleteer was somewhat better than his man, though he played us some tricks, but none that were so important as to require a report to the Colonel — and we found the route, as the Colonel described, such as war- ranted double the demand for mules of that from Caracas to Valencia.
Our good friend, the commandant of Valencia, actuated by his good wishes and his experience, as noticed in the preceding chapter, had discovered, from our servants, Vin- cent and Pedro, that although they both professed to be so well acquainted with the country, as to undertake to be our guides, neither of them had ever been farther south or west than Truxillo ; and proffered us his orderly sergeant, who had five times passed the whole route, to accompany us. The sergeant, of whom I took notice before, whose pas- sion was rambling, and who had become so much natural- ized to the climate, food, and people of the Sierra, was so well known, every where on the road, that this little jaunt, of 1300 miles, was as welcome to him as a party of plea- sure, and the whole addition to our expence was the hire of another mule ; the commandant making it a condition that he should receive nothing — and in truth, it was not ne- cessary as to the sergeant, for he considered the permission to go with us as a favour to him. This addition to our cavalcade had many very useful effects ; he knew every bo- dy, every where ; he knew where to procure what we want- ed, and always on cheap terms ; and without him, it is mo- rally certain, we should not have been able to find our way in three months, nor to manage the knavish dispositions of our two hired asistientes. A sergeant or a corporal is as
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proud of his rank, and tenacious of his command, as a ge- neral ; accordingly I placed him in command of the rest of the suite, and as when mules are hired, a muleteer accom- panies every three or four mules, to provide their forage, load and unload, and take charge on their return, we had now the ariero, who rode his own mule, and his servant mu- leteer, who walked, attached to our corps> so that the ser- geant was in his element, and conducted things as if he was on military service. When mules are hired, the subsistence of mules and attendants is comprehended in the hire.
We had been eleven days at Valencia, and had obtained the esteem and good will of many estimable persons of both sexes, of whom we took leave on the 27th November, par- ticularly the gallant commandant and several officers of the grenadiers, and our amiable friend, Dr. Murphy. Our mules being punctual, (a ra^e case,) we were mounted at the dawn of the 28th, and found, as customary, a party of our friends already prepared to escort us out of town. The venerable and worthy Ferdinand Penalver was the last who left us, at the distance of nearly ten miles, leaving such impressions of his liberal and cultivated mind, and practical virtues and prin- ciples, as can only cease to be felt along with the cessation of every faculty.
It was not until the converse with our friends had ceased, and we were at ease to look around us, that I could bestow any attention on the beautiful plain and country through \vhich we were passing, nor the number of our cara- van. Our sergeant led the van, Lieutenant Bache and his sister followed, and I came next ; then the three mules with baggage, and the spare mule, the ariero and his man, and last of all our two domestics — eleven mules, and six in our party, besides the muleteers. Our sergeant had caparison- ed his mule and himself in the military style of the coun- try, with a good bridle, but an enormous bit and snaffle, with some ornaments, though faded, which shewed it had at
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some day kept good company and seen some service. His saddle was a Spanish peak and high pommel, formed upon a powerful saddle-tree, which threw out, above the mule's haun- ches, two firm limbs, which saved the mule from rubbing; and, at the same time, carried his valise, which contained a good stock of powder, ball, and some flints ; a tinder-box, steel, and matches ; what he called a kit, being a collection of various mechanical implements, nippers, plyers, gimlets, chissels, files, hammers, a vice, turn-screw, cork-screw, awls, knives, needles, from a sail-maker's needle and palm- thimble, to cambric, of which he had some assorted papers ; with ladies' thimbles "for love tokens;" besides tapes, bobbins, scissors, and buttons and buckles of various de- scriptions. A blue military short coat, with standing collar and yellow buttons, at one of which, on his left breast, was suspended the yellow ribbon and silver medal of Carabobo ; his pantaloons, of Russia ; a black stock ; quarter- boots, with one spur, the rowel of enormous prongs, sufficient to pur an elephant in action ; his black belt bore a stout cu- chilla, or sword, broad, heavy, and sharp, of twenty-seven inches ; his holsters carried a pair of pistols, and on the right side a short Prussian rifle hung to a running swivel attached to the saddle ; on his head, at times, a leather in- fantry cap, with a long plume of feathers and beautifully coloured with the cochineal, the indigo, and the turmeric of the country, and a cockade of the same three colours ; at other times, when in a city such as Merida or Tunja, his grenadier's cap appeared ; and when mounted, a lance of ten feet, to which was attached a stout line, wound round the shaft, the other end in a slip-knot attached to his upper arm ; the ferule of the lance resting in an iron socket attach, ed to his stirrup ; over his saddle he carried, in suitable folds, a good blanket, which was to be his coverlid by night, his romero when it rained.
I have enumerated the provident care of the sergeant, be-
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cause, in the course of the journey, very few articles of what he had laid up were found superfluous, and some were of very great convenience in a country where there are no arts or trades of any kind, but the merely agricultural, ex- cepting in the great towns, and even there not many nor good of their kind. I had provided myself with convenient articles, such as a hammer, small vice, some files, &c., and I would advise the carrying of a small hatchet or tomahawk in good order, at the saddle bow, as in the luxuriant valleys and passing through the bamboo thickets, such an article will be found of much convenient use. Though we had not any just cause to apprehend any design upon us, we followed the practice of the country, in arming ourselves, each of us having a good sabre, and pair of pistols ; the natives of the country who are met on the road are usually armed, some with muskets, or musketoons ; this perhaps is the conti- nuance of an old custom, or it may have arisen out of the war, which generally casts forth some unfortunate beings on the highways. The knowledge of the language is above all things the most necessary. Our sergeant spoke it with more fluency than correctness, and more vivacity than is usual to Englishmen, and never failed to make himself understood, and nine times out of ten agreeable. When he found a su- percilious or a knavish alcalde, or a pilfering muleteer, he was not so agreeable, for he not only took care to make known his own importance, and his ribbon and medal of Ca- rabobo, but the importance of the Coronet de los Estados Uni- dos del Norte to whom he was attached by the commandant of Valencia.
We now rambled in a desultory chain, Indian file, over the plain of Valencia. Leaving the city, the road leads nearly south, and a gentle descent towards the lake, which we passed in a line obliquely to the westernmost extremity, the ground rising as the lake receded, where the road led more westwardly, and rose to the right and left into the
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ridges which bound it on both sides. It was noticed on en- tering Valencia, that at the termination of the city, on the west end, there was one of those promontories, which shoot out like great arms from a long sea-coast chain ; from the west side of this projecting point, a chain of mountains more depressed, not one third the height of the mountain of the coast, throws its prolongation to the south -south- west, and extends thence beyond Varinas : from the front of this range of depressed mountains, issue a multitude of rivers of various magnitudes, so that they intersect the plain, their direction be- ing generally to the south-east and east, and rendering the pas- sage to the greater Andes impracticable for half the year, and inconvenient the other. The route which travellers pursue is, for a considerable distance, along the summit and across the beds of many of those rivers and ravines. The greater Corde- lier, which proceeds out of that which passes to the east in front of Merida, and is therefore called the Paramo of Merida, is here in sight, its dark base separating the verdant horizon from the gloomy clouds, which for a great part of the day hide its loftiest line. To give a familiar idea of their position, the promontory behind Valencia west, may be presumed to repre- sent the point or summit of the letter A, and the depressed range from which the rivers issue south-east to form the right line of the letter ; leading to Varinas, the greater Andes are re- presented by the left line or continuity of the Merida Paramo. Now the road from Valencia, instead of pursuing the right line towards San Felipe, or the left line leading towards Va- rinas, turns abruptly to the north-west, at a point correspond- ing with the cross-line at the intersection of A, where a ridge, a little more elevated, pushes across, and terminates near Bar- quisimeto.
The villages and towns in succession from Valencia, are Tucuito, Carabobo, Chirgua, Las Hermanas, Tinaquilla, Pal- mas, Plomera, San Carlos, thence San Jose, La Cey va, Quebra- da de Camouraka, Tinaco, where the road abruptly breaks off to the north-west, by Camarocate, Caiesita, El Altar, Ba-
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ladera, Gamalotal, Lamorita, Rastrajos, Caudares, to Bar- quisimeto.
Tucuito, though it be the first town, is not the first habi- tation ; the town stands on the left side of the river Guata- paro, which has its sources in the ridge west of Valencia, and on its sides a beautiful valley, with many handsome plantations. Having crossed the Guataparo, the ground has a gentle ascent to some distance, when it becomes level, flanked with fine forests. A ravine is darkly visible through the deep shadows of foliage always verdant, it being the now dry bed of a rivulet, that, at a different season, is overflow- ing. Crossing out of this ravine, the side is steeper than the descent ; gaining it, the traveller issues out of darkness into broad sunshine. The sergeant immediately galloped off an ascending ground, which opened in beauty and grandeur before us ; he placed himself, with his lance couched, wait- ing to display the positions, and, looking round to mark every point, waited our approach ; I believe it was only a suspicion, for I thought I saw the sergeant eye his yellow ribbon and his medal, with his dark blue eye more bright than usual ; in fact, this was the field of Carabobo, and like my uncle Toby's aid- de-camp, he was now placing himself in a position to besiege Dendermond once more. We fol- lowed him, after viewing some decayed bamboo huts at the opening of the thicket by which we entered ; these, he told us, were the tents of the Spaniards' picket guard the night before the battle ; and he went on to relate where the line was formed, where the reserves were placed, where Bolivar, and where Paez, where the British legion, and where the gre- nadiers of Colombia, were placed, for he was there among them ; where this evolution took place, and that charge " made a finish of the fight."
I returned to the bamboo bivouac, and found the stones which formed the hearth, and the ashes of the fires whereat they cooked, many of them, their last supper ; the country
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people, who do not, as in some other countries, destroy wan- tonly for amusement, had even spared this bamboo ruin. The fragments of earthen- ware, the charred fire- wood, were there too — and time only, which has not respected Palmyra or Persepolis, had alone made an impression on it. Perhaps there was some pride in this forbearance of the Colombians ; it may have consoled some friend of one who had fallen on that field, or some orphan, some widow, or some parent, who had been a guest at Boves' bloody entertainment in Valencia; to such persons this ruin would yield console- ment, as an emblem of Spanish power, in its desolation. I confess, upon examination of myself, it was not the mere ruin that induced me to return to it a second time ; but sympathy with those to whom the emblem would carry con- solation.
If a military man were to search the world for a field of battle, for any number under 10,000 men, no finer position could be found. Rising out of the ditch, at the entrance, the burst of light, after the dusky thicket that is passed through^ for an instant produces a halt, and a most picturesque and extensive field opens upon the eye, ascending about a quar- ter of a mile, where the sergeant had posted himself with his face to the south ; he showed all parts of the field of battle. From his position in front, the ground slopes, for half a mile, gently to the entering place or the bivouac, and is level there for three or four hundred yards, when the ground rises more abruptly, and seems to consist of a succession of rising plat- forms, covered by very thick woods and wild shrubbery; and farther on, the trees more open, and farther still, the deep and dark boundless forest rising to a mountain height : on the right or west there was a long and more rapid descent, and at the distance of a quarter of a mile from where he stood, was a remarkable dry ravine, about fifty feet broad and forty feet deep, the water- scooped sides exhibiting a mass of angular stones, and abruptly opening from the sod a perpendicular
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steep. Behind him, at about eight hundred yards, com- menced a range of hills, covered with verdure, of the shape of large stacks of hay, the intervals exposing other conical hills ; and behind these a deep shady forest. Every thing could be seen from this spot: the sergeant was eloquent, and I have no doubt accurate, in his narrative.
The Spanish General La Torre, who had succeeded Mo- rillo, commanded in this action ; Morales was his second. The latter, monster as he was, displayed, on this occasion, the firmness of a soldier, and the talents of a commander ; he collected as many of the flying Spaniards as he could, and formed them into four heavy platoons, of which he formed a hollow square, placed himself in the centre, and kept up a running fight until he passed beyond Tucuito ; some of the cavalry of Paez pursued the fugitives with the lance to the neighbourhood of -Valencia.
This victory had a signal influence on the revolution ; and led to a rupture between the two Spanish chiefs, for which both had been some time prepared. The emissaries of the latter had spread abroad insinuations to the disparagement of La Torre, intimating that he had connived at the defeat ; that having married a lady of Caracas, he meant to remain in Co- lombia ; and that he was at heart a democrat. Morales in fact aspired to the command himself; La Torre was dis- posed to sustain the humane compact for regulating the mode of war agreed upon between Bolivar and Morillo ; Morales was opposed to it, and in favour of an exterminat- ing war. His ferocious disposition, and his license of in- discriminate plunder, had made Morales the favourite of the Spaniards and renegade Colombians, who sought to persuade themselves, that with due energy the republicans would be either forced to lay down their arms or be exterminated. La Torre was a polished generous soldier, and looked to a recon- ciliation by a magnanimous policy. Morales was as unprin- cipled as Morillo, and as sanguinary as Boves, and above
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all, was determined to secure a fortune by plunder at all events. The attacks on La Torre's honour and reputation were made known to him, how they were prepared and circu- lated, and left him no alternative, but to send Morales home in irons, or to resign ; his generosity forbid the first, and when his resignation and the causes were unequivocally as- signed in Spain, he was appointed to Puerto Rico. Among the stratagems of Morales, he caused, through one of his agents, formerly a resident of Caracas, imputations, such as above noted, to be published in some gazettes of the United States, and those gazettes were sent to Madrid as proofs of the allegations! Morales, upon the retirement of La Torre to Puerto Rico, broke the treaty concerning the conduct of the war, and carried on a scene of ravage and plunder along the seaboard, spreading alarm from the gulph of Paria to Cartha- gena, and carrying desolation to the borders of Merida and Truxillo ; at Bayladoros, when we reached that place, the in- habitants had fled to the Sierra with their cattle and movea- bles; we were within two miles of the Spaniards, who were at Las Puentas when we arrived at Gritja. Morales in 1822, issued a furious proclamation of sanguinary menaces ; which being directed against all persons of foreign countries who should visit Colombia, Captain Spence, of the United States navy, promptly issued a declaration, that the United States would not submit to such menaces against their citizens wjio visited Colombia, and in such spirited and magnanimous terms, as to induce the tyrant to refrain from executing his menaces.
We passed through Chirgua the 29th of November, and thence to Los Hermanos, and Tinaquilla. The mid- day sun was more ardent than we had felt it since we left Valencia ; we therefore had moved at half past four o'clock in the morning, and were at Tinaquilla by seven o'clock, where we break- fasted on our own chocolate, and had an abundance of fine oranges, alligator pears, and delicious bananas. The fervor of the sun on the naked rocky declivities had not abated, at
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four o'clock, P. M. ; but we determined to proceed, and, de- scending by winding and abrupt rocky passages, we gained the gravelly dry bed of the small river Tinapon, which flows into the Tinaco, and so darkened by rich vegetation that night seemed already to have come upon us, and gave to our path the temperature of a subterranean vault. Emerging from this abyss, we ascended by winding ravines and shelving rocks, and it was already night when we gained the bank on which stands the village of Palmas. The river whose bed we tra- versed is a contributor to the Tinaco, which is itself a tribu- tary to the spacious river Portugueza.
The alcalde of Palmas, a dapper, greasy looking, fat little man, belied his externals more than can well be imagined without experiment ; he required no messenger, and, although it was eight o'clock at night, and more than usually dark for the climate, he had rry bridle in his hand the instant I halted, and answering his own questions, for he made no pause to hear, said — " the Senor shall have accommodations, the best of the village — and whatever he can possibly want." It was wholly unnecessary to reply, as he had anticipated every thing which a traveller needs ; and we followed this good-natured scmejante of the governor of Barrataria, who led us to a cot- tage of no great compass, where the cocks and hens were already at roost on the brace beams of the thatched roof, which appeared to have been japanned with the best black- ing, or like the inside of a smoke -house. After dislodging the poultry over the spaces to be occupied by our hammocks, which we were under the necessity of suspending in irregu- lar angles, and not parallel as customary, for the space would not admit of three in a row, we left our sergeant, who had, with great pleasure to himself, and to our advantage, taken upon himself the duty of hanging up Miss Elizabeth's ham- mock in the best place, and that of the colonel in the next contiguous position. The floor of our apartment was rather uneven, as not much pains had been bestowed on it for per-
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>s the last six months, or years, to sweep it, or to level inequalities, in some of which water, not very pellucid nor fragrant, appeared to have been some time undisturbed. We repaired, therefore, to the corridor — the grey haze had become somewhat more transparent, and some handsome formed trees had risen in the caprice of nature on the green slope, reproving by their brightness and beauty the negli- gence of the waking dreamers, who vegetated in the rank- ness of their own manure within doors.
The practice of constructing cottages in all the warm cli- mates, exposed to rain or inundation, has a strong resem- blance. The scite and dimensions of the ground plan being measured off with a line, or guessed off by the eye, a bank of earth, raised about two feet above the natural platform, is prepared, with different degrees of dexterity, skill, or indif- ference ; in the warm regions the inappreciable bamboo fur- nishes the uprights at the angles of the proposed structure, and the jambs of the door- ways ; the temperature instinctively determines the elevation ; where the atmosphere is subject to cold damps, rains, or winds, the roofs are low ; where the heat is uniform, or sometimes ardent, the height of the house would serve as a kind of comparative thermometer. So, where the heat is constant, mats of the palm, and other abundant materials, form the thin partitions within and with- out, but every where the roof, thatched or tiled, presents a colonade, a veranda, or, in the language of the country, a corridor fronts or surrounds the house, and this is more or less spacious, in proportion as the wealth and inclination to obtain comfort by accommodation prevails. This corridor was, in fact, only a continuation of the sloping line of the roof, beyond the upright partitions ; and either a continua- tion of the rafter-like timbers of the roof, resting their ends on a line of upright posts, beyond the wall or partition of the house, or an addition subsequently made. As this de- scription of the cottage-architecture will serve for all parts of
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202 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the country, allowing for the circumstances to which we have referred, the description has been the more circumstantial, though the example was one of the very worst I had seen. The place we took outside was the raised bank, which torm- ed a continuation of the platform within, and afforded a seat upon which the sergeant, with an untiring attention and an- ticipation of our comfort, placed some dry hides to interpose between our garments and the floor. Here we had an excel- lent chicken stew, some good potatoes, apios, sweet yuccas, and an abundance of eggs, and arepa, or bread of Indian corn, to which keen appetites gave a delicious and enviable flavour ; and as we had brought a small supply of wine, as much as our means of transport would admit, we were here sufficiently fatigued to derive all the benefit and pleasure it could afford. Our little oval alcaldi appeared to delight in our good spirits, laughter, and fun, in which we were ac- customed to indulge on the sights we had seen, or in the mind's eye.
I could not but contrast, in this kind of cogitation, the ha- bitations at Palmas, with the light, airy, ever clean bungalows of Hindustan ; where filth never remains an inmate, nor the garment ever soiled ; where the pure sweet mat covers the commonest floor, where no garment is worn that does not testify to its snowy purity. The taste and luxury of smok- ing was not less striking. In Hindustan, as in South Ame- rica, all persons smoke, every man, every woman, every child ; in South America, the luxury is in the acrid aroma of the tobacco, augmented by the perfume of the vanilla. In Hin- dustan, it is the poorest people only who smoke the cherut, (or cigar,) in its raw state ; the waterman, who carries his goat-skin leather bag -full of water all day at a cent a bag ; the bearer, who travels with a human load on his shoulders, in a palankeen, from morning to night, or after, at two hun- dred cents a month, refines in the luxury of smoking, and embalms his tobacco with aromatics or assafoetida, and di-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 203
vests it of acridity by passing the vapour he inhales through pure water — and, when he can, through rose-water. A fe- male, of the same relatively humble station, would scarcely use a cocoa-nut for this purpose ; art and ingenuity had made smoking not only inoffensive but salubrious, by means of what is called a hooka, which, I make no doubt, will find its way, along with commerce, to the plains and cities of the Andes, when, instead of concealing the cigar from the conse- jo> they will be proud to exhibit its elegance, and smoke with him — con-amore — out of the same pipe. But we are yet in a world that has been locked up three hundred years. Be- fore the Colombians have reached an equal national antiquity with the children of Bramah, they will, perhaps, abandon cigars, and adopt the hookah. It is but justice to say of the lovely women of Colombia, that they applaud the ladies of the United States for not adopting this custom from the men : it continues to be the custom in South America to hand cigars, as it is in India to hand beetil, or a nosegay, or to pour rose-water on the hands of visitors. At the public and private assemblies and feasts at which I was a guest, both in Caracas and Bogota, and at the theatre, where smok- ing was formerly general, it is no longer in practice. In some private houses the practice of smoking is continued, and I have been sometimes so well clouded or smoked, that with a little aid of the imagination I might presume that I was on my way to the seventh heaven of Mohamed ; where nothing could be seen except it was the black eyes of the angels, peeping and twinkling like stars through the clouds.
204
CHAPTER XIV.
Leave Palmas — Tinaco — hospitality there — kind manners — abundance of fish — visitors, their kindness — move before sunrise — bivouac — march in the eve- ning— storm approaching — take shelter — oriental customs — a frail habitation — oil-cloth cloaks beyond value — men and mules huddled in a small space — heavy rain — delightful sleep — Sail Carlos — very Asiatic looking city — churches resemble mosques — female peepers — latticed windows — military command- ant, his lady and her sister — amiable frankness — their excellent chocolate — good cream — wheaten cakes — sweetmeats — apprize us of bad roads — pas- sed St. Jose — Ceyba — fine-flavoured cow's milk— a venerable widow — Caye- sita — El Altar, a remarkable pass — obliged to climb it — Humboldt's ficvs gigantica or buttress tree — Bejucas — rio Coxede, here called rio Claro — some notices of fig-trees.
AFTER sleeping, fearless of impending showers from the roosts above us, and indifferent to the little pools of un- gracious scent beneath our hammocks, — we were on our mules, before the dawn could reveal what more was to be seen ; the alcalde, with his chubby, good-natured face, and his japanned leather breeches, was as punctual as his pro- mise (a very novel occurrence among some of that species). Some bottles of fine cow's milk were ready for delivery, a basket of eggs, and some indifferent oranges, which he ex- cused for not being as good as they should be, because, he said, he did not make them. — The roosting, milk, eggs, and all, did not require a dollar to pay the whole reckoning — and in Palmas, I question, if we could be found better for a thousand.
It was on the morning of the thirtieth, and we had a long warm ride over the elevated ridge of Palmeria. As good- natured alcaldes are, in this part of the country, rather scarce, we pushed for the handsome and gay village of Ti- naco, or, as some of the inhabitants named it, Tanac, stand- ing on a brilliant river of the same name, which is a
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 205
tributary to the Portugueza and Apure. As we rode along the street of entrance, a military officer, who had just come to the gate, seeing us a little dusty, perhaps languid, po- litely invited us to enter ; the gates being thrown open, our grenadier, without stopping to enquire what we should do, made his salute, and rode promptly into the patio ; and we, " nothing loth," were soon unhorsed, our mules placed in the corat, with a rich service of young sugar cane ; our cook gave us our chocolate, almost as soon as our ham- mocks were slung up, and we took our breakfast, while a gay cantarista, in an adjoining apartment, strummed her gui- tar, and sung a lively air, unconscious of so many strange listeners. This town was neat, the quarters clean and commodious, and, though the sun shone so bright and warm, the air was quite sweet and elastic ; the bed of the river, just in sight, was throughout almost as white as snow, composed of pebbles, against which the sprightly stream seemed to sparkle. The sergeant, who knew what was peculiar to all parts of the route, procured a basket, and was not absent five minutes, when he returned with it near- ly full of fish, much resembling the winter perch of the Delaware, and these added variety to our day's dinner. Fruit was abundant and fine, and, unless it was for the use of our attendants, we rarely sought beef or pork ; the poul- try being every where fine, and the eggs and chocolate al- ways a ready and pleasant repast, in quarters, or in the forest, or on the cool paramo.
Several of the most respectable citizens of both sexes honoured us with a visit of courtesy, and I remarked how solicitous they were not to appear too inquisitive ; the young folks, in the usual ingenuousness of their years, pressed us to stay a week at least, and assured us that our time should be made agreeable ; some sent fine bananas and pine apples, others, some small, but fine flavoured oranges, as eviden- ces of their earnestness for our stay ; we were not behind
206 VISIT TO COLOMBIA*
them in expressions of thanks and respect, and refused, with an assurance, that good inclinations were not wanting, but that our stay could not be protracted. We took the op- portunity to lay up in some baskets, arepa bread, rice, sweet bananas, some raspadura or cakes of sugar, some bottles of fresh milk, a small basket of limes, plenty of young onions, a dozen of live fowls — and closing our evening with choco- late and arepa — we were in our hammocks before nine o'clock, determined to rise before the sun.
On the first of December, at three o'clock, A. M. we were in motion, and had made considerable progress by eight o'clock, when we halted under the shade of a lofty forest, on a bank, from which issued a limpid stream. We hung up our hammocks, resolved to rest and refresh during the heat of the day. By the aid of the sergeant's magazine of flint, steel, and match >s, a fire was soon blazing in front, and our chocolate was soon frothing. Our limes, which were excellent, enabled us while they lasted to make a be- verage of lemonade, with the aid of the raspadura, and some fortumas, that is, bowls made of the shell of the calabash ; no traveller goes without a tortuma, for the convenience of drinking on the road. We had a pleasant nap in the shade, while the heat abroad was more than usually ardent ; our mules had alongside a rich pasture, and were well refresh- ed by three o'clock, P. M. when we moved off the ground.
We soon emerged from the forest upon the open sloping plain ; the ridges on our right were much diminished by dis- tance, those on our left obscured by clouds ; a delightful green sward, with a few dispersed clumps of low thicket, some few trees of various figures and elevation, were scattered over the plain ; the green sod was ornamented with wild flowers and flowering shrubs, some of which were familiar, and the greater number strangers to us ; the atmosphere, however, soon became humid, and the air close and sultry, the clouds appearing ready to burst in the south-east. An
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 207
open cottage, or caravanserai, which had been once inhabited, but now tenantless, stood on the road side ; I determined to take shelter there from the evidently approaching storm, not- withstanding the ariero's unsought advice, and accordingly rode in beneath the roof, and mules and all followed in suc- cession.
The usages in Colombia, and all South America, in rela- tion to the traveller, and accommodations on the road, corres- pond remarkably with those of Asia. The duties and func- tions of alcaldes are exactly those of the cauzis of Hindustan. Whether it be custom or institution I had not inquired, but in the villages, and often on the road where there is no vil- lage, but where some pulpureia, or huckster's shop is usually established, the traveller finds a shed, that is, a roof thatched, without any side walls but the posts which sustain the roof. In the peninsula of India, places of this kind are called choul- tries, in the west of India, serais ; whence the Persian cara- vanserais. There had been a pulpureia at this place, but its debris only remained, and it had been so long since the hand of repair had touched our choultry or caravanserai, that the palm leaf thatch had suffered the light and the rain to find more places of admission than between the pillared sides. We proceeded as usual to hang up our hammocks, so that we should (as much as possible) escape the pelting of the storm. Bipeds and quadrupeds were all huddled beneath this fragile roof. Our trunks were ranged end to end on the leeward side, on which the sergeant, with his saddle for a pillow, and his velice as shelter on the outside, placed him- self, and the others on dry cow hides, one serving to sepa- rate the body from the floor, and another, like the roof of a house, to cast off the rain : and as each had his blanket, they lay down with perfect indifference to the approaching rain, of which the sprinklings gave warning. The mules and their associate muleteers had the farther end of the serai to them- selves, and their panniers, ropes, and provender formed a line of demarcation between them and our hammocks. The
S08 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
oil-cloth cloaks were on this occasion of particular value ; we placed them over our hammocks, so that, when the rain came on heavily, though it poured through the thatch abundantly, we remained perfectly secure and dry ; the rain was little more than mizzling when the grey light came on, and we finished a repast, in order to close all baggage for an early march, but the skies soon became troublous, the thun- der roared and reverberated among the mountains, and the clouds poured their force with all the volumes of tropical tor- rents ; but we went to sleep without any more discontent than if we were snug in Philadelphia, and slept later than we intended ; the air was so sweet and exhilarating, we did not awake till past six o'clock on the morning of the 2d Decem- ber, and having a beautiful clump of trees and odoriferous wild plants close to our hospidage, we had our trunks brought out and arranged for a' comfortable meal, seasoned by a fine appetite, of chocolate, eggs, and arepa bread. We were mounted, and crossed the Oropu, time enough in advance to see San Carlos rising before us, embowered in lofty trees and shrubbery ; the domes and turrets of its churches, in as- pects so oriental and picturesque, that the idea of an Hindu pagoda seemed so real, and the whole picture so like Futty- ghur in Hindustan, that for an instant I was at a loss to say whether it was an illusion or a reality ; the narrow streets and the intervals between houses, and the exuberance of vegeta- tion, particularly the banana and other tropical plants, that I could not persuade myself that I had not been there before. The houses soon became continuous, though the streets were still not more than ten to twelve feet broad, and we sauntered along the pavement, admiring the very striking Asiatic style of the houses and churches ; the lozenged lat- tice closing small windows, which did not however conceal the eyes of curiosity peeping through them. Here too the military commandant was in advance of our wishes, and we were conducted through an ample patio, bounded on every
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 209
side by a handsome and spacious corridore, in which the fif- teen inch tile was more than usually well dressed and laid. The inconvenience incident to my accident at Valencia, ren- dered it necessary to halt this day, as, though I carefully avoided complaint, I suffered much pain before we reached Barquisimeto.
The rank of the commandant here was that of major, and his lady and her sister introducing themselves with an amia- ble frankness, we soon became perfectly familiar. They did not enquire about our concerns ; but were very much delighted to learn (I suppose from the serjeant) that the young lady, who left home in a feeble state of health, was restored to the full bloom of health and robustness, and in excellent spirits, by the air of Colombia. They compli- mented us with some uncommonly fine chocolate, and what we had not for some time seen, good cream, wheaten cakes, and sweetmeats ; fine fruit never omitted. They wished us to stop a week, and apprised us of the difficulties of the road, particularly the pass of El Altar, and the winding valley lead- ing over the plains to Barquisimeto.
On the 3d we passed through the village of San Jose, three miles from San Carlos, and the village of Ceyba ; be- yond which the road turns off at Camaroukata to the north- west ; we sought refreshment without success at a Posada in Camaracata, or Camaroukata — for our muleteers and guide differed as to the name : we were more fortunate in procur- ing some cow's milk, which a venerable old lady, in deep mourning, milked into the calabash bowls for us, and of which we had more than three or four quarts, for which she asked no more than a media, that is, a sixteenth of a dollar. The abundance and excellence of the article made it so cheap, that I feared she wronged herself, and I inferred from her attire and the downcast eye, and air of melancholy about her, that adversity had dealt hard with her, that she had been stricken by the war, and had, perhaps, to mourn the compa-
27
210 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
nion of her youth ; she seemed to be gratified in serving strangers, and this gratification seemed to be all to her, and the value nothing ; for when asked the price, she seemed not to seek even thanks, but looked as if to learn whether or not we were pleased ; and when she named a price, and re- ceived what she asked, it seemed to be with reluctance, and as if she would refuse, but feared to offend by an appearance of false pride ; we thanked her from our hearts, and sug- gested that the compensation was not enough ; to which she replied only by a negative turning of her head, continu- ing to look at us with silent kindness for a time ; and while a tear found utterance, her eyes were fixed upon us, as if she had lost some one, husband, son, or daughter — and the cur- rent of tender feelings gushed out as we bid her adieu — she stood immoveable, with her eyes fixed upon us as we con- tinued our way, to a considerable distance ; I turned often round, and she still was there ; her attitude unchanged ; and when we turned the last angle which was to separate us from her view for ever, I returned a few paces back to look, and still she stood fixed, musing upon that sorrow which we were solicitous, but could not ask her to unravel. I learned, farther on, that she had lost her husband, who was a Frenchman, and her youthful son in battle.
We reached Cayesita the 3d, and barely halted to procure some guarapa for our attendants, prior to passing El Altar. After winding through a long and shaded mazy alley, over- arched with rich foliage and thick forest trees, the lane of gravel washed by a shallow, but limpid rivulet, the spread- ing sides of which were garnished by an abundance of the finest water-cresses, (of which we took care to bring some away) we slowly crawled along, over pebbles beautifully rounded, and of different degrees of brightness, yellow, white, brown, and red ; we were at last ascending, to our left, the path still only fit for passage in Indian file ; sud- denly breaking from the covert, we could discern the ariero
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 211
•
and his man, on the summit of a steep rock, hauling up by ropes the last trunk of our baggage. We had ordered on the baggage an hour before our departure, expecting that they would gain the valley before us ; in a few minutes we found the road occupied the whole way across by a lofty vertical rock, seeming to say, " thus far shalt thou go, and no farther."
The muleteers had been under the necessity of unlading the mules, and we must of course follow them. At the first view it would seem as if we had come the wrong road, but the fact was not so, for there was no other ; and it seemed unaccountable, that no one should have made a road at either side of this rock, which it appeared could be done with no other tools than an axe and a spade ; but every one must pass the same climbing passage. Our sergeant, to whom this place was familiar, dismounted, and leading his mule to the foot of the rock, it was climbed without hesitation ; we also dismounted, and our mules ascending with no more difficulty, we followed the mules by stepping where they had stepped ; for myself, I looked down with amazement when I gained the top. It was near an hour before we could proceed forward in our descent to the valley, which, as soon as it opened upon us, presented a prospect in every way different from any prospects we had already seen.
Before I left Caracas, I had read. in Humboldt's Personal Narrative, Vol. IV. p. 75, of a tree, which he calls a new kind of fig-tree, and he names "ficus gigantea, from, its attaining the height of an hundred feet ; and in the moun- tains of Buena vista and Los Teques, the ficus nymphtefo- lia" The description he has given of this new fans, in- duced me to seek it as we passed the mountains whereon he described it as growing with its stupendous buttresses, but I suppose it escaped me in the midst of those clouds in which the mountains were involved at the time I passed. The ardour of the sun in passing the plains and the slopes, tempered by numerous rivers and streams, and forests ex-
21S VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
eluding air, and retaining moisture, made the difference of temperature agreeable, when compared with the sultry close atmosphere of this valley, where the magnitude of the trees was such as I had not seen before on any part of the route. The two immense trees at Maracay, which he names Za* mang, are great curiosities, and my young companions saw them with admiration ; to me, however, they were less ob- jects of curiosity, because, as magnitude has relation to some measure, the Zamang was diminutive by my standard of ad- miration, which was the banyan tree of Hindustan.
Though disappointed of seeing the buttress tree on Cu- quisias, it was the first which attracted my attention in this valley of El Altar. In this sultry, deep solitude, surrounded by perpendicular walls of mountain rock, this buttress tree, by Humboldt called fans gigantea, flourishes in lofty lux- uriance, with mighty buttresses, which seemed so pow- erfully sustained as to defy all force but actual dissolution. The elevation of many was more than 150 feet, and the shaft of the tree of fantastic shapes from eight to ten feet diame- ter ; but a horizontal line three or four feet from the ground, taking the outer lines of two opposite buttresses, would give double that diameter. The soil of the road, or ravine, lying across the roots of those trees, was washed away by succes- sive floods, and the roots themselves, larger than ordinary trees, lay in all directions, sometimes two feet above the earth, sending forth numerous lesser roots ; which com- pelled the traveller to wind round those trees in all directions, from the difficulty of passing over them ; and the valley ap- peared covered with a monstrous net of these stupendous roots. The buttresses are well described by Humboldt, re- sembling in their forms masses of wood, having their outer base line five, six, or seven feet from the vertical stem of the tree, with intervals between, showing the upright stem, and composed of compact timber, a growing part of the tree, without separation from it, only that the buttress-shaped part
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 213
has the sloped line, from five to six or eight feet from the ground, and extending outward to five, six, or seven feet at the base.
The branches of this tree proceed in a horizontal direc- tion from the stem, at twenty to thirty feet from the ground, and often not lower than fifty or sixty feet ; but in this val- ley, the Bejucas, a kind of a giant vine, throw their elastic limbs from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, sending down limbs of different thicknesses, from the size of a twine, to three and four inches in diameter, descending the trunk of the buttress tree capriciously, and sometimes inju- riously to the traveller ; sometimes they appear with a hang- ing curve like a slack rope, sixty or a hundred feet above ; again they are found, firmly embracing two contiguous trees, and stretched between, at two, three, five, or eight feet above the ground, so that the foot passenger, and the man on horse or mule, is sometimes tripped, or drawn off the horse or mule. In such cases, a sharp tomahawk or hatchet would open a passage, over dry ground, where, to avoid it, there may be a necessity of crossing a mire or pool, of which the depth or danger is not seen. The trees of other species, some oaks and ash trees in the same valley, look like shrubs, along side the ficus gigantictis. The Rio Coxede or Rio Claro, flows on the right side of this valley, having its sources in the great Cordillera, which is a conti- nuation of that of Merida. Its upper streams commence about twenty miles west of Barquisimeto, and pursue a course, generally north-east, to near El Altar, where it sud- denly winds to the south, or a little curving to the west of south, when, in the latitude of Aurare, it takes a decided course a point east of south, it unites with the Tinaco, and with the Rio Portugueza, which descends into the Apure. This river derives considerable celebrity from the sanguina- ry battle fought there, in which, more than five- hundred men on each side were put hors de combat.
Without any other pretensions to knowledge of the natural
214 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
sciences, than that of a general reader and casual observer, my pursuits have made me more conversant with books than botany ; the name given, by Humboldt, to this tree with large buttresses — -ficus gigantica, has added to some difficulties and incongruities, which, among others, have casually taken away the pleasure looked for in seeking knowledge.
The fruit, so well known in all temperate climates, is by Botanical writers named Ficus Carica, from the country from which it is supposed to have been derived. Now the ordinary signification of the name Jig- tree is " a tree that bears figs." The mode of classification by the flowers, will not sanction this appellation to other trees, and this contradictory mode of denomination is not calculated to afford true knowledge, nor induce respect for the science. Among the trees which are named jicus, the number is considerable, and the dissimili- tude remarkable — such as fall under recollection and refer- ence at the moment, are the following : —
I. Ficus, Ficus Carica, Fig-tree.
f the Indian fi
3. Ficus Indica, musa paradisiaca, the banana.
£ musa sapientum, the plantain.
4. Ficus infernalis, Palma Christi, Castor-oil plant.
5. mcu, Indicxgrani*, Cactus cochinillifer, \
6. Ficus Cactus ohun-~) 0
tia > Cactus opuntia, Prickly pear.
7. Ficus pipantica of ?
Humboldt, J Buttress-tree.
8. Fig-tree of Tana, of the New Hebrides, mentioned in Fos-
ter's Cook's Voyages, vol. ii. p. 334-392.
There are some others, as the Ficus Sativa, Ficus arida, &c. but not one of the above bears the least resemblance, in magni- tude, foliage, flower, fruit, or figure, to the Fwm Carica. The
VISIT TO COLOMBIA, 215
second, or banyan tree, bears a small red berry, about the size of a red currant : this tree is happily described in the ninth book of Paradise Lost, though I am inclined to think, from a striking error in Milton's description, that he has confounded the banyan with the banana, giving the banyan tree all its magnificent limbs and extension ; and, instead of its own small laurel-like leaves, he has given it the beautiful leaves of the banana : the passage is as follows :
There soon they chose
The fig-tree, not that kind for fruit renowned,
But such as at this day to Indians known,
In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms,
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade :
There oft the Indian herdsman shunning heatf
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade : those leavet
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe,
And with that skill they had together sewed.
The tree so well described in other respects, than the leaves broad as Amazonian targe, is exact, only that Milton implies it bears no fruit. How came Milton to be mistaken ? He was in fact misinformed of the natural fruit and leaves of the tree, as he was of the geographical distinction in the same elegant description, for Malabar was part of the Decan when he wrote. Perhaps the mistake was produced by the banana being also named fans indica, which really bears " those leaves as broad as Amazonian targe :" botanical science, in Milton's time, was yet scarcely in its infancy, and India and its products little known to literature ; he confounded two plants, taking the broad leaves of the one for those of the other. Here then the error may have arisen, and has been confounded, from his authority, by naturalists generally.
The banana and plantain are only species of the same ge- nus ; in every thing they are exactly the same, but in the dif-
S16 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
ferent magnitude and flavour of their fruit : the banana is a sweet luscious fruit, and when ripe is superior in richness to the fig ; it is of the consistence of a soft butter pear, but without acid : the fruit is not produced single like the com- mon fig, or the apple, flowering and coming to maturity on de- tached branches or single stalks, but in bunches, side by side, from a thick elastic and strong strap-like membrane, issuing from the head of the plant ; for it is not in the botanical sense a tree ; its growth is from the elevation of ten to fifteen feet, but its stem is not wood ; there is no wood in any part of the plant. The root, when divested of the numerous shoots which it throws out, appears like a yam ; the roots planted are placed in rows at ten feet apart ; from this root se- veral suckers rise, but they are timely arrested in order to se- cure the stem that is preferred. From .the eye of the growing sucker, a small tube shoots up resembling the rolling of a fine pea-green China paper on a round stick ; when about three or four feet high, another tubular roll issues through the first, and thus it continues to produce new tubes till it gains its natural height ; as the plant elevates itself from within the first tube, and the second, and so to ten or to fifty are expanded, it throws out beautiful leaves of eight to ten feet long, and three to four feet broad, which bend outward, giving the figure to the plant : the base of the stem is formed of a green, pithy, fibrous, vegetable substance, in which the stem of every leaf has its share. It is an annual plant, and there are more than twenty species, only differing in the sweetness or insipidity of their fruit. The great plantain, sometimes called musa sapientum, produces a very large, and, when raw, insipid fruit ; but it is used for food in various shapes ; roasted in the embers, it becomes an agreeable food, much resembling the sweet potato ; boiled with meat cut up into short pieces, it boils like a potato, and is much preferable to the yucca. The bearing ligament of this plant shows frequently fifty to sixty plantains of ten to sixteen inches long, and two inches
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thick, each weighing from one to four pounds. The fruit of this plant is the main food of seven-tenths of the people, who are not opulent, in all parts of South America, where it thrives ; it is more generally an article of transport and sale than any other in the country ; every road presents mules la- den with plantains ; I have met fifty in one drove with no other lading ; every pulpureia deals in them, and it composes the principal stock of the shop. The name of musa paradi- siaca, is perhaps derived from some traditional prejudices, among which are the use of the leaves, as Milton describes them serving as garments for mother Eve in Paradise ; ano- ther tradition is, that the sweet banana was itself the forbid- den fruit, but whether emblematic from its shape, or what other allusion, cannot need inquiry. It is a mistake, also, that the tree is cut down to get at the fruit ; that is not neces- sary, though it decays annually. These remarks are more than I intended ; similar remarks as to the misnomer Jlcus would apply to every other tree so named.
We continued our march in this entangled, tiresome, and sultry valley, having the Coxede on our right for several miles, the thickets unsubdued concealing the river, and rank with the luxuriance of the cane and the palms, of which I discerned several date trees. Here I saw first a plant which rises only in a single leaf nearly as large as the banana, thence denominated the wild plantain ; it is used for packing cof- fee, cacao, and other articles in bales. This digression, though not entirely called for, serves nevertheless to make better known some of the natural productions of Colombia.
318
CHAPTER XV.
Enter a rich country — Baladera — Gamalatol — Santa Rosa-— opulence and change of manners — Barquisimeto — wade the river — ascent — pious alcalde — remain in the street — exhibited two hours— relieved by a military man passing — Dr. F. Mullery — the commandant's quarters — who is absent — a present of fruit from the village opposite — Senor Lara — alcalde finishes his oraciones — and finds an un-christian like cause of offence — feel indisposed — notice of Barqui- simeto— military depot at Santa Rosa—country adjacent — rich in products — commandant — malice of the pious alcalde — interview with the commandant — and find him a warm friend — alcalde bites his thumb — anecdotes — shock of an earthquake — march 10th December — dismal plain — fit theatre for Milton, Vir- gil, or John Bunyan — Quibor — find a pure atmosphere — birds of plumage and song — paroquets and cacao — the linnet of Europe here— the perfume of the
locust blossom reveals its presence, yet unseen Tucayo its river and
rich valley — halt in the suburbs — a sombrero manufacturer — hospitality — en- ter the town—received in the commandant's quarters— his lady's kindness — her orgeat — and medical treatment — visited by Dr. Leonardo, the friend of Dr. Mullery— he commends the lady's prescription, and why — visitors— travel carried in my hammock by peons.
OUR first place, after passing La Bocca de la Montana, was Baladera, a small village engaged in cultivation ; thence we proceeded to Gamalatol, and here was very perceptible more business and bustle than I had seen since we left the valley of Aragua ; the route from the valley to the road was a continued but not a rapid ascent, and we began to feel the delight of a soft fanning breeze, while our track changed to a descent as we passed through the small hamlet of La Muri- ta by Restrajos to Caudares, from whence to the bed of the river Coxede, which here takes the name of Santa Rosa, the descent is more steep. It was a festival, and the young folks were displaying their finery, not a spurious shew, but, though gay in colours, and more like the fashions of other countries, the whole place gave evidence of more than usual industry, activity, and opulence* It was observed, as
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 219
we approached this place, that the children, even to the youngest, were clothed, and in a neat and tasty manner. Many young ladies, with their beaux, were dressed in silk of bright tints and in a most excellent taste ; though there is no part of Colombia where the females are not remarkable for their small feet, of which I don't know why they should not be proud, and I suppose that it is in the same frank spirit they are not so coquettish as many young persons, who, with the same inclination to display, affect not to know it. The neat- ness of their silk shoes, laced in the sandal fashion, and the saucy breeze ascending from the adjacent river, displaying more of their silk stockings than they seemed to intend, could not but attract the eye of the traveller sauntering along, and he must be a stoic who could not afford a smile on per- ceiving the pleasant disorder of the pretty Senoritas; it would be a sort of miracle if they did not laugh too, on seeing, by the strangers' significant leer, that their con- fusion was understood. Indeed it was not possible but to admire their graceful and elastic gait, or to feel pretended re- sentment, when they sought to be revenged by laughing louder at the dusty wayworn figures that smiled at the wan- tonness of the breeze.
We had intended to see more of this lively place, but, on enquiry of a civil gentleman whom a touch of his hat led me to ask the distance to Barquisimeto, .he pointed to it on an elevated platform not far from the bank of the river, on the opposite side. But he was not content with wordly civility, he invited us to halt and rest at his house, and welcome, and that we should find that place much more comfortable and agreeable than at the other side of the river ; we were grate- ful and thanked him, though we declined, and he accompa- nied us to the usual fording- place, and told us how to pass over. Our sergeant was, however, well acquainted with the ford, and we parted with this generously. disposed Colom-
220 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
bian, who knew no more about us than that we appeared to be strangers.
The breadth of the bed of the Coxede, at this place, is nearly a mile across — perhaps the day's ride augmented the space, — and presents a mass of rounded stones, none very small, and some of considerable size ; the water, at this sea- son, was low, and was divided into several narrow currents. The sergeant, as usual, led the van, and though the streams were sometimes strong and washed our stirrups ; but, having gained the left bank, we had now to ascend a steep slope, which had been cut since the earthquake, and which we all agreed could not be less than half a mile up to the plateau. There New Barquisimeto stood at some distance on our right, and while we made our way to the main street, the sergeant galloped off in search of the alcalde, and quarters. He found the alcalde's house, who was out on church affairs ; we had therefore to wait ; and we did wait for about two hours, seated on our mules, and cracking jokes at each other and at the ideas entertained by the crowd which gradually collected round us. It was the second occasion, on which civility and hospitality, every where else so voluntary and kind, was want- ing ; it was literally wanting ; for our march had been rapid for three days past, and the inconvenience to which I was subjected by the fall at Valencia, rendered any other than a sitting position desirable ; nor were my young companions indifferent to rest, though they made a joke of their enter- tainment at Barquisimeto. We enquired for a posada, there was none ; we enquired for the military commandant, he was out of town ; so we made merry with the prospect of lying in the street.
Were it not fit, that incidents such as occurred here, should not be unknown to others who may travel in the same track, I should pass over the folly and disregard of the char- acter of his country, and even his town, exhibited by the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. S21
alcalde of Barquisimetb. Our sergeant followed this pi. ous magistrate to church, and made such intimations as he supposed likely to prevail ; but his answer was " they must wait." We had no alternative but to wait ; as la paciencia vince todo, or, as Sancho Panza has it, patience is a plas- ter for all sores, we had to try the panacea, much to the amusement of some ladies, within some adjacent iron bars, who, as we did not distinctly see them, I set down as nei- ther so beautiful, nor so well dressed, nor with such pretty satin shoes, nor, above all, such neat silk stockings as those on the other side of the river ; and in the ill-natured mood of the moment, I insisted they were jealous of the roses on Elizabeth's cheeks, which the removal of her chip hat and the dust seemed to have exposed merely to vex them. Af- ter all, it was more ridiculous to be vext, than for those stran- gers to gape at strangers, especially a female, of a distant coun- try ; who was, in fact, at the same moment making fun of these curious incognitas, with her no less funny brother.
The piety of the alcalde was not yet exhausted, though our philosophy had almost run out, for the grey light was not very distant ; good magistrates compensate for many things by being pious ; like charity, it covers a multitude of sins; it was therefore not wonderful that he would not be disturbed at his oraciones, though the business of his magistracy stood still — In the midst of our exemplary pa- tience, a gentleman in military uniform was passing on the opposite side of the street, he crossed and accosted us in English, enquiring if he could serve us ; his uniform led me away from my point, but I enquired if he knew Dr. Mul- lery — " I am that person," said he, " and you must be Colo- nel Duane." We were in an instant acquaintance, though they were the first syllables we had ever exchanged — he moved on with "follow me." The sergeant, who had just returned from the third or fourth siege of the alcalde, took the word from the doctor as quickly as if he was going to
222 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
storm a breach ; and was at the heels of the doctor in a mo- ment ; we followed down the street, and a pair of folding gates flew open, and presented a spacious patio, into which we all followed, and leaving the charge of the mules to the servants, and our shooting utensils to the care of the ser- geant, the doctor conducted us into a spacious chamber, where a long table covered with green cloth stood, and a young officer busy in writing. The young gentleman had but a word from the doctor, when the room was cleared, and two sleeping apartments adjoining, shewn to us, and our ham- mocks were immediately hung up ; while Pedro had already found his way to the fire-place, and in a few moments fur- nished us with a welcome cup of chocolate.
This house belonged to the government, and was the head quarters of the staff, and the commandant Colonel Manrique then absent Was daily expected home. It was in the same quarters Colonel Todd lodged when he was on his route to Bogota ; and we found letters here from his se- cretary, Mr. R. Adams.
The doctor left us, with directions to the sergeant to call on him for whatever we wanted ; who took the opportu- nity to shew his ribbon, and then to remind the doctor that they had been on service together ; that he was Sergeant Marcus Proctor > oflos Grenaderos de las Gardas Colombia- nos — attached as orderly to Colonel D. of America del Norte> by the commandant of Valencia, Coronel delos Grenaderos.
In half an hour every thing was in order, and we soon sat down to an excellent fricasee and some good bread, and fruit from the other side of the river, ordered by Sen or Lara, a resident of the opposite village, who very soon after entered, and I recognized in him the civil gentleman who wished us to remain at his house. He apologised for intru- ding, but having heard of Colonel D. before, and one of our servants, who had stopt in the village, having told him whom we were, he had ordered a little fruit, and determined
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to make himself known, as he had for many years been ac- quainted with the history of the person he came to see. Mr. Lara was by birth a Spaniard, but a man of education and liberal principles, and had distinguished himself in the cause of Colombia. I had no expectation to find any one in a po- sition so much secluded from the ocean, who knew any thing of me, and was truly surprized to find him intimately ac- quainted with my former political and military concerns, and had been for many years. His intercourse was constant while I remained, which I was compelled to do, and fortunate to find a skilful and friendly physician, under whose care I was com- pletely restored.
The alcalde at last finished his business in the concerns of another world; yet the dignity of the magistrate was offended by our accepting any quarters but through him, and signified that we must remove instantly. As the man was either a fool or a knave, I determined to play the old soldier with him, and pleaded, what was really true, that I should not be able to leave my hammock for three or four days, which threw him into a rage. It would have been an unequal contest. My fluency in his language was not such as to authorize a war of words, I therefore simply signified I was not able if I were willing to move, and that there I should remain till Colonel Manrique returned. Senor La- ra had sought to restrain him, without consulting me, and though he was quieted he was not satisfied. My indisposi- tion really required the immediate care of Dr. Mullery, who I felt satisfied would not have placed me where I was with- out a perfect confidence in the commandant. In a few days I became so far recovered as to go abroad, and we fixed upon the 1 1th for our departure. We had, during this time, an opportunity of seeing and hearing all that concerned Barqui- simeto. On entering the town the streets were actively occupied by muleteers and mules, and a multitude of ill- clad boys. The streets were about twenty feet broad, well
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paved, and although this place had been founded and built since the earthquake of 1812, it had already the appearance of an old town. The plateau upon which the town stands, seen from the river, presents a steep perpendicular bank to the river, while on the right side the descent to the river is a gentle slope. The surface of the earth after ascending the platform was without grass, some coarse wild plants formed some tufts, and solitary thistles were dispersed here and there, exhibiting the only verdure ; looking to the west and south and south-west, the absence of verdure, and the presence of a discoloured grey sooty surface, prevailed all round, only where the shadows of objects here and there ris- ing abrupt, served to make the spectacle more desolate, but seemed still more desolate when the eye was turned to the eastward, where perpetual verdure and luxuriance gratified the eye. On our left, as we entered the town, in a line oblique to the verge of the plateau, the sergeant pointed our attention to the scite of the city, which suffered total de- struction in 1812. Nothing of walls or any object more ele- vated than mounds of earth formed by the ruins of the pitay ©f which the whole place was built, now remained ; and these were only real graves which had sloped into their then shape, from the irregular masses of the buildings overthrown, and in which the inhabitants, as well as a battalion of nearly se- ven hundred men, were entombed. The only alteration in this heap of ruins, were some attempts made to penetrate the tombs where persons resided who had the reputation of riches ; the summits of those heaps rounded by rain, or their intervals filled up, are all that remains of the city, which was said to contain eight thousand inhabitants. Those alone es- caped who were engaged abroad on business, or at the plan- tations in the valley ; for at Barquisimeto, or on the plain thence to Quibor, near Tucuyo, the cactus, of perhaps twenty species, constitutes the only vegetation. The ruins arc about two miles west of south from the new town. The
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. S25
mountains to the north-west and west, at the first glimpse, had the appearance of chalk, and produced the first idea of snow ; but, on closer looking, they were too dull and mot- tled, and in fact chalk or natural lime. About three miles north of the town, near the margin of the plane, is the town of Santa Rosa, which I did not visit ; it was, after the earth- quake, and at this time, a military depot and magazine. Seen at a distance, its appearance was handsome, and per- haps owed an air of cleanliness to a free use of the material so abundant in the adjacent mountains. It has a monastery, of which I heard no good, and made no further enquiries, as what I heard, from authority above misrepresentation, would not bear painting.
The valley on the east side of the Coxede (here called Santa Rosa) is uncommonly rich in plantations of sugar, cacao, coffee, and other productions.
The cacao of Barquisimeto is reputed to be equal to any that the country produces, and by some to be superior in richness and flavour to all others ; though not having a di- rect access to a port, from which the valley is bounded by that lofty cordiliier, which separates it from that of Mara- caibo, and the arid plains of Coro, the product of Barqui- simeto reaches a market under some other name. San Fe- lipe and Puerto Cabello formerly carried oft' much of it, and the little ports on the gulph of Triste. The passage of the paramos made the transport too expensive, and the war had given the activity of the valley, on the west side, another direction ; peace restored, this \ alley will not be behind any in production or enterprise ; and, under all the evils of war, these happy people appear to have surmounted the general distress with more effect than any I had an opportunity of seeing. The very great ignorance which still prevails in other countries concerning Colombia is more particularly applicable to this part of it ; and it is the more remarkable, because its manners and industry are said to have received
29
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an advantageous improvement from a number of foreigners, who some years ago were cast there by accident, and prefer- ing it for its seclusion from the sea-coast, fixed their resi- dence there, and bringing with them experience, and pro- ducing emulation by their successful example, have en- riched their posterity, and given them the character and the esteem which they merit.
On the night of the 8th the commandant arrived. He had not been apprised of the occupation of his quarters, and it being late, he did not disturb us. The alcalde, however, waited on him early in the morning, and made a doleful re- port on our occupation of the quarters without the alcalde's authority ; and, as it appeared, did not hesitate to embellish his representation with some fiction, mingled with asperity, against those insolent Inglesias !
In the mood product 4 by this complaint, the colonel found Dr. Mullery, lieutenant Bache, Elizabeth, and myself, at our morning chocolate. The doctor soon perceived that the commandant was disturbed by something, guessed that the alcalde must have been raising a storm in his own puddle, and at once introduced us severally to him ; after a few ex- pressions of civility, he asked my name again, as if to be as- sured, and, on my stating it, was somewhat surprised by his asking, " Are you Colonel Duane to whom Congress voted thanks at Cucuta, in 1821 ?'' I replied in the affirma- tive. He said the alcalde had been making an unnecessary disquietude ; hoped we would think nothing of it, and begged we would make ourselves at ease, and we should have whatever we wished and the place afforded ; and inti- mated that he would wait on us the next day. He came however in the evening, and I was fully compensated for the alcalde's authorative incivilities, by the pleasure of this amiable soldier's acquaintance. I found him frank and communicative, particularly on ancient and modern history, and military affairs, the revolutions of the age, and the su-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 227
periority of the representative form of government ; and, though he was devoted to the existing constitution, and con- sidered it as best adapted to the circumstances of the country during the war, he preferred, as he said Bolivar himself pre- ferred, the federal form for a period of peace, and offered some ideas which were bold as they were novel to me, but irresis- tibly true. He said he owed me some thanks, as well for my friendliness to Colombia as a politician, but as a military man, and was in possession of several of my military publi- cations ; and referred to a memoir which I had written, (and which was translated into Spanish by my friend M. Torres,) and circulated through Colombia ; he was the only person whom I had an opportunity of knowing, who had that me- moir, and which I was solicitous to obtain, as I had not re- served one. We spent some hours. on the 9th together, and were to have corresponded — fate has denied me that satisfac- tion. I intimated to him, that being now. perfectly restored by the skill and kindness of Dr. Mullery, I should depart the next morning (10th), instead of the llth before proposed. His character appeared in a new and endearing light ; he ex- pressed an apprehension that the improper behaviour of the alcaldi had induced this intention, and entreated me not to attribute that conduct to any other cause than his egotism. I satisfied him that his own conduct and esteem had erased every kind of dissatisfaction ; and before we parted he sat down and wrote a letter to the commanding officer at Tucuyo, our next halting-place, and Dr. Mullery wrote another to Dr. Leonardo, a gentleman who had studied medicine, and visited the hospitals and lectures at Paris, London, and Edinburgh. These letters were very useful to us subsequently.
Colonel Manrique was considered as among the most ac- complished officers in the Colombian army, he was under thirty at that time. Maracaibo, having been surprised by Morales and a superior force, it was the fortune of Colonel Manrique to be placed in command, and to expel the Span-
2S8 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
iards, for which he was promoted to the rank of General of Brigade, which many said he should have had before ; soon after I parted from him, the severity of the duties, and the exposure which was unavoidable, broke down his fine per- son and constitution, and Colombia was soon after deprived of one of its best heads and liberal hearts.
The attentions we had experienced from Dr. Mullery, above all others, the kindness of Mr, Lara, who daily sup- plied us with ananas and bananas, narangas and nisperos; and the civilities of the worthy commandant, made Barquisi- meto, which was far from interesting in itself, very agreeable. Our amiable friend, Dr. French Mullery, the companion and countryman of Dr. W. Murphy, whom we knew at Valencia, had been also his fellow- student. His talents had obtained him general esteem, and his professional skill caused him to be appointed to die army which passed the isthmus of Panama to Peru. His professional duties, which rescued hundreds from the grave, exposed him in passing up the Chagres, and deprived Colombia of a man of rare merit, and his friends of one who was always sure of esteem where known.
On the 5th of December, at twenty-five minutes before four o'clock, A. M., we felt a very sharp shock of an earth- quake ; I had reclined on my hammock with a book, and Elizabeth was also reading. The sensation was felt by me, as if a person had passed beneath my hammock and given it two rapid shakes. Lieutenant Bache, who was in the cor- ridor, felt it at the same instant, but it could not have occu- pied four seconds, and nothing further occurred.
On Tuesday, the 10th of December, we left Barquisime- to, and entered upon its arid and inhospitable plain : our first course was ascending and through a village, such as John Bunyan might imagine for the residence of despair and desolation, and from thence our route was due west. No words can convey a distinct and expressive picture of this
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plain, or the vegetation that covers it, or of the mountains which are first seen in the north-west, composed, apparent- ly, of chalk, with here and there some tufts or creeping rib- bonds of the thorny cactus ; there were some patches which seemed to afford grass, but it had the hue of the chalk it barely grew upon ; vast ravines cut the sloping sides of these mounds of chalk, and presenting on one side the brightness of the sun's rays, and on the other the shadow of the impending bank, formed the only exceptions to its wretched monotony. Our route lay about fifteen miles from these mountains, but narrowing to a valley, of which the south-east side at first thinly clad with forest, as we proceed- ed became as chalky on the left as on the right side, till the plain below became narrowed to about six or seven miles. The whole surface, on each side of our path, was a dense thicket of cactus, impenetrable to man or beast. Even the ground on which our mules trod was overgrown with a dwarf species, I believe the creeping cerus ; to fall upon which would be as injurious as to tall upon a flax-dresser's comb. The cactus of three or four species are abundant on the Sier- ra in front of the sea at Laguayra, and in other places where the soil will produce nothing else ; but on this plain I per- ceived varieties with which I had no previous acquaintance. Humboldt, I believe it is, who likens a species of cactus to a large candelabra ; there is some, but it is an imperfect simili- tude : this species is a tree with a stem or stock of twelve to twenty inches diameter ; about four or five feet from the ground, it throws out lobes covered with stars of five points, in the centre of which a long thorn projects to some part of the edge of the first, another and another lobe grows in capricious flatted figures, so as to present no leaf nor limbs, but such thorny cakes of vegetable substance, as compose the co- chineal cactus, opuntia, or prickly pear ; these strange-look- ing limbs protrude from the stem to the height of ten to twenty feet, and, from the absence of foliage, seem to be the
230 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
remains of trees that had undergone the scorching of fire. Others of this thorny tribe, spread in long ribbons of about two inches wide and half an inch thick, covered with the like five-pointed stars and thorns. I have estimated some which I have fixed my eye upon and followed above sixty yards, and then without seeing whence it sprung or termi- nated. The common grovelling cactus, or opuntia, was abundant along the skirt of the thicket, which appears to have been a road cut across this miserable plain, that would have spared the poets the exercise of invention, in describing the borders of hell and the valley of sin or death — by the fit- ness of its lonely desolation.
As when heaven's fire,
Hath scath'd the forest oaks, or mountain pines, With singed top, their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the r lasted heath .... .... The causeway to hell-gates, On either side, disparted chaos.
The heat was ardent, as we ambled through this lane of dreary uniformity, where man, nor beast, nor bird, nor brook to assuage thirst was seen. The soil, stript by the feet of the mules, appears like a compound of grey ashes and chalk ; and where, after we had somewhat farther advanced, some patches of the soil were bare, the earth had sunk some ten or twelve feet in a compact mass, its surface whole, and the steep edge of the unsunk soil perpendicular ; the sur- face sunk, shewing about three hundred yards by fifty, be- low the former level.
Wondering much to see human dwellings, after we had marched twelve miles through this dismal avenue, and our usual stock of water in our flaggons of calabash, which we constantly carried, each at the pommel of his saddle, the dust and heat, the impression of such a desolate place, induced us to turn into Las Horcones (probably from horcone, a rope of onions) — though certainly there was no place in
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sight where onions could vegetate — we found water here as scanty as with ourselves, and were very glad to find that there was some guarapa, fresh fermented, of which we made refreshment, and learned that we had ten miles yet to ride before we should meet a rivulet.
We had derived some benefit from our halt, but with such a long march before us, we pushed on for Quibor, which we reached some time before night. The village any where else would be unsightly ; but after our day's ride, it appeared gay and comfortable. A fine stream passed through the village, and our appetites for food, rendered a refreshment of tajo or dried beef, though dressed with gar- lie, not unpalatable ; fatigue had left us without curiosity to see more of Quibor, than our line of march, so disposing of our last bottle of wine, we retired to our hammocks before night, and before the sun rose, we had left Quibor in our rear.
After passing Quibor a few miles, the cactus disappeared, our route was an ascent, and led to a low range of verdant mountain, and amidst fine hedges, where we once more found birds of beautiful plumage and song, which were so abundant before we reached Barquisimeto, that they ceased to be as interesting ; though the screams of the paroquets, and others of the parrot kind, swarm where the cacao is cul- tivated, here they became more interesting. Here I saw the linnet of Europe, and recognized its note before I saw it. We were ascending now through a shaded lane, cooled by rills of pure water, the appearance of luxuriant grass covered with dew drops, very much resembling parts of Eu- rope, as well in the shrubbery, as in its temperature ; and the perfume of the rich locust blossom, made itself frequent- ly known to us unsearched for.
We gained the summit, and the rays of the sun sudden- ly beamed upon us, like the trick of a pantomime; the shade had so abruptly disappeared, and the range of vision was now so much enlarged, exposed a broad valley, through
23S VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
which a spacious river rolled from the south-west, whereon the bright sun shed so much light, as to render it incon- venient to dwell upon ; the vast Cordillera that separates Merida Valley, was the boundary on the west side of the river, at about seven or eight miles distant. It was the Tu- cuyo river, which flowed to the north, and at our feet on its east side stood the city ; the plantations of cacao, sugar, and coffee, spread along the shores of the river in a northern di- rection, and the road was lively, and visible along the slope, by which we descended towards Tucuyo ; looking to the right, or north, and the banks on both sides exhibited fer- tility, luxuriance, a close and wide spread cultivation, splen- did sugar fields, and orange flowers, and the euphorbiums, soft green banana plants, betrayed the rich harvests of ca- cao and coffee, which they were placed to protect and shade. Cotton trees presented their snowball flower, in clumps, rows, or insulated.
In the midst of these contrasted prospects, and inclining a little to the left of our point of view, the opulent and hand- some city of Tucuyo was now in distinct view. The heat was here more than was agreeable, and about three miles from the town I hung up my hammock in the corridor of an industrious hat-maker, who was at work upon a hat of the cuquisias fibre, or agave, which he wrought with great pa- tience, neatness, and constancy, while he sung a patriotic canta, in which the theme and conclusion of every stanza was Bolivar ; it was this incident that drew my attention to him, and perhaps it was the expression of my countenance, between fatigue and satisfaction on hearing the song and sub- ject, that induced him to lay down his work, and, with a courtesy that would have merited to be worth ten thousand dollars a year, which his manner and hospitality would not disparage, he pointed in a few words and gestures to what he thought good for me, and I was, in a few seconds, with the sergeant's aid, swinging in my hammock, and the unaf-
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fected Sombrerero at work as if nothing had happened, and relating to his wife, and two sprightly, indeed lovely children, his notions of the Senor — that, from being accompanied by a grenadier, and all his retinue wearing swords, he must be some general officer, and the young officer his aid-de-camp, and as for the senorita, she appeared una angela de laguardia! The good dame from within, who had, in the same kind spirit as her husband, plucked some fruit from the surround- ing trees, advanced as if approaching to pay homage, and with a smile of beneficence, and hospitable emotions, would present to my daughter a near titrtuma (calabash) of excel- lent lemonade, hinting with her significant eye, and " nods and smiles to make an argument," that when she had re- freshed herself she would help the object of her care.
We spent two hours in this place, amused by the inno- cence of the children, and the natural elegance and content- ment of mind and manners, displayed in this humble cot- tage. They had procured milk for us, eggs, and abundant fruit, and it was with difficulty they would accept more than what we deemed one-third of the value of what we had from them: a thousand dollars would not purchase half the delight and gratification we derived from them at less than a quar- ter of a dollar ; we endeavoured by some little presents of trinkets with which I had provided myself for such purposes, to leave something to the children for remembrance : the worthy Sombrerero and his wife seemed to think we should not have parted so soon.
The heat of the sun had abated, and we travelled slowly along the descending road, and entered by the main street, in which stood the head quarters of the commandant ; the sergeant handed the letter of Colonel Manrique ; the gates unfolded, and we were in an instant in the patio.
Upon our dismounting, the lady of the commandant came forward in deshabille ; her appearance was pleasant and kind as her manners ; her person was uncommonly large and
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834 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
round, and of corresponding symmetry. I have seldom seen a female of equal magnitude and rotundity, yet her feet, which, when in full dress, in neat blue satin slip- pers, relieved by bright silk stockings, were remarkable for their smallness, and disproportion to the otherwise well formed and agreeable superstructure ; yet it was the dispro- portion of different habits ; those little feet were her orna- ment, and like all her countrywomen, she had a right to be proud of them. A long couch-formed bench, covered with a crimson covering, stood along the wall of the saloon into which we were introduced. On our left, as we entered, was the lado separadamente of the respectable Senora ; on the right was the camarita assigned for my accommodation, ad- joining to which Elizabeth and Richard had their camaritas, and our baggage and attendants were as conveniently placed as if we had predisposed every thing for our own convenience. I felt much indisposed, and my hammock being, as usual, prepared " in the first intention," I retired to rest, leaving the young folks to amuse and be amused with the good-natured Senora, and a number of female friends, who had fled upon the wings of rumour to see the foreign curiosities. Orgeat, sweetmeats, and Muscadel wine were served ; and while the good lady occupied her guests and her friends, she had undertaken to perform Lady Bountiful for el viejo coronet — and presented, with her own hands, a bowl of the universal specific of those regions, an infusion of sliced bitter orange in warm water, with sugar and some aromatic ; as it was not only very innocent, but very much to my taste, I was not wanting in deference or belief of her assurance, that it was like the " parmacity, the sovereignest thing in the world for an inward bruise." I took it as it was administered, and the good lady, with as much kindness as if I had been her father, placed the coverlid over me, adjusting my hammock, gave it a gentle swing, I suppose to rock me to sleep ; what- ever was the intention, the effect was that I fell into a de-
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lightful slumber, awoke in a profuse perspiration, and shift- ing entirely, shaving and washing, before I was suspected to be awake, I appeared in such excellent spirits, that the good Senora was more confirmed in the efficacy of the specific warm infusion of bitter orange ; and it was not for me to question conclusions, which were sanctioned by the change in my appearance, after the fatigue, lassitude, and disguise of dust, and soiled travelling habits, in which I made my first appearance. The commandant was a portly, well-look- ing, but rather a reserved man, and seemed to think his good Senora was too weighty for an angel ; but the good Senora herself was not only persuaded that she was angelic, and took no great pains to conceal her beauties in all the fulness of nature, and really tastefully arranged ornaments.
I determined to remain here another day, as in the even- ing I found a tendency to fever, indicated by the state of my pulse and skin. Lieutenant Bache had sought for Dr. Leonardo, to deliver the letter of Dr. Mullery ; he was at his plantation, two miles distant, and thither Richard determined to go and make geological and botanical researches on the road. He found the doctor at his hacienda, and, after spend- ing some time together, and viewing his collections of books, natural curiosities, and some well-conceived original sketches of the doctor's own execution, they walked together to town, and I had the satisfaction to see him at the very moment when I wished for advice ; he soon set me at ease, and re- commended a repetition of the good Senora's specific, which he said he placed no other confidence in than as it promoted perspiration, and nothing more was required ; I was anxious to proceed, but postponed it for a day, and he recommended to me to travel, for a few days, in a reclined posture. In India this would not have been difficult ; but the doctor an- ticipated my difficultities, and overcame them, by stating that the commandant would issue an order for twelve peons,
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and, with my hammock slung upon a good round bamboo, I mi.^ht be carried on the shoulders of the peons.
The commandant seemed pleased to have an opportunity of doing something to show his good will, and he rose and issued orders for the required number of peons to be at his quarters at seven o'clock in the morning. An excellent dinner of poultry, game, and fine sausages, with sallads and fruit, and good Catalonia wine, and bread, as good as any of Phila- delphia, was prepared on this day, and company of both sexes invited to partake with us. We found the company agreeable, and desirous to do every thing that could con- duce to our pleasure and entertainment. With the usual chocolate, I retired early to sleep.
CHAPTER XVI.
Kindness and hospitality— departure— direction of the route — intersection of the mountains — aspect — Humano caro JBo.ro — a knavish alcalde — tricks upon travellers — effectively repelled — singular position of this place — and the road from it — dangerous elevation of a path or shelf on the side of the deep valley— a hato— dangerous declivities— the safety of the mules— conduct to be observ- ed— sloughs and mule — ladders — rain — oil-cloth cloaks excellent — night tra- velling and rain — discovery of quarters — military rencontre — accommodation for travellers — baggage not arrived — part from our new military acquaintance — and learn the news.
THE orders of the commandant of Tucuyo were punctu- ally obeyed ; breakfast was prepared early, and some fine rolls of bread were put up in the delicate plantain leaf, to serve us while fresh on the road ; and the peons having brought with them a suitable bamboo, of about four inches diameter and twelve feet long ; my hammock was affixed
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to the bamboo at each end, and placing myself in it, after taking leave of our hospitable entertainers, we left Tucuyo about half-past eight, our party being now considerably augmented. This practice, I find, is frequent ; the pay of the carriers is only a real a day> but I determined to pay double. Our baggage had been sent on an hour before our departure, and we overtook it about six miles beyond Tu- cuyo.
Our route lay in the direction up the right bank of the river, about two miles above the town, where we forded : the water, though broad, was not very deep ; and its bed composed of small pebbles. The cordelier, at the foot of which we were crossing, was clothed with stupendous fo- rests, from the left margin of the river to the summits ; we entered the woods immediately upon crossing, and discover- ed, that, although the range of the cordelier from Merida to the north of Tucuyo appeared unbroken, it was here cut through to the very base, and seemed to be the ends or be- ginnings of several mountains which rose out of a plain ;. the opening led into a vast area, in which the mountains seemed to terminate, in order to unite their mountain floods with the Tucuyo ; we passed several of these streams, and followed a path lying westward, which led up the side of a small ridge, and along this side to the south of west, about thirty feet above the common plain. The route was very much broken ; but the poor fellows, who carried me, were in perfect good humour and contentment ; though the sun was bright and its rays warm, the position of our line of march, and the forest trees on our left, gave a comfortable shade. The country here presented a mixture of lofty fo- rests, rocky ravines, streams gurgling and nestling into each other's beds ; and banks, a little elevated at intervening points, tinted with flowers amidst carpets of velvet verdure. To me the passage was as pleasant as could be desired, as I had all the comfort and ease of a couch, and was exempt from fa- tigue ; while I had, without any personal care to require
S38 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
my attention, a full opportunity to view the landscape which appeared to glide by me ; the capricious forms and direc- tions of the mountains and the valleys, the new plants and flowers, and the innumerable tribes of birds, their painted plumage, and their occasional mingled roar of song : but I must confess, that the same kind of feelings which I expe- rienced on being first carried in a palankin on the shoulders of men, in Hindustan, were revived here. The palankin is a well-balanced, light, and a manageable carriage. It is so contrived as to divide its weight upon the shoulders of four men, who can relieve each other without altering the celerity of their pace, over a surface uniformly flat for many hundred m)l';s, and in which a stone as large as a grain of gunpow- der is never found. The case here was in every respect more laborious to the bearers — there was no made road, two men could not travel abreast upon the track, and the whole sur- face was composed of angular rocks, of fragments of angular stone, without even a rounded pebble in the brook beneath. The burden too was more cumbrous, because the hammock being suspended at length, hung so low that in some passages there was a contact with the projecting rocks beneath. Under these considerations, whenever a favourable shade presented itself, we halted, and if the brook was near, we had some re- freshment. At length, we descended, forded a large stream, and crossed the broad and broken valley ; ascending the side of a long sloping bank, widening to a plain covered with a verdant sod, until we reached the village of Humano caro Baxo about three o'clock, having travelled more than twenty -seven miles.
The alcalde of this place reported himself absent ; but the sergeant, who had several times marched this route, knew him, found him, and told him he knew him. Having been ra- ther rested than fatigued by the journey of the day, I sought for some of the usual beverage of the country for the peons, and they all had as much as they wished for ; the
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baggage being placed in a convenient spot, the mules were allowed to roll and feed on the plain. The alcalde would not budge for the sergeant, who desired quarters and fo- rage for payment. I waited on him, and in the most re- spectful but firm manner requested accommodations. The sullenness and superciliousness of this man of brief authori- ty, was to me unaccountable. I called the peons together, in order to make payment — the usual hire of the country is a real — to be sure, the sum in our country is trivial, but be- fore I knew what the fare was, I made it known to them, that 1 should pay them double the usual fare. Whether it was a presumption upon this voluntary promise, either that I must be very silly or very rich, as payment of any kind, in former times, was so rare an occurrence, and stripes were oftener given than reals, it seems that the alcalde calculated upon my weakness, and his remoteness from responsibility ; he would neither give an answer, nor, as was his established duty, provide accommodations, though many houses were tenantless, and at his command ; the public law and custom requires of him, if fuel or food be required, to cause it to be furnished at a reasonable price. Night being close at hand, I directed the sergeant to seek the best vacant house, which he soon found and soon occupied it ; as we carried all the furniture we required about us, we were soon fixed, and our hammocks up ; we then called upon the alcalde, tendering silver in payment, for fuel, milk, and eggs, and for bread if any was to be purchased. The alcalde said nothing, did nothing, and, in fact gave no orders in our presence — but as our guide knew the man, and how to ingratiate himself with the inhabitants, he soon found that fuel, eggs, poultry, and bread were abundant, and he purchased accordingly ; but the alcalde had signified his displeasure to any one who would dare to sell any. The sergeant, therefore, insisted on paying first the price asked, and then taking whatever werequi- red. We thus got guarapa for the peons, bread, cake cho-
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colate, some manteca or oil for stews — butter we had not seen since we left Susacon, and the cook was at length en- abled to go to work ; milk was obtained by Vincent, at some distance ; and the peons were called upon to receive their pay. They had some unexplained difference among them- selves, and one of them came forward to receive for the whole. Some discontent was visible among the others, and I signified, that I would pay each individual into his own hand ; this was signified to them all by the sergeant ; a considerable number exulted in this, and the spokesman menaced them : and turning to me, with a staff in his hand, signified that the alcalde had told them not to take the fare I offered, nor less than four times the common fare ; I cal- led for the alcalde, who acknowledged the declaration ; I was determined to resist this design of robbery, countenanced by a magistrate ; I prepared myself to resist the insolence of this unworthy man, and to repel any outrage, such as the menaces of a part of the peons unreservedly held forth. I accordingly discharged my pistols in the air, and reloaded them with ball and buck-shot in their presence, and caused our people to be at hand armed ; then calling upon the al- calde, I intimated my knowledge of his character; my per- sonal acquaintance with the Intendant of the department, whom I should see in a few days, and that I should make his conduct known ; that I should now deposit in his hands, if he required it, the fare for each peon ; that it should be double the ordinary fare ; that it was his duty to repress their insolence and their menaced robbery ; and that, if any vi- olence should be attempted, I should feel myself compelled to shoot him as their abettor. The effect was electrical, he now talked with volubility and superabundant meanness. The peons were called, and paid individually by me, and on returning to the quarters we occupied, the alcalde followed us, with two dozen of eggs, which he insisted on present- ing to us. I had so far recovered my strength, that I deter-
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mined to move early — we had an abundant repast, and, as usual in this fine climate, a balmy repose.
This statement, given merely to show the difficulties in which a stranger is placed, when he comes in contact with a man of a vicious temper ; the necessity of appearing able and prepared to repel outrage, how necessary it is to pursue a decisive conduct without violating decorum in word or action. On more occasions than this I found it to be not only necessary, but the only certain mode of repelling inso- lence and wantonness from such people.
This village stands in a position peculiarly wild and re- markable ; in crossing the valley to approach it, the Sierra appeared within a few yards of it, but as we neared the town, the perpendicular face of the rock, lofty, naked, and unbroken, seemed so close as to be within stone-throw, and so elevated as to appear rather to incline towards us than from us ; its direction was north and south ; we, in the course of the next day's journey, traversed the prolongation of this ridge on the opposite side from south to north, where the serrated rocks seen from Humano caro Baxo now appear- ed like the debris of a vast artificial rampart piled against the wall on the exterior or east side.
On Saturday the 14th December, at six o'clock, and re- descending to the valley by which we had entered, we took a southern direction for about two miles, where this vast wall was cut across by a valley running from east to west, and between the interval of which it formed one side. Be- low the winding ridges on the opposite range, several streams flowed into a common channel, and numerous paths diverged from this place to three of the cardinal points. Our path lay the nearest to the ridge of Humano caro Baxo, and our pas- sage was to the north-west, an ascent for more than three miles over immense rocks, where some industry had been exercised in constructing rude timber bridges, leading from rock to rock, and over deep fissures which the mountain
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flood had not dug a passage, our ascent was tedious, diffi- cult, dangerous, and vexatious ; repeated halts to rest the inappreciably patient and persevering mules, enabled us to contemplate the enormous masses of rock which formed the slope of that Sierra, whose south-east side appeared like a wall springing from a green pasture perpendicular to the heavens.
We at length overcame this rocky ascent, and entered upon the side of a mountain sloping indeed, but very strep, and covered with beautiful verdure. We passed a hato, where horses and mules were bred and collected, and saw some very fine cattle ; but our ascent became so steep that the march could be continued only by a track, like a shelf round the mountain, some miles below its summit, but still so high at the pebbled shelf upon which we rode in single file, that cattle beneath us were distinguishable by the naked eye only like little flies upon a carpet, and lofty clumps of forest trees were diminished into bouquettes.
This was the worst specimen of steep and lofty passages, on paths not broader than a quarto volume, we had yet met, and, though wrought originally by art into level plants, now, by the attrition and descent of the soil from the inward side, formed a very decided inclination to the abyss. To ascend and attempt to travel such a path, even on foot, at home, would be deemed dangerously wanton, and full of positive hazard ; the head is apt to ring and the eyes become dizzy in looking down from heights not a third of the elevation we now travelled upon without hesitation, though not with- out apprehension. But, while examining the question how we should pass such precipices, we already, without hesita- tion, or any effect upon our heads or eyes, had advanced considerably ; and I could not resolve it by any other rea- soning, than the confidence which is gradually acquired in the safety, firmness, and sagacity of the mule, which treads upon the roughest cliffs with as much firmness, and more
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prudence than the goat. The horse is sometimes trained to equal sureness of foot in the Andes ; but it is only where herding, or habitually associated with mules, that this stea- diness is acquired ; the riding horse is accustomed not to seek or select its own path, the hand of the rider directs him; and the rider is not always as wise as the mule he rides. The mule is injured, nay, rendered useless by being constant- ly governed by the bit ; the safest course in riding the mule is to hold a free or loose rein, and if the mule requires to be ex- cited, it is effected by the spur, and not by feeling his mouth. It is the rule of prudence therefore to do no more than give the direction with the hand, and the mule will not only choose the best but the safest path. When we had gained a broader path, and once more found forests and sweet streams of water, we resolved to bivouac and dine ; we ac- cordingly selected a shady spot, contiguous to a limpid mountain stream, hung up our hammocks in the shade, and having provided some wine, as we uniformly did wherever any was to be purchased, we had laid in at Tucuyo sufficient to serve to the close of this day. We dined, and had a plea- sant nap.
We were mounted at three o'clock. This proved to be the most unpleasant evening which we had yet experienced. Some rain had fallen to the west and north, and the road passing through deep forests of lofty trees, the product of a very rich soil and a warm temperature, the path lay over a black soapy loam ; the softness of the soil, and the hollow- ness of the path had produced sloughs and mule-ladders, for I know no other expression by which to designate them. The mule uniformly steps in the space where the mule pre- ceding him had left the trace of his hoof; there the mud ac- cumulates and becomes doughy and tenacious, the mule still prefers the open space, where a trace of a step is per- ceptible, to attempting a new step, or to step on ground ap. parently more firm ; thus successive mules always treading
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in the same precise spot, the ground appears like a ladder, in which lines of earth cross the way, and rising between the spaces, which form a puddle more or less deep and difficult, as the weather is wet or dry. The ascent through this wilderness was, in this particular way, both dangerous and unpleasant ; Richard and myself have been at different times dibmounted, or found it prudent to dismount, as the mules often found it difficult to extricate their legs from the slough, those cross lines of earth which give the resemblance of a ladder being wholly insecure, if by accident a mule treads upon one, the effect is to sink deeper in the intervening spaces.
We had a slight shower as we ascended half a mile from our bivouac, and had " cloaked aW for the reception of the showers which the clouds appeared ready to pour upon us ; the slippery soil would not admit of moving in more than Indian file ; and our train of ten mules made the march slow and tedious. The baggage mules were more feeble than our own, and, as we were eager to reach our place of rest, we pushed on with the sergeant in advance, leaving the two servants and muleteers to bring up the bag- gage ; the rain soon wholly separated us ; it was not yet dark, but the rain was in our faces, though our oil-cloth cloaks had performed the service they were provided for ad- mirably ; we had at length to descend. Our proposed halt- ing place was Agua Ofaspos. We had passed an empty, but spacious bungalow, which had been a Spanish post during the war, and were inclined to stop there, but we continued our way, though the rain never ceased, and it was already night, with even more than the darkness incident to rain. If there had been a path it would have been impossible to see it, and our sole reliance now was not to be separated, to avoid pre- cipices or ditches by very gradual advances, and to trust to the mules for a path-way guide, and to the sergeant for knowledge of the country. Elizabeth's black mule had
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travelled that route before, and singularly enough had pur- sued the right track, my mule led me in another direction, which, though secure from any precipice, as, upon recon- noitering the next morning, I found ; but to have pursued that track, would have been to go largely out of the way. By hailing, and renewing the engagement not to separate, I retraced my steps and joined my companions. The sergeant had disappeared altogether ; and the baggage and attendants were we knew not how far behind. The shadow of a dis- tant sierra, which seemed to cross our path in occasional gusts, was exposed, and its outline seen distinctly ; we found the mules had led us among rocks, between which rich her- bage and some wormwood grew up and brushed our legs ; and we continued to wind down through these rocky and shelving, but not very precipitous sides of the mountain — when the welcome shout of the sergeant's voice advised us that he had found quarters !
Had he found a palace the information could not be more acceptable ; but what a house ! what a condition were we all in — no house was yet visible to our vision, and, were it broad day, there would be some difficulty to find it : our eyes had been affected by the rain, which beat upon us in front, and which our oil-cloths could not, at last, altogether protect us against. An oil-cloth capuchine, or capot, which I had provided to be attached to my cloak, I had fortunately placed over my hat, and this protected my neck and shoul- ders. I found the sergeant leading my mule with one hand, and Elizabeth's with the other, and he placed me by the side of a rock, upon which my foot rested, and I dismounted, more feeble than I had suspected. We had come 40 miles, and had been under incessant rain four hours ; I found it necessary to have help to enter the hovel, in which an earth- en cup of oil, with a feebly lighted wick in it, now enabled me to " see land" for the first time. The sergeant and Elizabeth, who were both as thoroughly drenched as I was.
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attended more to me than to themselves: we entered the place intended for a door, and found the whole space within apparently occupied by hammocks, over which hung some implements of war. uniform coats, swords, and leather caps, indicating the occupants to be military men. A female of the house appeared, and to her Elizabeth recommended her- self; the sergeant had only to place our mules in safety, and our saddles ; our blankets had been, in the warm valleys, imprudently transferred to the baggage, which did not, in fact, arrive until late in the next day, the ar'wro and servants having halted at the Spanish camp. The sergeant had brought my hammock, and, without ceremony, began to suspend it within the inmost hammock, the incumbent of which, assuming the tone of the parade, in a bass voice for- bid the sergeant from hanging up my hammock there ; though very feeble, the urgency required exertion, and, as- suming a corresponding parade tone^ I ordered the sergeant peremptorily to fix up my hammock in that place ; whether my Spanish was perfectly classical or not, I will not pretend to say, but the sergeant replied in sailor's style, " Aye, ayet Coronet" and in a few seconds, by crawling beneath the suspended cords of five hammocks, I found myself in the sixth of the row, with full room, and very much to my satis- faction— for my fatigue was excessive. The word colonel had the effect which the sergeant expected, my suspended neighbour changed the pitch of his voice to that of com- placency and equality, and addressed himself successively to me in Spanish and French. I had, in remonstrating against his opposition to iny accommodation, signified that the world was not made for any one man, and that the house which received five lodgers in a dreary night, might very well accommodate as many more if there was room. We soon became so well acquainted, that he deplored my suffer- ing under such weather, and calling to a lieutenant, who was swinging along side him, obtained from his haversack a bot-
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tie of aguardiente — I should call it -whiskey any where else, but if it had been champaign, it would not have been more welcome; he brought a gill tumbler of clear glass; mischance had left a gap in one side of it, but he filled it as full as it would hold, and presented it to me, assuring me it was tqual to a blanket in such a night, and in such a pickle ; it was clear as rock crystal, and the flavour could not be disagree- able, as I drank it all, and thanked the giver ; it was of es- sential service. Richard had, with a soldier's discretion, said nothing, but hung up his hammock athwart at one end of the others, and went sedately to sleep. Elizabeth had been ushered into a small nook about eight feet by six, in which there were four other females. It was a country of canes, and where the cane and bamboo grow there is seldom any plank or squared timber. The only accommodation Elizabeth could find was a cold earthen floor, or literally a shelf of canes, which extended along the wall on one side of the room, four feet from the ground, and there, after ob- taining some food, of which the sergeant had become the unbidden caterer, she went to sleep, none of us being able to change our clothes.
I found by our conversation that my friend, along side, was a colonel jn command of a light corps (cazadores) ; that those who were*along side him were officers of his regiment, and he was not wanting in confidential discourse ; he enqui- red my name, the rank I had held in the United States army, the names and relation of the young officer and his sister who accompanied me, and found that the sergeant of Grena- diers, in my suite, had been ordered on the service in com- pliment to me, as it was neither boastful nor insidious, having nothing to expect from him, I advised him that I had the honour of receiving the thanks of Congress at Cucuta ; this to my surprise he had heard of, and something of my his- tory, in which he was more correct than could have been thought possible, if I had not witnessed it myself. The
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storm grew thicker at midnight, but what with fatigue and the aguardiente, my first recollection was to find the light of a clear dawn penetrating the disarrayed wattled partition of earth and cane which had composed the exterior wall of the house, through which all the winds of heaven found free access ; but our hammocks hung above the wasted aper- tures, and though the floors were deluged, we were dry, and not uncomfortable under all circumstances.
Our baggage had not arrived in the night, and the old colonel was the first in motion. His comrades were speed- ily equipt, and as our midnight conversation had made us known, we were now glad to see each other, after our ac- quaintance. They were soon mounted. The Colonel sig- nified that he was proceeding in advance of General Ur- daneta who was ordered to move in concert with the divi- sions of Paez and Colonel Manrique, the object contempla- ted to seize Morales by stratagem, or at least, expel him from the coast, that his corps was to be in advance, and procure information ; and that we should meet General Urdaneta on our route, which proved correct.
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CHAPTER XVII.
Baggage separated — native propensities to dancing — leave Obispos — abandoned habitations — not all massacred — plunder— conscription — dexterity of the mules. — Carache — dreary position. — Santa Ana, negociation of Bolivar and Morillo here — singular apparent causeway on which it stands. — Treading and winnow- ing grain — killing of calves forbidden by policy and law of Colombia. — Lodge in the house where Bolivar and Morillo negociated and slept — anecdote of.-— Unaccountable influence of the Spanish agents over the press. — The pro- positions of Bolivar in favour of humanity — both armies, unknown to each other, in a desperate situation. — Sucre's first public appearance as a confi- dential negociator — policy of Bolivar — recruits and reorganizes his army, and with surprising celerity appears at Carthagena, and prepares for its fall.— -Com- missioners to Spain.— March— precipices— fatigue— halt at the foot of a steep descent. — Manners of the peasantry— cheerfulness universal. — Move off the road towards Truxillo.
IT was Sunday, and our baggage had not yet arrived ; the night, though in a northern climate it would be deemed temperate, was here cool, and the want of our blankets sen- sibly felt. They reached Obispos at two o'clock, at that time the excuses of the ariero and Vincent were accepted, as the inclemency of the day and night taught us to think them reasonable ; but we found afterwards, that they had determined, on setting out, to stop, though not to sleep, at the Spanish camp ; the solution of which, and of other in- stances of delay, was to be found in the propensities of the ariero and our domestic Vincent to dancing fandangoes. In fact, the ariero had sent on his servant the day before to that neighbourhood, and the inclemency of the weather fa- voured the fandango. The ariero was a man of some pro- perty, about thirty years old, and among his class a great coxcomb ; our domestic was, if possible, more vain of his dancing than Vestris, and we had some opportunities of wit- nessing his feats in that way. The Caracas folks, humble
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and elevated, and of both sexes, are distinguished above all others in the republic as graceful dancers ; it was therefore Vincent's point of honour to demonstrate the super-excel- lence de su propia pais, or, as he said himself, de todos los naturales de aquel pais, his superiority over all the natives of the country.
On Monday, 16th of December, at seven o'clock, we left this miserable cottage, at Agua Obispos^ or the bishop's water. It may have been a village or town in former times, but to us it was invisible, and there may have been a river or a well of water there, but probably it was so named from the almost unceasing rain that prevails there, and which gives to the plain and mountains that it sprinkles and surrounds, a rich pasture ; I could discover but two more dwellings, and of the same style of architecture, in the place : our route, after crossing the valley, lay along the ascent, parallel with its di- rection, two miles ; there were some fine wheat, barley, maize, peas, and other pulse, in pretty large patches, and an apparently well laboured culture ; there were numerous cat- tle grazing, which, from the position of the place, must be- long to somebody, and, if there were only a dozen owners, they must be all rich. There is a fact which has not been noticed by any of those who have travelled through Colom- bia, and which the scantiness of dwellings, and the richness of the husbandry calls to my recollection, as it has relation to the state of the population. We had several occasions to regret the desertion of towns and villages on the road, and, at first, concluded that their population had been all destroyed by the war. The destruction by war did not require any ex- aggeration, but we found, upon better inquiry, that this solitude was an abandonment always near the high roads, where cultivation was rich and abundant, which was account- ed for by some intelligent men, whom we occasionally fell in with on the road, or where we chanced to halt. Where the country was not rich in cultivation, the villages remained
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inhabited, but only by women, aged, or infant persons. In the rich countries the whole population moved en masse, with their cattle, to some of the remote valleys, out of the reach of the pillage or the march of armies ; and out of the reach too of the military conscription. These vacated villages and houses, add an only apparent decay to the actual loss by the war ; it was merely apparent, because the people had only moved out of the range of the troops, as it was a frequent complaint when we reasoned with persons who replied to our inquiries for provisions — " No aye nada" we have nothing — it was a frequent apology that exaction was as common with the troops of the republic, as with the Godas. Our appearance with a grenadier in uniform, with his lance in front, made us look entirely military, and as the sergeant was the usual forage- master and purveyor, the people on the roads treated us as they treated all military men, who too often obtained provisions and never paid for them. They acknowledged, indeed, that all the Colombian native troops took was mere food, or perhaps guarapa ; but the Godas not only took pro- visions, but any moveable they cast an eye upon, often broke open the chests, and abused the females, destroying also in wantonness what could not be useful to them. The three houses of Agua Obispos were more than a mile apart, and in that where we lodged, there were more than twenty females of all ages, and but two or three men advanced in years.
It was six o'clock when we began to ascend the Sierra, and found the plains and verdant slopes of the ascent on both sides enlivened by a great number of fine horses, horn cattle, and some handsome and clean fleeced sheep. As we could not breakfast with satisfaction where we had slept, we halted at the side of a beautiful rivulet at eight o'clock, and made a sub- stantial breakfast. The rain had ceased, and passed to the summits of a distant range of the paramo, where it seemed to wait till we should move out of the way of shelter. The soil being very rich, and the earth soaked by the last week's
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rain, the road of the Sierra became, in some places, slippery and dangerous in the abrupt descents. When I had read some traveller's account of the dexterity of mules in such si- tuations, I confess I was apprehensive of some exaggeration, but my incredulity was here perfectly cured. Elizabeth's black mule had travelled to and from Bogota before, and be- sides being a manageable and safe animal, and his load light, her vivacity led her to pass over such places, even before the sergeant, and it became to her a matter of sport ; in the de- scent from the Obispos Sierra, she was first in possession of the top of the scarp, and her mule took to the steep in a very remarkable manner, crossing its legs on the margin of the mound, and actually sliding with his haunches a little de- pressed, so that for fourteen or fifteen yards, she sat as erect and easy as on the level road, and her descent was perfectly quiet and secure. The vigour of my mule was unsuitable to this kind of adventure, and my weight added to that of the mule, his hoofs usually stuck in the soil, and it was neces- sary to descend by traversing the face of the steep zig-zag.
We reached Carache after a not very pleasant ride over the Paramo de las Rosas, about three o'clock, and were glad to find shelter in the house of the alcalde, where we remained that night, and having experienced the want of wine or some liquor in the cold and wet we had been exposed to, no wine being to be had, we procured some very excellent aguardiente, a fine alcohol, distilled from maize, pure and colourless as a crystal spring, and laid it by for future exi- gency. The village scite appears to have been chosen in a whim ; the access to it, as we travelled, was through a va- riety of mazes, through hill and dale, glen and rivulet, where the mountain bases approached close, and their sides immensely elevated and steep ; rising a long winding track, covered with deep forests, we suddenly broke from the shade upon the flatted summit of a ridge, which seemed to have been constructed by art, across a valley, and to have divided
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it into two, each of which was to be seen distinctly, for many miles, in splendid verdure ; it was the town of Santa Ana, which stands upon this ridge, on the south end, and is about a mile in length, the ridge itself about two miles, and the le- vel space about two hundred yards, the single street being about fifty feet broad ; the fronts of the houses are in the same alignment, but stand apart, and as the south end of the causeway approaches the Sierra, the road ascends and leads over a paramo where vegetation is stunted, and the surface has the appearance of a black turf, with some ferns, and two species of the whortle- berry. This causeway, for it conveys the impression of an artificial creation, is the only thorough- fare, and appears like the summit of a vast bridge thrown over to unite two lofty mountains, which, without this com- munication at that place, would render the journey difficult and circuitous. Its inhabitants trade in mules, wheat, maize, barley, and other products, and transport merchandize. The valleys, intersected by the causeway east and west, present the most agreeable pictures of a country well settled and cul- tivation abundant. It has a much better church than towns of more celebrity. It being the only highway, exposed it to much depredation during the war, and its streets often de- luged with blood ; many of its inhabitants had transferred their families to the remote valleys, some of whom the al- calde said were returning. The winnowing of grain on the side of a steep acclivity, and the circular threshing floors, are seen here in the same style as in Egypt, Hindustan, Persia, and Boutan : a circle of stones placed on the edge, about three feet above the floor, has in the centre an upright post, to which is attached a light beam, as long as the semi-dia- meter of the circle ; the central end is placed by an eye or hole on a pin or pivot in the central post, and the horses, mules, or oxen, are attached to this light beam, and the sheafs of grain are laid within the track of the circle, around which they move, and thus tread out the grain ; the abun-
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dance of grain is unequivocally proved by the number of these treading floors, and by the fact, that such establish- ments are kept as a business like a grist-mill, to thresh the grain of other persons than the owners. The cattle were so numerous in the north valley, that I inquired and learned there were several hatos, where the rearing of cattle for sale was carried on to a great extent. Here I first learned that the Colombian government, finding that the Spaniards were de- termined to exterminate the cattle as well as the people, and produced in some parts a scarcity, had by a public regulation forbidden the killing of calves or cows, so that veal is not to be seen in Colombia, as the wisdom of the measure has ob- tained the spontaneous applause of the people. The alcalde did not fail to let us know we slept in the apartment which Bolivar more than once occupied, and mentioned some oc- currences, which circumstances did not permit me to note ; there were three rooms, we slept in the central. It was from this place that Morillo, in 1820, dated his over- tures to Bolivar for an armistice ; and it was in this house they met and slept after the preliminary forms of negociation were agreed upon, and in the central room they first met. Morillo suggested that they might occupy the northern and southern rooms for repose, but Bolivar preferred the central room, and proposed that they should hang both their ham- mocks in that room, that they might have the advantage of conversation, and it was so settled, and the best part of the night was spent in discourse.
The negociations, and the armistice that followed, conclu- ded at Santa Ana and Truxillo, which all belong to the same event, have never been truly published ; the public journals of the United States at that period, strange to relate, were, with two or three exceptions, either generally passive or un- accountably hostile to South America ; this malign temper was carried to such an extraordinary extent, that the Spanish agents had free access for the publication of the most gross
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misrepresentations, which, too, had a material and disad- vantageous effect on the rich commerce of those countries ; but the refutations of those calumnies were not permitted to be published ; or, if some one was found to publish the true state of things, the adverse prints maintained a systematic silence ; unless when there happened to be news hostile to the republican cause. Those celebrated negociations incur- red this exclusion and suppression ; nay, stories wholly contrary to the facts were published, and refutation not lis- tened to. Perhaps in the history of the world, a negociation so singular and novel in its character, so magnanimous and bold, or more consistent with humanity and wisdom, cannot be found. It had also features that seldom appear on the theatre of diplomacy ; premeditated deceit, personal artifice, and cunning, unfortunately belong to all diplomatic pro- ceedings, and this negociation is distinguished, by being proposed in deceit, in a premeditated determination to be rendered nugatory ; while on the other side, this premedita- ted perfidy was perfectly anticipated, and yet the negociation was conducted as if no such knowledge was possessed ; but it was made use of to establish generous principles of war, and to abrogate that barbarous system of massacre in cold blood, which Morillo himself had practised.
It was known to Bolivar, that Morillo had received the permission which he sought, of returning to Spain upon the avowed hopelessness of subjugating Colombia ; he had soli- cited authority to precede his departure by overtures, such as he might deem eligible for an armistice, in order to lead to further negociations, and, if practicable, a reconciliation ; he was authorised to address Bolivar with the title of Gene- ral of the Colombian forces, thereby acknowledging the na- tional title ; and to limit the negociation, if its progress was not propitious, to a period that should leave Spain at liberty to meet a failure with reinforcements, in the event of failure. The proposition proceeded from Morillo, and even the forms
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were suggested by him. Morillo was, in fact, in a despe- rate situation when he received those powers ; he must have been compelled to embark, if he had been pushed by a force of four thousand men ; and to retire under such circum- stances, after being denominated pacificador, and after so many outrages against humanity, was to retire under unmi- tigable infamy. If he could negociate even a truce, it would leave him an opportunity of retiring without notori- ous shame, and devolve upon his successor ail the hazard and the responsibility which he wished to avoid. But what is most singular, is, that neither Morillo nor Bolivar was ac- quainted with the actual condition of the other ; each per- haps was engrossed by the feebleness of their own condition.
The Colombian forces were reduced to a very low state, and all resources were apparently exhausted ; the corps, which were embodied, were very short of their complement, and it became necessary to divide them into detachments, and canton them, in order to derive from different parts of the country local subsistence, which they had not the means to draw to head- quarters ; and it was apprehended that the ar- my would, even thus dispersed, disband altogether. Both generals, in their own conception, were in a desperate situa- tion ; and it is in this way we must account for the ready acceptation of Morillo's propositions for an armistice. Mo- rillo thus assured an opportunity to disentangle himself from a war now hopeless ; Bolivar saw in it the salvation of the republic, of which, although he had never despaired, it had not been at any time, even after the evacuation of Carthagena, in a crisis more serious.
The plan of Bolivar was instantly formed — circular orders were issued to the commanding officers of divisions and sta- tions— and upon their steady and exact conformity to their instructions, the triumph of their country depended — that the plan to be pursued was digested with care, and all that
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lined, was for each to act in his particular province, as if the fate of every thing depended upon each individual.
The details of the negociation, the correspondence on both sides, the appointment of Commissioners on the part of each chief, to digest the propositions on which pacification in the most extensive sense was to be founded — were all an- ticipated ; a line of demarcation was to be fixed, beyond which troops, on either side, were not to pass, had been in the first instance provisionally conceded ; but upon exami- nation it was found, that the proposed line would put the Spaniards exclusively in possession of the great magazine of provisions, the cattle of the plains ; a new line was suggest- ed by Bolivar, and agreed upon ; and care was taken, pend- ing these transactions, to make known to the country, that the overture came from the Spaniards, that it was opened even with a virtual acknowledgment of the national inde- pendence, and that nothing seemed now to be necessary, but to present a numerous army in powerful attitude, to shew that, though desirous of peace, they were prepared to assert independence, by energy and arms ; the occasion served also to draw forth resources, to sustain as well as to recruit the army, and with adequate effect ; though a few weeks before it was apprehended that every resource was exhausted. As soon as the first effects of this new impulse were percepti- ble, and with a view to disembarass the proceedings by his presence, Bolivar devolved upon Colonel Sucre and Colonel J. Breceno Mendez, the charge of attending to the negocia- tions, and he signified that, pending these measures, he would retire to the plains. By an unprecedented march, af- ter writing a letter at St. Christoval, the first account heard of Bolivar, was his appearance in his friend Montilla's camp, before Carthagena ; where having put in motion the affairs of the siege, and, as if he had passed upon wings, he appeared again, near the army, at Truxillo.
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Morillo could not believe that Bolivar had been at Carthage- na : he was soon convinced, — the place surrendered. Bolivar had re-organised his army, and pressed Morillo not to suffer the negotiation to be conducted so tardily ; as the delay was assuring advantages to Spain, while it offered only disadvan- tages to Colombia ; and he made a proposition of a new cha- racter ; it was to fix the principles upon which war, if it should be unfortunately rene.wed, might be in future con- ducted ; and he stated specifically a series of propositions, which were to arrest massacres, assure good treatment to prisoners, establish cartels of exchange of prisoners, and the abrogation of every cruelty which called for retaliation ; as holding prisoners in manacles, and putting officers of high rank to servile labours ; every one of which inhuman mea- sures had been practised by Morillo himself. Morillo per- ceived that propositions of such a nature must come from a mind strong and confident ; that he could accomplish nothing as to the political relations ; and entered into the treaty re- gulating the mode of conducting war in future.
One of the propositions of Morillo, urged by the negotia- tors, was that two commissioners should proceed to Spain with the treaties to be concluded. Bolivar at first consider- ed this as only a stratagem of protraction, arid the termina- tion of the truce approaching, he considered it either a strata, gem for delay, or a cloud under which he was to make his retreat, and shift the responsibility from himself. But as the merely sending a mission to Spain could do no harm, and as, if not sent, a false pretext might be set up, at their meeting at Santa Ana Morillo solicited this mission as a favour, and Senors Echiaverra and Ravenga were appointed, but with absolute instructions not to enter upon any nego- tiation which had not for its preliminary the recognition of independence, in conformity with the fundamental law, passed at Angostura in 1819.
The details of this transaction would form a volume, but the abstract here given, though incomplete, has not been pub-
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iished before — as the affairs of South America have not yet obtained, even in the United States, the importance which belongs to them intrinsically, the publication of those tran- sactions at large will wait for a period of appreciation, when the affairs of South America are more rationally appreciated than they yet have been.
We left Santa Ana on the 18th of December, and passed the rock which is celebrated as the first place of meeting be- tween Bolivar and Morillo ; it has nothing besides remark- able about it, but the positions of the outposts. We tra- versed up and down the tremendous and steep precipices which made this day's march fatiguing and disagreeable : our mules, for the first time, were seriously jaded by the ine- qualities and the laborious windings and descents over roads of rubble ; through deep shelving lanes overhung with drip- ping shrubbery, shut out from light and heat, and producing chilliness. As soon as we were extricated from this humid atmosphere, the heat on the rocky hills became unpleasant ; and these changes took place several times within three hours. We were about four miles distant from Truxillo before we began the descent of the mountain, at the foot of which the road winds off. A valley, on our left, was refreshed by a broad rivulet, which trembled like a silver thread below, and seemed almost within a stone's throw ; while we stood perched above the precipice in awe of the steep and tiresome zigzag we had yet to descend : winding over slopes of pro- jecting and crumbled rock, strata of red clay macerated by the action of the passing mules, and the previous day's rain ; and over which the persevering and patient mule labours his way with a constancy and security that is astonishing. In every other country the obstinacy of the mule is a sort of proverb ; but I saw no instance of such a character in the long journey I performed : and without mules it is not to be conceived how intercourse could be carried on over the frightful and desolate cliffs, ravines, and rivers of South America. They are, in fact, to these regions, what the ca-
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mds of northern and western Asia, and the steam-boats of North America are ; their companions, the muleteers, are not so appreciable ; generally speaking, they have retained the shrewdness and plausible knavery of their prototypes in Spain.
At imminent peril, with the fracture of some saddle crup- pers and girth buckles, we reached the deepest deep of the valley, but so jaded, that seeing a few huts on the side of the ravine> with some cotton and orange trees, and cows browz- ing on the slopes of the brook ; and, finding that Truxillo was more than three miles from the main road, I resolved to rest an hour or two here, and accordingly defiled to the right instead of pursuing the left road which lay along the ascent of one of the rivers, which assemble 'in this concentration and debouch of a hundred vallevs and ravines. The females
^
were occupied in releasing the cotton from its pod, and clearing the brilliant glossy fleece from its seeds; others were twirling the distaff with the same grace and industry which the poet has given as one of the finest attributes of Penelope — our appearance must have been delightful to them, for in an instant the varied occupations were suspend- ed, and all were on their feet, their eyes distended with cu- riosity and their lips adorned with smiles of satisfaction ; a buxom damsel, without affectation or forwardness, slept for- ward and offered to aid Elizabeth to dismount, and another superseded the sergeant in the same civility to me ; the apart- mem, which, like the cobler's stall, served for " parlour, kitchen, and all," was not very large, the floor was earthen and not very level, but it was cleanly swept, and the walls were as white as if they had been cut out of the material of the ravines of the Barquisimeto mountains. Only one ham- mock could swing in this chamber, and that from the ex- treme angles. An hour's rest, and some good chocolate, with milk fresh from the cows which grazed around, put my animal economy in order, and enabled me to spend another
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hour in the open air, using the freedom encouraged by the gay temper and affability of the females, to crack a few jokes with the young and old, and to discover the temperament of their political affections. Here, as in every other place, with a single exception, the name of Bolivar had no rival but the Madre de Dios — and the Goths or Godas were congenially grouped with the devil and his imps.
At half-past two o'clock we parted with this cheerful and innocent people, and with many civil expressions — and turn- ed off from the main road, which lay in a west direction, to the side of the rapid current of the Motatan, along the side of which we travelled up south amidst plantations of cacao, su- gar-fields, and exuberant vegetation. The side of the stream consisted of irregular heaps of unequal sized stones, whose sharp angles had been barely rubbed off, and the river bed of lesser stones of the same recent forms — at four o'clock we had ascended much above the level of our halting-place ; the mountain on the left side of the river, which had been con- cealed by the forests, now appeared erect, and green, but naked of trees and somewhat broken ; the mountain on our left, on the right side of the river, became depressed, and de- scended to a gentle slope, upon which the sun cast an agree- able light ; our route lay across this river, which we passed upon a very rude bridge of the simplest structure, a few trees, their branches lopt, placed alternately tops and stumps, a quantity of brush wood tied across the timbers, and earth and sand beaten into the brush-wood so as to keep them compact, and form a very passable path on the surface.
We reached some cottages, but the town was not yet to be seen, for we were several feet below its lowest inclination, and in its suburbs ; winding round a mound and a ravine we reached a sloping passage, paved with coarse flat stones, and, led by the sergeant, who appeared as if scaling a rampart, we followed, and, on gaining the summit, found ourselves on
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cl empedrado de callet or the pavement of the main street, of this very celebrated, but much-misrepresented city of Truxillo.
CHAPTER XVI1L
Truxillo misrepresented— a more exact description — polite subaltern — good quarters — accommodations — style of domestic economy — pretty ancles and satin shoes — the night-cap— Pandora's box — love of being looked at — good taste in apparel — religious costume — topography of Truxillo — the goitre — where prevalent — difficult to move — our ariero useful on the road — his ideas of the Revolution — characteristics — no mules — dispatch the Sergeant to Betijoque, head-quarters General Clemente, the Intendant — receive a most friendly an- swer— consequences — 20th Dec. leave Truxillo — the soldier's widow of Gua- yana — follow the course of the Motatan — Savana largo. — Hacienda de la Plata — Valeria — Alcalde knavish — difficulty to obtain mules — resolve to have them — Spaniards expected there that night — continue our march to the Para- mo in a heavy rain at 3 o'clock — above the clouds, sublime prospect — sublime desolate aspect — Valley of Mendoza — foot of the Paramo — lodged with the Curate — hospitable — Catechism — Christmas eve and night — sky-rockets — squibs — and firing all night — a native oboe or musical tube — Christmas day — polite Alcalde — the sun-dial.
I HAVE said in the last chapter that Truxillo has been misrepresented. Indeed, I know no place that so little cor- responds with the accounts given of it, in all the books that I have seen, as this ancient city. I suspect it must be the history of its first vicissitudes, and the richness of the circum- jacent country which have led to the general exaggeration con. cerning this city and scite. The date of its first foundation by Garcia Paredes is 1556, but the Indians drove the set- tlers out in two years after. There were three more unsuc- cessful attempts, but the fifth, in 1570, was successful, and it was finally fixed in the nook which it now occupies. What is most remarkable as to the scite of this ancient city, that it is more than three miles from the ordinary roads, and ne-
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ver could have been on the high road. Passing from the foot of the steep mountain where we rested, the highway leads to the westward along the bank of the Motatan, which issues from the south, through an obscure recess, on the It ft of the road, and winds off to the westward ; if we followed the course of the river, which is the direct route, we should have left Truxillo unseen ; for to go thither it is necessary to pass three miles to the south along the Motatan, and it is not till after crossing a primitive sort of a bridge or scaffold, and scrambling beneath some lofty forest trees, that a few huts are seen upon some detached knolls, which would never in- duce a suspicion that an ancient city was so near at hand. The sergeant, who was master of the Carte de pais, put spurs to his mule, and dashed into a ravine, so that we lost sight of him, till we saw him cap a pied mounting a slope of stone work, which resembled the slope of a covert way, to a rampart, where he waited for us ; we followed of course, and trusted to our mules for security in passing over the slippery flag-stones. As it was a warlike time, and this was a mili- tary commandaricy, the serjeant led us directly to the quar- ters of the commandant, over a pavement that was in the usual style of excellence. The great man was absent, but a polite subaltern volunteered, seeing a lady in company, and conducted us to an adjacent street, where, opening a pair of folding gates, we rode in, and he presented to us in the cor- ridor an ample chamber on the main street, said, this house is yours, made his bow, and disappeared.
The house was a very good one as to space and style, but it was not as clean as was necessary to comfort ; it belonged to a widow lady who was at her hacienda in the country, and it is the usage to afford accommodation to persons of respectable appearance in such vacant houses ; a poor widow woman, who had been accommodated by the owner in a rear apartment, presented herself and solicited permission to clean out the room, and as she had the broom in hand, and
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went to work as she spoke, it was an act mutually agree- able. As there was no incumbrance beside the bare walls, every thing was soon in order — our mules were already un- laden, and feeding upon sugar cane — our baggage trunks so disposed as to serve for chairs and tables ; our hammocks hung up ; chocolate smoking and frothing to find its way into three or four tea-cups of different ages and nations, which Vincent had placed, with some fine bread, on one of our own white napkins ; a fricaseed chicken, with some fine rice, completed our ample and delicious repast, which being dispatched, Elizabeth, in her night-cap, placed herself on the vis avis seat of the window, with her work-box and her embroidery, and was as busy and unconcerned as if she was already at home — and as it was on the main-street, and the only promenade of this ancient city, she could see as far from her window of what was going on in that street, as from the top of the best house in Truxillo. I believe it is as true of cities as of villages, especially when the city, like Truxillo, is not larger, nor as large as some villages, that they are as proverbial for gossiping, and as curious about novelties. The arrival of an elephant or a whale could not have affected the pretty ladies of Truxillo with more curiosity, than the rumour of a strange damsel, of fair complexion, and with cheeks as roseate as those of the Virgin of Chinchinquira, had arrived in Truxillo, and was actually quartered at the casa of Senora Cardina, in the Calle Grande ; the pavement, though very good for horses, or mules, or asses, is not ex- actly the best adapted for very pretty delicate feet, cased in satin or other silk shoes ; and moreover, where it is so rough, there is a necessity of keeping the hind -skirt of the garment from soiling where the mules have gone before them — what was to be done ? could it be expected that cu- riosity would regard a rough pavement ? and moreover the ladies of Truxillo had never seen a street with a trottoir, such as we have at Philadelphia, and such as they have not at Paris,
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although Mollieu finds fault with Bogota for that defect. They in fact passed on the opposite side of the street, and they peeped, but good manners did not permit them to peep long enough, and besides the night-cap was what has been called a mob-cap, which tied under the chin, and there were I know not how many borders, edged with a very narrow lace, and even the crown itself had a border where it joined the head- piece ; and those deep borders, which were intended to de- feat the wantonness of the sunbeams, now defeated the cu- riosity of those Senoritas, who wished to see every thing ; after passing up and down, first at this side, and then at that, eyeing the object, as if, like Miranda in the Tempest,
They could no woman's face remember, Save from the glass they'd seen their own, Wondering at such goodly creatures, And the brave world that had such people in it.
At length female curiosity surmounted all scruples — and a group entered the corridor, using the service of the poor soldier's widow, who already seemed herself one of our party ; they requested to be admitted, but entered upon the word. They had not seen me, for I was at repose, and Richard was climbing the sides of the mountain which hung its steep sides over the street, and shut out sunshine three fourths of the day.
The ladies were soon intimate ; they asked a thousand questions, in perfect good nature, and in perfect good nature they were answered ; they wished to see the cap — the night cap, but night was coming on, and intimations of the even- ing repast led them to separate, but not \vithout invitations to visit their houses, and beseeching us not to leave Trux- illo so soon. There was indeed a succession of visiters until night warned them away. My daughter not expecting to remain, as mules had been applied for to be ready in the
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morning, she had barely taken off her bonnet and riding- habit, and put on a light garment, letting her cap remain.
But they were with us in the morning — for the mules were not forthcoming — and now they prayed to be permitted to take a pattern of the cap — Elizabeth went to her trunk to find one perfectly unsoiled, and it was necessary to remove some other articles to get at it ; this was opening Pandora's box ; the cap was lent that day, and before we left Truxillo it was the general object of female attraction. Perhaps they heard some passing traveller say that " a beautiful woman never looks so well as in her night-cap," — and they all deter- mined to look well — for every one had taken a pattern. But the trunk had revealed other curiosities — come, my sweet friend, said one of them — " Senorita mia, vamos— andar por las caltes y tragear sus gran vestidos — vamos, mi Senorita bonita — mi amiga." " Come my sweet friend, promenade the streets, and show your beautiful clothes, my pretty friend." How it was possible that a young lady should have handsome clothes and not walk abroad to show them, was beyond their conception — they saw every thing in the trunk — admired every thing — and if taking a pattern could procure them, they would have had patterns of every thing.
The Colombian ladies, generally, when allowed to follow their own taste, dress to advantage ; and, although they use a profusion of jewellery in their hair, on their necks and fin- gers, in company, their method of attiring themselves and putting up their fine dark long hair is very graceful. Their familiarity is, to my taste, much to be preferred to the stiff prudery which I have seen in other countries. They never affect coldness or reserve ; I never saw any instance of a want of decorum, in the very ardour of their cheerful- ness. The taste for dress, I have understood from some of them, has undergone a great change since the revolution. The custom, enforced by the clergy, of compelling females to wear a particular dress, common to all classes, is still re-
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taincd, and it is not unbecoming ; though it differs at Caracas and Valencia from Tunja and Bogota. Still the taste for dress is, at present, greater than the capacity to gratify it. The revolution has wrecked the fortunes of all parties — the royal adherents who are exiled, and the republicans who have triumphed. The sources of opulence however remain with the victors, and its growth, however slow, is inevitable. Meanwhile, those who were among the distinguished formerly, endeavour to keep up former appearances — and it is not no- ticed as a reproach, for how could misfortune, arising out of virtuous causes, be reproachable ; it is only noticed as the evidence of a ruling passion, which, being an object of inte- rest to the general observer, is no less so to him who looks round the world with a commercial eye ; as it proves that the market must augment progressively with public and pri- vate prosperity. I have known, in respectable families, where there were no silk stockings to be purchased, the females have so arranged it, that they should have those they could purchase in rotation, and the females who remained at home from one ball, go to the next in rotation,
The scite of Truxillo is remarkable — imagine a bank of about a quarter of a mile front, facing the east, sloping ab- ruptly to the bank of the Motatan, which pours its gurgling current to the north. The southern side of the bank, is the foot of a steep precipitous mountain, which continues its el- evation of about six hundred yards, better than a quarter of a mile due west, where it suddenly turns and forms a nook of not forty feet wide ; the mountain now pursuing its course a point or two east of north, not quite a half mile. So that the west end of this valley, which is no where a quarter of a mile broad, and narrows to forty feet, and has for its sides the winding chain of these whimsical moun- tains that form the nook on which Truxillo stands. The ac- count given by Alcedo, of Truxillo, is marvellously errone- ous; and Bonnycastle, though taking it all in all, as the best
S68 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
book on South America for reference, though it abounds al- so with errors ; Bonny castle has been misled by his author- ities. Upon Alcedo, generally, there is little dependence to be placed. I never read a work on geography so abundant in error, or so defective in relation to what it professes to give — correct information.
Besides the main street, which is the only one that ex- tends the greater length, there is another parallel to it, on the south side, and part of a street on the north side ; three or four streets cross these, east and west. The country around is rich and prolific ; but whatever may have influen- ced the settlement of Truxillo in this nook, and its contin- uance as a place of importance, it is easy to discern, that a free government, by enlarging the power of choice, will lead the inhabitants to situations more eligible, and less gloomy, than the nook of Truxillo.
A disease, which, though not peculiar to this part of the world, I mean the Goitre, is very prevalent in this neigh- bourhood, though I did not see a single case in Truxillo — the first I saw in Colombia, was on the road from Santa Ana to Truxillo, where I was taught to expect to see it seizing upon every, throat ; perhaps I saw our pretty female visitors with the more pleasure, as not one of them had that deform- ity, nor did I see a second, till I had advanced towards Mendoza : as far as a transient passage would enable me to judge, the goitre appears only in particular districts; and after leaving these, a considerable space is passed over be- fore it recurs again. I did not see it at Merida, nor thence to Gritja ; but the worthy curate, who came to re- ceive us, and conduct us to Sativa, was affected by goitre, which it was some time before I perceived, it was so dexter- ously covered by a green guard and scarf. The charming people of Susacon were wholly exempt from it, and I felt some delight in learning from Senora Calderon, the lovely wife of the alcalde, that it was not known in their parish, nor for some miles around. Neither was it visible at the
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beautiful town of that beautiful and kind people at Santa Rosa, nor is it frequent at Tunja or Bogota, though some instances prevail there. I know not how far the custom- ary dislike of salt, which prevails every where in Colom- bia, may have any influence, but so little is salt in use, that, wherever we dined with any of our friends, a salt-celler was laid for us only, none else using it with flesh, fish, or fowl. The government, disposed to find a cure for this unsightly disease, has promised ample rewards to those who may afford remedies for its cure and prevention.
Our domestic arrangements were such as if disposed to remain we should deem convenient enough, but we were desirous of proceeding forward. The commandant was, perhaps, too much occupied in mind by the Spaniards, who were about twenty-five miles distant, to bestow any regard upon us. We had endeavoured to prevail upon our ariero to accompany us to Merida, and then we should move the next morning, but as was his intention at first, he had already bargained for a return cargo, and we must wait the leisure of the higher powers. We therefore paid our cavalier, Valen- tine, giving him a letter acknowledging his fidelity, to Co- lonel Gomez who recommended him. When he found I had said nothing in censure of his revels and fandangoes, he was particularly eloquent : he had amused us very frequent- ly on the road with his vivacity and vanity, and unceasing communicativeness. This hero of mule-drivers was, in the main, honest in pecuniary affairs, but was rather indifferent to veracity when it interfered with his wishes, and he was apt to misrepresent distance, or to declare a place ten or twelve miles, more or less, remote, when a delay or a forced march would bring him to a neighbourhood where he could spend his night at a fandango ; but lying in this way may be considered as inseparable from the muleteer as honour and integrity from jockies and gamblers. From constantly passing on the routes between Caracas and Truxillo, which were to him the polar regions, he knew every body, and dipt
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into every 'body's business ; he pointed out, as we passed Ha- ciendas, that formerly belonged to Godas, and (in an under voice) some Godas who still remained, who, he said, el con- greso foolishly permitted to remain. He could tell the acts and deeds ot ail the eminent Colombians within a hundred miles of any part of the route, and never failed, when he had told his story, to refer every thing to Bolivar and el congreso de Colombia. He was a sturdy patriot, and explained his ideas ot the revolution by observing, that before the revolu- tion there were men every where whom it was not safe to look at, but now a man in his station, una paisano fibre, may talk freely and look at any body, as I talk and look at you, Senor, por favor ; the lawyers, he said, had not the same power, though they still vext people too much ; and somehow, said he, — looking round lest he should be heard by some one in his mind's eye, though many leagues distant, — somehow all the ill-natured priests seem to have gone off with the Godas, for those who remain treat us as if we were men. He was not bashful in relating his own exploits in two campaigns, nor that among the muleteers he was considered no small character ; he had, he said, some qualifications for his sta- tion in life ; at Valencia or San Carlos he was considered as the best dancer among the numerous circle of his acquaint- ance ; but that Caracanian, that Vincente, your asistiente, I acknowledge, beats me hollow. When impeached of leav- ing our baggage exposed, and he and Vincente going off at night to dancing places, he pleaded guilty to going, but re- minded me that he had a man-servant especially to take care of his own mules, and of course our baggage.
The absence of Valentine at night was nothing to us, but he carried Vincent with him, or they went together, and the services of the latter were sometimes wanted ; besides, we found him on the march frequently in a deep sleep on his mule, to which he had committed himself and his fortunes implicitly. We met no such troublesomely clever muleteer on the rest of our journey as our ariero Valentine, and when
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27'
lie received his money and was about to part, with a good, natured freedom he made an apologetic confession, that he had sometimes given us mope displeasure than he ought, par- ticularly in keeping back the baggage at the Spanish camp, and letting us go on without our blankets to Obispos ; that he never travelled with any people more to his satisfaction, and if it were possible would like to go the whole world over with us. Poor Vincente was disconsolate at being separated from a man who had the candour to acknowledge him his superior at a fandango.
The unkindness, or the more serious mental occupation of the commandant of Truxiilo, had now detained us five days in this gloomy nook. The distance to Betijoque, on the lake of Maracaibo, where the intendant General Lino Clemente then was with a small force watching Morales, was only half a day's march. I dispatched a letter to him in the afternoon, and before noon the next day I had his kind answer, and a visit in full uniform from the cornmandani a.»d his suite, who regretted his not knowing who I was before, and inviting me to dine and stay a day longer ; but that mules should be at my command early in the morning. Of course I had no other right than usage to expect any attention from the com- mandant, but the promptitude with which they were now provided, only proved how likely a mere stranger is to be disregarded, when an officer does not think the obligations of his nation equally imperative. I declined any visit.
I had the honour of a personal acquaintance with Gci»tral Clemente at Philadelphia, when he was the mil agent
of the republic ; he gave as an apology for not corning to see me on my route, that he was at that moment in presence of Morales, who had a force double his numbers, and could do no more than keep him in check, and prevent his maraudings from being more extensive ; he advised me not to tarry a moment, but move forward as fast as possible, as my route was that which he suspected Morales meant to take.
During our detention at Truxiilo, we were not without
272 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
some amusement. The poor soldier's widow, to ingratiate herself with my daughter, the evening of our arrival, was ve- ry useful to us, and very interesting. She was a native of Angostura, and had come all that way in prosecution of some claims on account of her husband, who had fallen in battle ; she had four children with her, and one of them sung in a most interesting style, and with her accompani- ment. Her amusing stories and her interesting songs were delightful, and perhaps the more so, because she appeared to study nothing but to contribute to our comfort and satis- faction. The little girl, of ten years, who sung so well, was constantly with us, and we had numerous specimens of their popular, patriotic, romantic, and amatory songs. The poor widow was besides an improvisatrice, and in several instances added a stanza to a song, complimentary to some of us. Eli- zabeth gave her such little articles as could be spared, for her girls, and a trifling present seemed to produce as much gra- titude as if it had been ample. Indeed, with an ardent love of music, I do not recollect to have had more satisfaction from melody and song, than from the unmeditated concerts of this poor, but amiable widow and her orphans. We left Truxillo on the twenty-third of December, at eleven o'clock, and descending the steep ravine, by which we entered the town, we were surprised to find the poor widow on the road side with her children, where she had placed herself to take a last sight of us, and to express her gratitude and her bles- sings. While we descended along the rugged bank of the Motatan, she continued to hold up her scarf, and wave it in the air,- until we were hidden by the winding of the valley. — The pain is much greater than the interest excited by the knowledge of such afflictions as this poor widow and her or- phans were exposed to by the afflictions of war : it was some mitigation, however, to reflect, that she was in a country where indigence can never famish ; where charity is so unaf- fected as to divest its favours of arrogance or contempt ; where perpetual spring saves the unfortunate from that seve-
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of wretchedness where cold and avarice produce insen-
bility and hardness of heart.
We had, in going to Truxillo, to pass about three miles south of the highway ; for it is so far from the road ; we had now returned back those three miles, and following the stream of the Motatan, to the westward, where we had no ac- tual path, as our track sometimes crossed the river, passing through cane brakes, sugar patches, coffee plantations, and cacao groves. By half-past two we passed the village of Pampanita without halting, and entered on Savana Larga, where, about five, we turned off from the road, to an adjacent house of some magnitude, where we resolved to sleep ; we entered without knocking, and were in our hammocks by nine o'clock. It rained pretty heavy all night. We were on our march by seven in the morning of the 24th. This llanura or plain, was not a dead flat, but on the north side had a steep bank, of more than fifty feet descent, to the vast plain on that side ; on the south side, it was a broken, but verdant ground, with hillocks, which prevented its line of declination from being so visible, and clumps of trees, and some forest in the distance, gave it a very picturesque appear- ance ; the plain may be about twelve miles in length, our course was to the north-west, or nearly so, in its prolongation, and at the west extremity, the ground gave a platform more elevated, and ascending as it receded to the west ; the general breadth of this llanura, was about four to five miles ; the plain to the west and north-east below, presented the ap- pearance of numerous plantations, and former opulence at least ; for every thing was then stagnant, owing to the neigh- bourhood of a Spanish force, double in number to the Co- lombians.
We continued our way, procured some fine milk on the road, and descended to the lower plain, passing the Hacien- da de la Plata, once the property of a very opulent royalist planter. I had seen but few plantations which bore more
35
£74? VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
substantial evidence of the riches of its former proprietor than this ; and, though going rapidly to utter ruin, it was venerable even in its decay. After a very pleasant ride, we reached a hamlet of some thirty detached houses on a plain, it was called Valeria. We found the people, who had not yet fled, in a state of trepidation ; and the alcalde appeared to me, from his demeanor, as if he was calculating upon the question of maintaining or betraying his post. He found no pleasure in exercising his duties, and upon our reiterated inquiries for mules, he gave no other answer than ahora ! — ahora si /— presently, or immediately ; but it seemed as if, when he said ahora , he meant not now, but never. I shewed him the letter received from the Intendant, and told him I should report his conduct ; at length I sent the sergeant to him, to say, that I had found numerous mules, concealed under his charge, at a house which was designated, that I suspected he intended them for the enemy ; and if, in ten minutes, he did not furnish me with mules, I should take and pay for them, and send the sergeant with a complaint to General Clemente, who was now only fifteen miles distant. We had yet to pass a long and dreary paramo, and the summit of our route was, at the moment, covered with clouds mena- cing rain. Food and forage were not to be procured here ; and the alcalde appeared utterly stupified ; whenever we sought eggs, poultry, or any provisions, the answer was no aye — or no aye nada^ en esta casa — or simply, no aye ; nothing here, nothing in this house, we have nothing ; the proximity of the Spaniards had produced these terrors. The alcalde, appre- hensive of the menaces of complaint, at length permitted the sergeant to select some horses accustomed to the Paramo, and after taking a hearty meal of our own provisions, pur- chased for us by our poor widow at Truxillo, we deter- mined to proceed at three o'clock, although it was already raining very heavy. We prepared our cloaks and garments for the storm, preferring a wet jacket to an interview with Morales, and proceeded towards the Paramo, over a plain al-
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ready in a puddle, and before an hour we had our heads above the clouds ; for the earth, on which we moved, ap. peared like a great island, in the midst of a boundless sea. The air being moderately warm, we uncloaked to continue our ascent over a still more lofty paramo ; we passed one chain, and found the verdure of a more northern climate, and the dewberry bramble, with very fine flavoured berries ; but we had to ascend again a loftier path, and over a longer, colder, and steep paramo, of which nor words nor painting could convey a true picture. It was a tremendous, dreary, desolate track ; and when we came to descend the rude laby- rinth, winding in long mazes diagonally down its steep sides, where vegetation had disappeared, and left a wild disorder of rocks and stones, which if put in motion would inevitably plunge into the valley three or more miles down, I found rid- ing so fatiguing, that I dismounted, hoping to relieve myself, and the poor animal that carried me ; but I found very soon that I had miscalculated the supposed preference of walk- ing to riding, and learned to appreciate the value of my mule, which, after this long journey, appeared to be no more affected than at our departure. A skirt of the long valley of Mendoza at length broke upon our sight ; we never dreamt that Men- doza was still five miles distant. But the descent became less fatiguing, and here I was attracted by the figure of the mountain in our front. A valley running to the east, sepa- rated it from the paramo on which we were ; the river Mo- tatan appeared flowing towards us for many a mile from the south, and beneath our feet cut the base of the opposite mountain, which presented a steep, absolutely perpendicular mound, with a handsome village on its summit; from that bank, the range of paramo, of which it was the northern ter- mination, was seen to an immense distance. The valley ap- peared but narrow, seemingly not half a mile from our point of view, but it exceeded two milts ; the mountains on the west side, though running parallel with those on the east, were not so steep ; and they exhibited verdure and
S76 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
many openings, that gave it a very beautiful aspect. But I could not conjecture how they found access to the village, seen on the steep platform, which must have been half a mile from the river below.
At length we reached the foot of the paramo, and saw the laughing valley, its limpid stream flowing gently by us, and a handsome platform thrown across a mill race, which we had to pass ; the clatter of the cogs, and the ricketty motion of the hopper, were 'cheering to us, and we turned into the yard of the first house to rest, and refresh. We obtained milk, eggs, and some fine wheaten bread ; and set off for Mendoza, expecting to reach it yet before dark ; but it was half an hour after seven before we entered the village. We rode up to the church as the place most likely to learn the residence of the alcalde. It appeared that the alcalde's resi- dence was three miles further south, and, as the church is often the last resort of adversity, we enquired for the curate. It was Christmas eve, and a preparation of fire- works was making on the plain. A good-natured citizen, seeing us as strangers, went unsolicited, and apprised the curate, who soon appeared, and in the kindest manner led us to a large hall adjoining the church ; here we found some half a dozen boys, under charge of a coadjutor, rehearsing a colloquy or catechism, in which the majesty of darkness was the dispu- tant on one side, and what angels or saints spoke on the op. posite side I could not make out, but the poor devil had once more fallen into hands stronger than his own, and, as might be expected, had the worst of the argument.
The curate, unaware that we had provisions with us, had ordered supper himself, of which we knew nothing till the two repasts entered together ; we did not neglect thanks any more than our appetites ; but whether he thought we were heretics, Jews, or atheists, which are all the same thing, he took care to renew the exercises, probably for the good of eur souls, while we were taking care of our bodies ; the
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exercises were urged now with more particular emphasis, whenever the " mobbled king's" doings were touched ; we did not so well comprehend the exercises at the first, but the representative of fallen majesty appeared worse and worse on the repetition, and seemed now unable to make out his own case. 1 dare say the worthy curate considered him- self as doing a greater service to our souls than our bodies. The preparations for festivity and rejoicing, which we had seen at our entrance into Mendoza, began soon to be heard, — as loud and noisy as if the devil himself were there — squibs, crackers, rockets, guns, and the din of bugles, some half- cracked, and others in utter discord, kept up a pother, that if there were not elsewhere examples as noisy, we should probably have thought it no proof of their taste for enjoy- merit; however, the stock of combustible was probably limited ; indeed, the day's sermon and the night's colloquy had brimstone enough to blow up all the legions of pan- demonium ; and, by way of requiem, midnight brought in stuff of another kind — the tones of lyric instruments, and of some instruments that were new, and which we had no opportunity to examine until we reached Timothes, were conspicuous for their shrillness and the originality of the cadences ; in an adjacent room to that in which we were hung up, there was an instrument very much like a stringed- instrument of Asia ; the body was formed of a ca- labash of about eighteen inches diameter, with a belly or face of no mean execution, and well varnished; the handle and finger-board at least four feet long; the three strings were gut, and of the size of those common to the violoncello ; it had stops and frets, set by the ear ; in truth it made no disagree- able music, and was very well adapted to accompany a good voice, as they performed, I could perceive — for I could not sleep, and therefore got up to see as well as hear — with as much consciousness of excellence, as Gilles on his inimitable violoncello, or fPillis on his Vox Humana ; and if
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we were not as much pleased at hearing the present perfor- mers, as those named, it was not from any want of desire to please — and he must be a sorry being who could be dissatis- fied with efforts so earnest.
As the night retired, before the approach of morning the festivity weaned, and we fell asleep, like our entertainers, and should probably have slept till eight or nine o'clock, had not the church-bells rung a peal in our ears of such discordant clangor, that fatigue itself could not contend against it — and, as it was Christmas morning, we were up and ready to move by six ; but the mules had not yet ar- rived. Chocolate was prepared, as usual, and while we were regaling, the alcalde presented himself in an unusual style for village magistrates. He was a respectable and a sensible man, and, as we learned, had taken the office more for pub- lic benefit than private advantage ; he was a planter, and, indignant at the abuses practised by his predecessors, had accepted the station to put an end to the depravity which had been exercised under its name. His appearance among the crowd of both sexes seemed to produce a degree of pleasure, which must have given him more delight than mil- lions could purchase. We were soon ready, and while our baggage was loading, our respects to the curate and thanks were communicated, and he even wished us to stay that day, nor was the alcalde less importunate.
Mendoza is itself not a regularly laid-out town, but a num- ber of houses detached on the upper side of the valley ; nor is there in the range of five or six miles which it presents at a view any appearance of cultivation, but it is in the valleys adjacent, in the range upon our right as we entered, that the inhabitants of Mendoza carry on a rich and extensive cul- ture. The church, which was now rebuilding, was an indi- cation of the surrounding opulence ; for no pains nor money seem to have been spared to render it as durable as time ; blocks of stone, some of which were to serve instead of
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arches, and to cover the side aisles like a terrace ; the yet unshaped shafts of columns were of such magnitude as would serve to erect a Palmyra. The design was in a good taste, excepting the unnecessary thickness of the walls. Much of the disadvantageous appearance of Mendoza is to be attri- buted to causes which have been before noticed, the flight of whole families into the adjacent valleys to avoid the inso- lence, the violence, and the outrages of the enemy on the highways through which they marched. The fine streams which irrigate this naturally beautiful and luxuriant valley, will most probably recal many who had emigrated in conse- quence of the war, and certainly new settlers could not fix upon a position more favourable, where intercourse with the ocean was not desired.
The curate, who was, notwithstanding his free use of brim- stone, and his bedevilment of the hero of Milton, which by the bye was intended for the auditory this day, and our hear- ings only rehearsals, — the worthy curate was urbane, cordial, and disinterested. He had pretensions to learning, as his li- brary was stocked with the canon laws, the laws of the In- dies, Thomas Aquinas, and the lives of more than a thousand saints ; he knew also how to make dials, of which we had the demonstration before our eyes ; for, whoever rode up to the church front, hitched his horse or mule to a hook in an up- right post, on each of three of the four faces of which there were pasted a dial, the lines and hours in very handsome pen- manship, and as they appeared to have stood some time, and were not injured by weather, served as a good evidence of the mildness of the climate. As an indicator of the hours, it no doubt would have been correct, had not the post been used to hitch the horses, for, while I stood examining it, a horse that was somewhat mulish, had drawn the post two or three degrees out of a perpendicular.
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CHAPTER XIX.
Alcalde of Mendoza— much beloved. — Move at seven o'clock Christmas da^ — meet the Motatan river again. — The Momboy river — Dark night — for- tunate escape — phenomena of steep vertical banks of earth. — River of TU mothes — boundary of Truxillo and Merida — enter Timothes at midnight — alcalde abroad carousing — look to the church, and take quarters in the curate's parlour — who is from home — curate surprised by a lady's bonnet in the morning — a worthy man — well informed — much beloved — hospitable — his attentions. — Situation of Timothes — the festivity — mode of celebration — Mules at four o'clock — reach Chacapo at seven o'clock — cold night uncom- fortable— striking change in apparel. — Erica, or heath. — Humboldt says none in America, found it of a fine species. — Drummond, and other botanists, same mistake. — Muchachees— numerous crosses. — Virgin of Chinchinquira. — Appa- rel changes. — Intelligence — hospitality and kindness of a young alcalde.
THE politeness of the alcalde, at Mendoza, was exem- plary and gratifying. He was a plain, unaffected, country farmer, whose good sense was manifest in his deportment, as well as his discourse. It was very pleasing to perceive with how much satisfaction he was received and seen by the in- habitants, aud how solicitous he was to avoid the idea of presuming any thing upon his office. He accompanied us some miles, and wished us to visit his plantation, which he pointed out not very distant.
Every thing being ready, we moved at seven o'clock, and again found the Motatan, which we had left on our right at Savana Larga, notwithstanding the vast paramo we had placed between us and it, and here we kept it company for about ten miles ; and, in a subsequent stage, found it again entering into the Capitanejo. We passed La Puerta, and reached the foot of La Cuesta, a very steep ascent, and were involved in a very dense and offensive mist, which continued a great way down the steep sides of the paramo, of which we gained the bottom at five o'clock, and halted to
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take some refreshment of bread, cheese, and gitarapa, there being no milk to be had ; \ve continued our journey at six o'clock, the climate fine and the country beautiful ; till we entered the broad bed of the Momboy, forming, at this sea- son, when its waters are lowest, a violent torrent. Our bag- gage had not yet overtaken us. The bed of this river appears in many places two miles wide, but narrows in various places, and is not constant to one shore ; so that when the channel winds among its large rounded rocks towards the right side, on which the rock lies, the traveller is com- pelled to ascend the steep banks, and follow a devious and ever changing way, until, by the capricious transition of the torrent to the opposite side, the margin of the river bed be- comes the most eligible path. Night had encroached upon us, from the difficulty of moving in those wilds, and as, in situations like this, our practice was to follow the sergeant in Indian file, one of the servants, Vincent, remaining with the baggage, and Pedro bringing up our rear : we had turned aside from a winding of the torrent, and ascended a path which had been trodden for many years ; the serjeant led, and we were slowly following, in succession, on the margin of a perpendicular bank of earth, more than 250 feet ele- vated above the bed of the river ; when the sergeant exclaim- ed, in an undertone, " Colonel ! HALT !'' I pulled up, and gave the word to Elizabeth, who was next me, to halt also. The position in which the sergeant was placed was tremen- dous, the continuance of the path, beyond where he stood, was totally carried away, and another step would have pre- cipitated him over the frightful chasm ; with great presence of mind he gently brought his mule back by the rein, and in a cheerful tone, halloed to Lieutenant Bache, " Come, lieu- tenant, you must retreat, come to the right about:" we came about, and moved to the upper side of the hill, where we called a council of war, and congratulated the sergeant on his presence of mind and fortunate escape.
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The Momboy is subject to sudden overflowings, and its steep sides prove that the volume of its flood must be ex- traordinary ; the elevation and magnitude of the paramos, whose ravines contribute to its flood, account for the waters supplied, as well as the sudden decrease of its current, with the serenity of the atmosphere on these summits. This river, and what belongs to this, is also a property of the numerous rivers of great magnitude, south of the Coxede. The steep bank of the platform of Barquisimeto, though steep, is not a perpendicular bank, its sides have a sloping buttress of rocks and earth, which the short distance between its sources and the front of Barquisimeto, does not supply such abundant contributions as the paramos of Santa Rosa, among which the sierra of Truxillo are inferior ranges. In the Motatan, the Momboy, and the Chatna, the beds are frequently two or three miles broad, covered with rounded stones from six inches to sixty in diameter ; and in the dry season the stream is divided into several dispersed channels, while, in the rainy season, the whole breadth is covered with a rapid and deep torrent, sometimes approaching, and at other points winding, at a distance, round the promontories and headlands, which its own violent current has been form- ing for countless ages. What is most extraordinary, is the vertical steeps which those banks present on the river sides. They appear, in some instances, an uniform mass of grey earth, and I have sometimes thought that their appearance, and the strait steepness of those banks, suggested the adop- tion of pita for the walls of houses. Some of those banks, as the Momboy, present walls or fronts sixty to two hundred feet high, without any verdure, nor even a pendant or droop- ing plant. Others present a wall as elevated, which is stud- ded with rounded stones, of from a tenth of an inch to four or five inches diameter, generally kidney -shaped, or flat egg- shapes ; these naked perpendicular fronts show no fissure, no crumbling or decay, such as banks of earth would show
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climates where the expansive power of cold, in the form of frost and snow, burst asunder the earth, in which mois- ture has been retained ; here the agency of heat carries off in exhalation the moisture of those natural walls, without dis- turbing the atoms of which they are composed.
It was over a steep bank of this description, where the ordi- nary path had led for time immemorial, we learned, after our fortunate escape, that the Momboy had experienced an un- usual flood the preceding spring, and that, by some change in the materials of its bed, a sort of mound of rocks had given a direction to the flood against this promontory, and that it had fallen but a few days before, but without doing any in- jury. Had we rode horses instead of mules, it is questiona- ble whether we should have escaped. We accordingly turned and retraced our way to the point from which we had mount- ed to the bank, and the sergeant finding the track of other mules in a place where a stranger would not think of looking 'or them, or when seen might not know them, we ascended in another diiection, and gained the road a mile beyond the sunken bank. We now travelled by the left bank in sight of the turbulent roar of the Timothes. It was about eleven o'clock when we entered the village of the same name ; the villagers on the banks of the Timothes were as boisterous as its stream. This river separates the jurisdiction of Truxillo from Merida. The festivity of the night had left a few strag- glers, from whom we learned the position of the alcalde's house, but he was at a neighbouring village at a ball, and his wife protested loudly against the admission of any man. We endeavoured to quiet her, by assuring her it was a lady who wished her civility, and desired to know where she would advise us to look for quarters ; but her answer was that we should not come in, and so we moved about in search of a church, which we found in one angle of the plaza, and were not mistaken in finding the comfortable residence of the curate along side it. The trampling of our mules brought a
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well conditioned Indian, in a state between laughing and sleeping to the gate, which he opened and we entered without questions on either side. The spacious room on the front we immediately occupied, and some* female servants finding a lady was in company, frankly offered their services. It was Christmas day, and, since our bread and milk at the foot of La Cuesta, we had neither eaten nor drank ; but the choco- late pot was soon in preparation both by Pedro and the dam- sels of the domicil, and it was brought in while our ham- mocks were preparing ; our mules were placed in the coral, and the Indian, who was now broad awake, brought molocha, that is, young corn-stalks. The curate was at the frolic in the adjacent village, and when he came home found his par- lour occupied by strangers, and his handsome table covered with blue cloth, occupied by a lady's bonnet in gay ribbons and a shawl. Nobody could tell who we were, whence we came, or where we were going ; and though I heard the in- quiries, I was too much in want of sleep to go to confession so early in the morning.
The curate was, nevertheless, up with the dawn to cele- brate his official duties ; he had ordered an excellent break- fast, though he had not seen one of us ; our cocinero had previously been prepared, by the activity of the sergeant, with poultry and eggs purchased in the village, and we had taken down our hammocks and were at high -break fast when the curate entered, and gave us a most cheerful welcome ; regretting when he saw that the breakfast he had ordered for us was not served as he intended ; Elizabeth and I renewed the contest with the chocolate, and some delicious lemonade, with cinnamon and rose-water, which was handed, to my surprise, with the wishes of the season. We mentioned our want of mules, he said he would do his best, but was appre- hensive we should be disappointed of mules on that day, as every one was engaged in festivity. Some excellent fruit, which the festivity had brought to Timothes for other per-
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sons, came in time to enable the good priest to afford a tes- timony of his hospitality and politeness ; and when we had satisfied ourselves, he said he would keep the remainder lor us lest none should be procurable elsewhere. He apolo- gized for leaving us, as this day was one of the three nation- al festivals, he must recommend us to the charge of his house, and to call upon the domestics for whatever we should need; as our habits were disciplined by this time to our situa- tion, good appetites and abundance of fine fruit made mat- ters not so disagreeable.
This amiable man placed the key in the handsome book- case, and invited us to use his library, which, though not very ample, contained many books which I did not expect to find in that Indian village ; for, besides some of divinity, on abstract theology, his historical and classical stock were the most numerous, besides several mathematical works.
The house being on the open square, every thing that passed there was visible ; and as the three festivals of Christ- mas, St. Stephen, and St. John, were also the festivals of In- dependence ; the 26th, to union and the constitution ; and the 27th, to victory and the memory of those who had fallen in defence of liberty ; the .church was decorated with garlands and bouquettes, and branches of palm and laurel. The plaza had no fence, but houses on three faces of the square, the other, being in front of the church, had a light bamboo fence to mark the square. The roll of the tambour was heard at a distance early, and a native instrument of the hautboy species, upon which a melancholy cadence was heard, during the day, without much intermission ; but with frequent pauses, and no connected passages. The tam- bours were also aboriginal, they were in fact small kettle- drums in shape and tone ; and there were several of them of unequal tones, exactly like those in use throughout Hindustan ; these instruments were all performed upon by aborigines; indeed the society appeared to derive much
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more satisfaction from their instrumental music than we did. The engagements of the curate, he told us, must deprive him of the satisfaction of our company ; he had his wife to attend, lie said, jocosely pointing to the church, and he must render her the morning honours, and he ac- cordingly proceeded to the celebration of mass; but he kindly interfered with the alcalde, at our desire, to provide mules, which perhaps no other man in Timothes could have accomplished but himself, as it carried the mule-drivers from the festivity. On the twenty-fifth we understood the festivity was all within the church ; after mass it was this day all on the outside, and we, unable to march, were dis- posed to see what was passing. The sides of the square were occupied by nine o'clock, and parties of horsemen were scouring the suburbs in all directions; about eleven the whole cavalcade entered the square, and placed them- selves in a single rank on the side of the square opposite to us, facing inward ; several standards of different colours were carried, and the worthy curate was seen along with the alcaide preparing for the tournament ; for so I name it, knowing no other term more expressive. The whole corps of cavaliers now divided into two, at the head of one was the curate, the other was led by the alcalde, a rough, hardy, soldier -like man of sixty, who managed a spirited horse with admirable address. The exercises continued till one o'clock, but they were merely repetitions of two manoeuvres — the leaders led their divisions in Indian file along the faces of the square, the first that reached an angle wheeled rapidly off on the line formed, not by the side, but the oblique or extreme angle of the square ; the leader of the second exe- cuted the same evolution on the opposite extreme, so that each in passing crossed the line of march of the other, and the point of emulation appeared to be, who should most promptly execute the manoeuvre, and, avoiding the side of the square, project himself in an opposite direction to that which the other corps had taken. The speed at which they
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rode, must have been fatal to any two riders who should come in contact ; but no accident occurred, nor did the danger ap- pear so great, when the expertness of the riders became man- ifest. The tambours and the Indian pipe were in full din during the whole exercise — and their constancy in perform- ance was, to me, as remarkable as the discord appeared un- meaning.
We dined about two o'clock, and our mules arriving we were on our route a quarter before four, and reached an ob- scure place called Chacapo, at seven o'clock at night, a league distant from La Venta. The descent from the mountain path was troublesome and dangerous ; and the presence of mind of our Vincente was displayed here with great effect ; his mule, while ambling along the verge of a precipice skirted with brush-wood, made a sudden trip, and went over ; Vincente had presence of mind to jump off, and hold fast by the bridle, which, being of stout cow- hide, he held firm till the mule rolled and recovered his feet ; he was dragged up without injury, and Vincent mount- ed ; and, to shew he was not afraid, dashed down a steep that was nearly as formidable. The height we had ascend- ed, in the course of the day, was indicated by the severe cold of the night ; our place of shelter was, however, small and close, and we passed a rather uncomfortable night.
On the twenty-seventh we moved by seven o'clock for Muchachees, leaving the more circuitous route by La Venta to our left, and ascended the second mountain at eight o'clock, and the first paramo at one — not a house, not a ves- tige of human labour or human existence was to be seen beyond our own company — the cold was smarting, and we drew for heat upon our blankets, wearing them like the panchos o r roanas of Chile, or those square robes with a hole in the centre, through which the head is thrust. As we ascended, I marked several plants usually found in northern regions. The vaccinium or whortleberry displayed its purple fruit, and myrtle-shaped foliage. I had been informed that
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Humboldt had, in some of his valuable works, alleged, that the family of the Erica, or heath, of which there are about three hundred species in Africa, was no where to be found in America ; I have sought for the allegation in such of his works as were to be found in Philadelphia, but, strange to say, there is no complete copy of his works in the city library, nor in that of the Philosophical Society ; but I have found the allegation in two recent works, and possibly upon Humboldt's authority. An anonymous work, entitled Con- versations on Botany, published by Longman and Co. Lon- don, 1823, says — "the eighth class, Octandria, contains a •very numerous and beautiful genus, that of heaths, Erica, which is confined entirely to Europe and the southern parts of Africa. It is remarkable, that no species of this genus has been discovered in New Holland, Asia, or the continent of America ; nor are any found between the tropics."
" First Steps to Botany ; by Dr. Drummond," published in the same year by the same publishers, says, p. 278, " It has been already stated, that no species of heath (Erica) has been hitherto discovered in the new world."
But both these writers (if they be not from the same au- thor) are mistaken. I am well acquainted with heath, and have frequently slept on a bed of it with great satisfaction, and could not be mistaken. I have not seen it in North America nor in Asia, though I have been informed by Cap- tain Turner, that it is abundant in Bootan, and, if I mistake not, the fact is stated by some other writer, as found on the lower regions of the Himalaya ; but I can speak from per- sonal knowledge, as to its natural existence in Colombia, and of course within the tropics. Hounslow heath and others are named from the predominacy of this plant, and of several species ; it is also called ling in some parts of Eng- land ; in Scotland, hether ; in Ireland, brosnach; and it is the bruycre of France. In passing the paramo of Muchachees, not at that moment thinking of the subject, I was attracted
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ith a fragrance that was very familiar to my senses, but which I could not designate, until, led by the perfume, I dis- covered the minute purple-tufted flower ; but was much surprised to find, instead of a plant usually of two to three feet, — a tree ; and, having a pocket rule, I dismounted, and found the stem 4T3^ inches diameter at three feet from the ground, and the height of the plant by estimation about ten or eleven feet. The plant, not like those of Devonshire or the Cape of Good Hope, of many limbs issuing from one root, with ill-shaped branches ; the tree was a single stem ; but the bark had the same external colour and interlaced figure, as the plant of Europe and Africa, which in relation to this are dwarfs. I found also another of the genus with yellow flowers, but not of the same stature, in every other respect the figure and limbs the same, and a new and deli- cate perfume like roses blendid with jessamine. I found the rosemary wild on this paramo, but of less fragrance than that which is cultivated ; and wild balm with the same in- feriority of scent. Many varieties of the brambles which bear dew-berries and black-berries are found in the middle regions of this cold paramo, and a few that bear no fruit on higher elevations ; and in the warmer region on the platform of Merida, I have seen the black- berry bramble bearing fruit of a fine rich flavour.
It was in passing this paramo, that we reached a position, of which we had heard some dismal stories ; such as the perishing of a Spanish force of two thousand men by cold; and the frequent death of individuals, who had dared the in- clemency of this hospitable region. The point was designa- ted, by our alarmists, as exhibiting many hundred figures of the cross, of miniature dimensions, formed of every sort of wood or chip, that the piety of the passenger deemed suffi- cient to plant, while he or she prayed for the souls of those who perished there. We found the crosses more numerous, perhaps, than we were previously advised ; the mound was
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such as nature had made it, and the absence of every thing that would sanction such a mortality, as that of two thousand men so short a time before, who could at least travel ten or twelve miles backward or forward, induced me to treat this affair as an exaggeration ; some unfortunate individual, otherwise disabled, might have perished t there ; and it was not more than a mile from the scene of a sharp action, in which there were some hundred persons killed ; but I have no concep- tion of any cold that could occur at this place, competent to effect so much destruction in one night. But I rather be- lieve, these pious tributes belong to the votaries of the Vir- gin of Chinchinquira^ to one of whose shrines this is the high road.
The custom of designating some points, on public roads, by religious ceremonies or symbols, has prevailed in every part of ancient Europe and Asia. The Parsees lighted fires at cross-ways, the Hindus erect altars to the creative power at cross- ways, the Romans did the same in another form, and under a more artificial figure ; the Germans and Saxons had similar customs ; the Mahomedans pursue a more useful method of piety, they establish, at convenient sta- tions, houses of reception for the traveller ; and in other coun- tries, the traveller passing a position where some person has been murdered, places a stone, which the piety of successive passengers raises to a heap ; such are the cairns of the Bri- tish islands ; and where prayers for the dead are enjoined. In Colombia the substitute for mile stones, where any mea- surement is made, is a cross, and of such dimensions in some places, as to be large enough for human crucifixion. We found these large crosses to mark the route for many leagues after leaving Tinaco. But, as assassination was not unfrequent under the Spanish regime, the custom was for the passenger to offer up a prayer and plant a small cross on the spot ; the passenger, whose education teaches him to excuse the preju- dices which uneducated men, or men educated under particiu
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hr circumstances cannot be reproached for, contribute their oblation to the frailties of human institution, and enjoy harm- lessly their own opinions. Had I not been previously acquaint- ed with this rite, 1 should have been apt to conclude it came along with the Moorish architecture and caravanserais > but it is evident that, however it came to be introduced, it was inseparable from prayers for the dead, and was adopted by the early Christians, who adopted many others of the pagan forms, and accommodated them to their own disciplinary ritual. I suspect, however, and it is my own conjecture, that these crosses, set up in such numbers, are the works of those pious persons who, every year, flock to one of the shrines of the Virgin of Chmchinquira^ whose effigies are multiplied and spread among the Dominican churches, in those regions, and of which some account will be given when we reach Nimocon, or Enimacon^ where her ladyship detained us for a night, and obliged us to see her procession and a bull-fight.
On the sides of this and other paramos farther south, a plant grows in such abundance as to give its cream-coloured hue to the surface on which it flourishes. I have lost a spe- cimen and the notes made on seeing it, and forgotten its po- pular name, but its structure is of peculiar beauty. The stem is short, and the leaves incline outward, showing a surface covered with a long yellow coat, which has the feel of fine velvet, the leaves are from seven to ten inches long, and two broad, terminating abruptly round. It is much used for cushions, for sophas, and for beds, which are to be found in the cold regions only, where we, though much preferring the hammock for repose, were, from the want of a pallet or blankets, glad to occupy such beds. The cold was so unpleasant in descending this long paramo, that I made another attempt to walk down, and had been so braced by the cold that I made considerable way, and was more than a mile ahead of my companions ; having lost sight of
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them, I halted under the rays of a warm sun until lieltuit- easy at their delay ; however, they came in sight ; in fact, the only inconvenience Elizabeth felt in the journey was on this occasion, she was so overcome that she fainted, her brother was fortunately with her, and as we had some wine in our travelling beaufttte, and what with her good spirits, it was over in a few moments. It was the last time she at- tempted to walk down a cold paramo, and the security and ease of her mule was thenceforward preferred. We were very anxious to reach Muchachees, but it was yet two leagues off, and the night dark, and we determined to descend to Chocopa, a short distance from the road, where we obtained a house, made a good fire, and had some small but excellent potatoes boiled, roasted, and fried, with an excellent corned tongue, which had been forgotten until sharp appetites re- called it, and we completed, with a bottle of good Spanish wine, a rough but a most delicious supper. The cold of this night was very disagreeable, and we contrived to make some palatable flip with aguardiente and panellasj that is cakes of sugar, in our calabash turtumas: this flip served some of us in some measure instead of a blanket. Our re- pose was however so comfortless, that we moved at three o'clock in the morning from Chocopa, and at six we enter- ed Muchachees, where we were surprized to find a deputy of the alcalde looking out for us. The first alcalde had been obliged to be absent at this moment, but had instructed his deputy to bestow on us every attention, and provide what- ever we should want. We were indeed compensated by his kindness and hospitality in a very comfortable house, for our sufferings on the paramo and the preceding night.
When some leagues distant from Muchachees, we were all struck by the change of colours in the apparel of all de- scriptions of people, young and old. In our journey hither- to, the garments of both sexes were light, of white or gay colours ; coarse cottons, or linens, on the men ; muslins, ca-
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licoes, or silks, on the women. We now saw no one in light clothing ; it seemed as if a general mourning had taken place for some great calamity : the females were uniformly in black, or a few in blue petticoats, and, where they were not black, wore a black broad scarf like a shawl ; they had their heads and shoulders covered with a black or a blue cloth mantilla. I mentioned my surprize at this change to the al- calde, and was more surprized that what his good sense ex- plained had not occurred to me. He said that the garments and fabrics worn in the warm vallies, would not resist the cold, and dark colours were best adapted to garments which do not wash with convenience, nor every day ; that comfort and economy dictated the habits which had been so remark- able to us, only because suddenly seen after being among light garments so long ; indeed, our experience during the two last days instructed us not only to augment our own clothing while in the cold regions, but to relinquish our fa- vourite hammocks, and take up with bedsteads of rude work- manship, in which generally an ample ox hide, stretched and nailed across, served the purposes of a sacking bottom.
The second alcalde, in accordance with the wishes of his principal, requested us not to have any thing cooked by our own people, but that our man Pedro, as best acquainted with what was most agreeable to us, should direct ; and it was done with such evident kindness and desire to please, that it was at once agreed upon ; a most excellent supper was in- deed provided ; there could be no better, nor better cured corned pork of that size we denominate a shoat, with good bro- coli, and fine potatoes, roast and fricaseed poultry, excellent wheaten rolls, more Canary wine than we could consume, and so acceptable that it was not necessary " to think it was Bur- gundy," though it cost where we were almost as much as twelve shillings a quart, and was worth more; for what makes worth but the use or satisfaction which it produces.
Our attendants were as well treated as ourselves, and our
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mules were supplied not only with abundance of green bar- ley, but with Indian meal. Our night's repose was comfort- able, as blankets were abundant, and we rose about seven o'clock in the morning of the 28th December, and had scarcely appeared when an excellent breakfast of both coffee and chocolate, with cakes fresh and well baked, some Bo- logna sausages witho'ut garlic, and some very excellent fruit which the alcalde had sent for in the preceding night to the lower regions ; and the fine young man greeted us on our evident recovery from the previous day's fatigue, with such sociable kindness, as merits to be remembered, at least I shall not forget it very soon.
CHAPTER XX.
Hospitality. — Leave Muchachees. — Meet the senior alcalde — his kindness. — Vil- lage of Mucabichi. — Wheat mountain — reaping — a warmer climate — cotton- trees — some account of. — Tabay — turbulent Chama. — Plateau of Merida. — Go- vernor Paredes — sumptuous accommodation and entertainment — surprised by an alarm of Jire,Jlre — false alarm — laughable — accounted for. — Sienna ne-uada of Merida — its ices on the table, — give zest to our wine. — Military gentle- men.— The Spaniards in our road — an escort ordered for us. — Visitors — their inquiries gratified. — Temperature. — The effects of the Earthquake. — Popula- tion— several sources of error concerning it. — Archbishop Gongora. — Repre- sentative government. — Democracy perverted. — Rivers near Merida. — Vin- cente at a fandango — in durance vile. — A refresco before parting, on the 30th December, delays us to one o'clock. — Determined to sleep at Exido.
OUR repose at this place was very pleasing — we were furnished with bedding-clothes more than we required : it was with some repugnance I rose at seven o'clock, nor should I have risen till an hour later, had not the kindness of our host rendered the respect of waiting on him a matter of propriety* He had provided us not only with as good a
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breakfast as we could have found in Philadelphia, but the chocolate and the coffee were smoking on the table. We partook of the repast with most grateful and pleasant feel- ings— and we afterwards found, that he had placed on our mules a quantity of eggs, and a pair of roasted fowls, with slices of nice corned pork, carefully and neatly wrapped up.
We left Muchachees at eight o'clock, and had proceeded but a few miles when the senior alcalde met us, in full gal- lop, on his return ; he saluted us kindly, prayed us to return and spend at least a day at his house, and he would introduce to us some company, whom we should be as much pleased with as they would be with us. We declined returning at that time, and expressed our grateful sense of the kindness with which his faithful representative had entertained us. He renewed his request that we would spend a few days with him, and I was obliged to assure him I had been on the road already twenty days longer than was consistent with the affairs I had in charge. This was nearly the last, and cer- tainly among the best of the alcaldes we had met ; from this point, the alcaldes, with a few exceptions, became only se- condary among our hospitable entertainers, until we passed Tunja.
We passed through Mucabichi, near which, entering a narrow pass between two mountains, of very steep sides, we saw reapers at work, in a position that was entirely new and unheard of by me. The houses or cottages, which were but few, stood on the more depressed side of the pass ; we entered one of those cottages to procure potatoes or milk, and indulge curiosity ; the woman of the house spoke to her husband from the door ; he stood with his back towards her, on the steep side of the mountain, where he was reaping some very fine wheat. The mountain side was ranged in steps, running level along in front, the wheat had been sown on those steps, and the reaper commencing below, cut and left the cut straw to a small boy or a girl to be tied up in
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sheaves; the lower step being cleared, he proceeded to the next above, and so in succession to the top. The sides of the mountains of Merida are celebrated for their fine wheat, said to be sufficient to supply the whole republic, were there roads to transport it. But seaports are too distant, where the roads are either impassable, dangerous, or tedious to travel, or where there are no roads at all. Our route was now a gentle descent, the presence of wheat wras an indica- tion of a temperate climate ; but it soon became warm, as we descended, the mountains on our left had wound off to the south-east, and that on our right was now less elevated, and its base was, in some respects, like those of the valley of Aragua, throwing out short limbs or promontories, standing out more or less advanced from the main ridge. Winding round the bluff of one of those projections, the ground be- came depressed and flat on our left, and covered here and there with large fragments of dispersed rocks, among which trees appeared, bearing a flower in great profusion, that gave it the appearance of what is commonly called the Snowball, (Hydrangea hortensis.) The space between the rocks on the kft, and the bluff on the right, now became narrow, and, as the passage opened, several neat, small cottages stood before the sun, and in their front the trees in blossom : a little girl, of about eight or ten, skipt across the road as we were ap- proaching, and mounting, with the agility of a goat, the rocks beneath those trees, which grew in the narrow intervals that separated the rocks. The tree was about the size of an ordinary apple-tree, but with an erect stem, and from the surface of the soil to the lower branches about five feet ; the extent and elevation of the branches varied ; but the shape was rather inclined to that of the thick end of an egg, than a sharper cone ; I halted, and seeing the little girl with two small baskets on her arm, into which she sorted the flowers she picked, I halted till she had concluded, and followed her across the road. Her baskets were filled, and the flowers she
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plucked were of two kinds, one was filled with pods of cot- ton, already ripe, and requiring only exposure to the sun to be wrought and cleaned ; the other basket contained pods not so ripe, but which were laid on a bed of clean snow-white cot- ton to complete its ripening by the sun. The little girl, and there were several other females, placed herself on her mat, and very unconcernedly continued her operations, opening two pods at the same time, with the thumb, and over the fore-finger of each hand, discharging the seed into a basket placed for the purpose, and forming the product of each pod into a long fiat layer, upon which she successively laid others ; and when the pile was of the purposed size it was twisted into a knot-like shape, and placed among others, and covered over. Though these were not the first cotton-trees I had seen on the route, I hao) not attended to them so circum- stantially as on this occasion. I cannot avoid observing that the botanical books are very deficient as to this tree j there seems to be a doubt entertained in some of them, that cotton grows on trees as large as the ordinary apple- tree, because the plant which produces cotton in Macedonia, and in the United States, is an annual plant. The cotton- tree, I make no doubt, would benefit by more care and cul- tivation. But as it is, no culture is applied, the tree grows from the seed, and when mature, besides two crops in the year, that of spring and fall, it is a perpetual producer.
Our next stage brought us to the village of Tabay, stand- ing on a sloping plain, which lay spread below us, and the turbulent Chama in the distance on our left, bounding over rocks and frothing with its noise, as it tumbled headlong to south-west. We reached Tabay at two o'clock, and dined on our own provisions, and as the atmosphere was warm, did not move until four o'clock, so that it was nearly dusk when we reached the dry bed of the river Mcuhoon, which has its source in the west, and discharges its periodical flood in the rainy season into the Chama. The lofty platform on
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which stands the city of Merida, has its eastern face defined by this river, and in order to reach that city, it is necessary to pass some distance up the Mouhoon valley, in order to gain the broad path which is cut out of the upright bank, that leads by a gradual ascent to the plateau above. We gained this elevation, said to be more than two hundred and forty feet above the plain from which we ascended. The sergeant proceeded to the city about a mile distant, and, knowing the place had a governor and military staff, we proceeded in that direction. Governor Paredes ordered a sumptuous house for our reception, the apartments were well lighted, handsome beds were prepared for us all ; and in an hour after our arri- val, an ample table was covered with fine damask linen, and a supper in the handsomest style ; the governor's servants waited ; his butler, intimated that we should oblige the gene- ral by calling for any wine we preferred. An aid ot the go- vernor spent the evening and supped with us, and delivered a compliment upon our safe arrival from the governor, and that he would wait upon us next day. We were ready for repose at ten.
The house we occupied in Merida was public property,, and kept in better condition than any I had seen since we left Valencia. As the bed was comfortable, and I felt the neces- sity of rest, I took no heed of waking early, but soon after dawn, I was suddenly aroused by a cry of "fire! fire! fire!" as distinctly as it is heard in Philadelphia. I started up, un- conscious for the instant where I was, and it was only on go- ing to a window which opened on a small patio, I recollect- ed I was in Merida ; I was turning about in the same un- heeding manner, when the same voice screamed " Colonel Todd! Colonel Todd!" I knew the colonel must by that time be at Bogota, and I must have looked rather sheepish, when I found myself thus surprized by a parrot. In fact, Colonel Todd, on his route to Bogota, lodged in the same place ; Colonel Lyster, of the Colombian army, accompanied
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him ; and being delayed there by the indisposition of Mr. Adams, the colonel's secretary, Lyster, in his waggery, had taught the parrot those words. There was a pair, and they were certainly amusing ; their colloquies, kept up in imita- tion of two scolding women, were most laughably true in word and spirit. The repose of Sunday was necessary to me, and, having made a perfect change of apparel, for the climate here is warm as at Caracas, I amused myself with writing letters to home and to our friends at Caracas and elsewhere. Our morning repast, coffee and chocolate, with fine cream, good bread, and, what I preferred to all, abun- dance of exquisite fruit. At two o'clock the governor was pleased to visit, with his suite, and did us the honour of din- ing with us.
From the window of the dining room, directly to the south, the Sierra Nevada, of Merida, was so distinctly be- fore us, that it seemed less than two miles distant : the snow is never absent from this lofty cluster ; but, at the moment we saw it, a greater part than usual of the south-west face was exposed, and its black soil uncovered ; cliffs were distinctly visible on the margin of the snow, made distinct by the sha- dows of the vertical edges, chasms having apparently fallen, and masses rolled lower down which were also visible ; the governor had sent mules for snow the preceding evening, and a tray full of it gave zest to some excellent wine, which the warm temperature of the city made desirable and delight- ful. The computed distance of the white caps of the sierra is five miles in a direct line ; the travelling distance to the line of congelation seven miles. The town major of Merida wasanEng- lish gentleman, Major Hodgkinson, who had served in several campaigns, was very communicative, and from whom we experienced very kind attention ; the military commandant of the province, Colonel Charles Castelli, a native of Savoy ; he had come to Merida to communicate with the gene- ral on the movements of Morales ; he paid us a visit, and
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signified that the governor was apprehensive of some incon- venience to us on the road, as it was supposed the Spanish general had taken a position on the only route over which we could travel ; that if we should choose to remain some time it would be agreeable to the governor, if not, an escort would be provided for us, and he would give me an order to the commanding officer at St. Juan de Lagunillas, to furnish the troops, and to the officers in succession, till we should reach Pamplona, which he kindly presented when we were about to depart ; Colonel Castelli set oft* before us with the view of calling in troops to unite with the troops further south in expelling the enemy from the province.
We were honoured with the visits of several distinguished persons, many of the secular clergy, whom we found very earnestly devoted to the revolution, and solicitous for inform- ation concerning the United States. They expressed some surprise, when we informed them, in reply to their inquiries, that so many religious sects should live in concord, and that the clergy wore no costume to distinguish them from the laity ; that the Catholic priests dressed like the priests of other sects ; and that Congress, having chaplains, selected them without discrimination of sects, Catholic and Calvinist, Lutheran and Unitarian, which excited great surprise ; and particularly that doctrinal disputes produced no serious quar- rels, no interference of the public authorities, nor ill-blood among the disputants, more than any civil or political dis- cussion ; and, as I could not account for it in a better way, I told them it was to be ascribed to the representative system, which, being founded on the equality of men in society, se- parated the concerns of another world from the present ; that by leaving every man's religious opinions to be accounted for to heaven, men were more tolerant and liberal, because the sectarian opinions of one man did not render his elective -suf- frage of more or less consequence than that of another. They were as much surprised at an anecdote I gave them, of Dr.
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Franklin having nominated, and obtained the appointment, from the Pope, of the first American Catholic bishop. Some of the citizens who were present, expressed their admiration of the institutions which produced so much concord, with en- thusiastic applause, and some of the clergymen concurred. One of them said to another, " What would such a person think, if he heard this ?" Some of the ladies of the city vi- sited my daughter, and invited her to spend some time in Merida, and as an inducement assured her she would find no part of Colombia so beautiful as Merida, nor so fine a climate. Indeed the thermometer was at this time at 70 de- grees of Fahrenheit, which is lower than at Caracas, where 78 was the medium, as 68 was the medium at Bogota while we were there.
In noticing the singular appearance of the banks of the Motatan, I made allusion to the elevated plateau of Merida^ and its steep banks. This city stands about a mile and a half from the margin of its southern side, in front of which the turbulent Chama rolls over its rough bed, at the foot of the snow-capt Sierra, its course south-west ; the streets of the city cross at rectangles, are very narrow, but streams of pure water gush along the centre of the streets, for which well-conceived channels are constructed, of two feet or more wide, over which flag-stones are laid at the crossings ; and the city has a cool and cleanly appearance. I saw no houses higher than one story ; and the ruins of the earthquake of 1812 had not yet been redeemed, nor removed only from the streets. It was but a few weeks before our arrival, that the remains of the bishop, who, with his congregation, found a grave in the crumbled earthen walls of his church, were dug out for a religious interment. The walls are of the same ingredient as elsewhere, pita, or earth, beaten into the shape of walls. The mortality has been exaggerated here as well as at Caracas ; the difference between the present state of the population and before the revolution cannot be ascrib-
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cd to the earthquake ; though zealots adverse to the revolu- tion have laboured to make the impression that divine ven- geance was thus indicated against the revolt. This city has suffered much from the depredations of the Spaniards, and a great portion of the population had retired to the south-east- ern and southern valleys, and to the west, before the earth- quake occurred ; and this diminution of numbers by the change of habitation has been placed to the loss side of the earthquake. I must observe here, that I have endeavoured to find data for the state of population in the places I have passed through, but it is not in such passing and casual en- quiries that information so important can be procured that should be relied upon. The state of society has been, during the revolution, and is still fluctuating, and must continue so for some time ; under the monarchy the same system was pursued, as for centuries by the English, till the close of the last century, in Ireland ; the inhabitants were studiously kept in ignorance of their own numbers, and taught to believe they did not amount to one-third of their actual population. The government of Spain was also deceived itself, for there were local interests which prevented a complete knowledge. There was always a kind of organization of militia under the Spanish rule ; and there were districts over which captains were placed, whose duty it was to make returns of the males between fourteen and fifty ; and it was upon these returns that drafts were made upon an exigency. There was an ex- treme disinclination to appear on those returns, and the cap- tains made a lucrative advantage of it, by exacting money for not entering names of persons who were able to pay for being omitted on the returns ; and the abuse was very gene- ral. There was another resort, that of the clergy distributed in parishes or missions ; as the revenue of the bishops was derived from the income of the clergy, the clergy who had cures, or the charge of the souls in districts, were obliged to make returns of their communicants, as well as of those
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who neglected communion ; had these returns been faithful- ly made, they would have been, perhaps, the best means, as the system of confessional tickets kept the parochial popula- tion constantly under the subjection and terror of its pastor. When an individual went to confession and received the sacrament, a ticket was given ; which he was obliged, under pain of spiritual displeasure, to preserve ; it was dated, and always told whether the individual had attended, " at least at Easter," as is the disciplinary order. The pastor also visited his flock at their homes to administer spiritual comfort, and he never failed to inquire for the tickets of each indi- vidual, and to exact penance on defalcation ; the ticket of the last year, was, at the confession, changed for one of the new year. The curates, probably thinking that they were as well entitled to more of the revenue than the superior was disposed to allow, escaped the trouble and displeasure of disputation, by omitting, on his returns, a great portion of those for whose souls they laboured ; and thus the reports of the bishops, which they were called to make to the arch- bish- ops, to whom they were suffragans, were also reduced in the aggregate. It is related that a practice of some pious fe- males, in the article of tickets of confession, sometimes made the returns more ample than they really were, as more than one, often half a dozen confessors travelled over a large district ; those old ladies having confessed to their pastor, under their own names, sometimes made a confession to others of the itinerants, under the names of others with whom they had previously stipulated for the purchase of these extra-confessional testimonials. As this practice was confined to females it was not always discovered, but the number must very little affect the reports of the pastors. Another difficulty was in the cabildos, or corporations, the members of which being elected by suffrage, obliged their friends by omitting their names, when contributions or ser- vices were in question, and when called upon for the popu-
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lation of their districts had an interest also in diminishing the returns. So that, though Spain was deceived, her poli- cy in diminishing numbers was favoured even by the frauds of every class of functionaries who were competent to afford accurate information. Humboldt, who frankly acknow- ledges that his statistics of population were derived from official papers, thus had to form his estimates from data that were in their very inception false ; for which he is not to be censured, because there were no other means to obtain even an approximation. The justly celebrated archbishop and vice- roy, Antonio Caballero y Go?2gara, who became viceroy in 1783, undertook to overcome all those abuses, and not only to make a complete survey and map of the viceroyalty, but to accomplish, by means of the curates, a true state of the population, both of which he accomplished ; accident placed a duplicate original of this map under my notice several years ago ; for the convenience of transportation, by post, it was cut into parts in order to be lent, but there remains only that part which embraces Guayana and Cumana in my possession, the parts borrowed have never been returned, and are very probably lost. The population, at that period, was much greater than what Humboldt has allowed, even in his latest corrected estimates, in which he acknowledges the territory occupied by Indian tribes had been omitted in his former statements. It is only in a few provinces that a close esti- mate has ever been made and published before the revolu- tion.
The new form of government is calculated to assure more faithful returns. The citizen, where he has a right of suf- frage, will assert it ; it is, iricleed, true, that in this respect the principle of filtration, so fatal to the French in their revolution, and to which, in my opinion, may be mainly attributed the failure of the French republic ; because there was no respon- sibility directly to the people ; they voted only for a new kind of aristocracy, who disregarded the wishes of those who
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composed the people ; and the assemblies thus constituted, were the mere instruments of conflicting cabals, which were multiplied in every department, and made the constituent assembly itself a mere engine of numerous cabals. The enemies of representative government, however, have so lit- tle regard for facts, and are so disingenuous or feeble mind- ed, as to ascribe the failure of the French republic to demo- cracy— when the real principle of democracy, that is, repre- sentation by equal and free suffrage, was utterly cast out in every public assembly from beginning to end : — ruin fol- lowed as an inevitable consequence, and must follow every- where when free universal suffrage is wantonly or perfidiously abrogated or refused. In noticing the constitution of Co- lombia, I shall, perhaps, speak more on this subject. It has come in here as an incident arising in conversation connect- ed with population.
Four rivers mark the outline of the plateau on which Me- rida stands ; this plateau forms a quadrilateral parallelogram, or lozenge, of which the Mohoon, the Chama, the Alvare- jes, and the Montalvan, form the sides. On the south front facing the Chama, the bed of the river exceeds a mile and a half, but in the dry season the stream plunges along the left side of the valley, at the foot of the Sierra, in a south- west direction, occupying about one-sixth of its flooded bed ; on the Merida side, the face of the bank is steep, per- pendicular, and composed of a grey earth, reputed to be two hundred and forty feet above the dry bed of the river ; from the town there is a gentle slope of about a mile and a half to the edge of this steep bank, which is covered with rich ver- dure to the very acute brink, and the plain generally has a gra- dual inclination in the direction of the stream of the Chama. One of the phenomena connected with the earthquake of 1812, is a crevice on the face of this steep bank, fronting the Chama ; it is a simple opening of the edge of the natural rampart, and, for about half a mile inward, is wedge-shaped, broad,
39
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and open at the summit, closing to an acute point below. This crevice was produced by a single shock ; the rest of the platform retained the form it still holds ; and, considering the materials of the steep bank, it appears unaccountable that the earth had not changed its vertical form.
Our baggage had not reached us the night of our arri- val at Merida, but arrived the next morning, only leaving Vincent in custody of the alcalde of the village of Tabay. I dispatched the sergeant to inquire concerning him ; it ap- peared that he had detained the baggage in order to show his Caracanian style of dancing ; and, having indulged over- much in guarapa, his gallantry alarmed some of the paisanos of Tabay ; who, threatening to flog him, Vincent drew his sabre, like the Knight of Mancha, and was about to vindi- cate his gallantry in presence of some Senorita del Toboso, when the alcalde thought fit to trip up his heels and treat him like the wotiiL laced knight. He was disarmed, and placed in " durance vile." I was satisfied Vincent merited worse than he got, but I did not like that my sword should be taken and kept, though it were through my servant. I explained the matter to the governor, who kindly proposed to let Vincent remain a short time in custody, and that the governor would send the sword forward after me.
Had we been disposed to remain a month, we should have gratified these hospitable people, particularly the worthy veteran Paredes : we, however, lingered on in conversation, on the morning of the 30th December, that it gave these good people an opportunity to introduce a refresco, some fine fruit and claret : and it was one o'clock before we could separate ; I determined to go as far as Exido, about four- teen miles, and move early the next morning.
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CHAPTER XXI.
an old town — rich country — a civil alcalde — depart first of January — ap» prehensions and false news — La Laguanillas — lake of natron — some account ot — Uroa—Mo — Chimo — luxuries — revenues — floods of the Cordillera — move forward — noisy river — tremendous path tarabita — Estanques — rumour- reach Bayladores — silent as death.
WE reached Exido at five o'clock, and were surprized to find a town of some antiquity, though it consisted of few streets ; we entered the plaza, which, though paved and spa- cious was nearly covered by the verdure, and with less indus- try than better knowledge proved to prevail there ; the houses also were principally of two stories, and the inhabitants all husbandmen. The town had the appearance of a gradual decay, but, like others, had been left without a principal part of its population, who, removing first for a temporary purpose, had many of them taken root elsewhere ; but the alcalde, who was a shrewd experienced man, observed that the country all round was too fine and fertile to be long with- out inhabitants. We had quarters in the alcalde's house, and he provided us with some of the finest fruit for immediate use, and a basket-full to carry away. The first of January, 1823, we moved early, the alcalde giving us the news, with a cau- tion, which displayed his good nature and his apprehensions — it was that Morales had entered Bayladores, a town only four stages distant on our route, and this proved to be true. It was sufficiently distant, however, not to give us imme- diate apprehensions, and, as we had orders for an escort at the next post, we pushed across the plain, and at two o'clock we entered San Juan de Laguanillas^ on the Rio Gonzales, a stream tributary to the Zulia. There was a picket guard at the entrance of the town, under charge of a lieutenant, to
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whom we presented ourselves with an enquiry for the com- manding officer, who was absent ; and after more than an hour's delay, he not returning, we sought for the alcalde, who gave us wretched accommodations in his pulpureia, where we hung up our hammocks. The place was much crowded with fugitives from Maracaibo and other contiguous places, a Senor Limares, who had learned something about us, insisted on our partaking of dinner with him ; and a very good entertainment (for the place) was provided, with excel- lent tinto wine. Several ladies, fugitives, with their children, were in this village. It was my intention to visit the celebrated lake of natron, which is contiguous to this town, but it was not practicable under the military circumstances of the couutry, and we excited the alcalde, who required some spirit to move him, to provide mules, which, he assure-d us, we should have a la manana, which, though it originally signified in the morn- ing, sometimes signifies next week, and very often never; I had resort to the commanding officer, who did not put it off a la manana ; the officer of our escort waited on us to know the hour at which we proposed to depart. It was arranged, that we should move at four o'clock in the morning, and the escort an hour before to meet us at a point designated.
The town of St. Juan de la Laguanillas, derives its name, St John of the little lake, from a remarkable lake, at a short distance from the town. I had been long acquainted with its general history, as a source of singular luxury, in several parts of Venezuela, and that, during the Spanish rule, it had .been, coeval with the monopoly of tobacco, also monopo- lized and made a source of royal revenue ; the state of things in relation to the Spaniards, the circumstances of the guard so generously provided for our escort, rendered it not practi- cable ; I made some enquiries, on the spot, of some intelli- gent persons, who were exiles from Maracaybo, and from
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the officer of our escort, from which, and the account given PalacioS) I derive what I shall here state.
The lake is of an oval form, better than four hundred yards long, and two hundred and fifty broad. On the east side it is three or four fathoms deep when the floods from the adjacent mountains come down ; and, although the eva- poration at the warm season is considerable, the lake is never dry, nor so much diminished as would be deemed probable. On the west side it is shallow, but has a descent gradually deeper for one hundred and fifty yards ; and it is on this sloping depth, that the operation of collecting the Uroa, or natron, or carbonate of soda takes place ; for upon chemical analysis it appears that this substance resembles in its compo- sition the natron of Egypt and of Fezzan. The accounts verbally given do not exactly agree with those of Palacios, but, as in the case of the gold washings, which will be noticed hereafter, the modes of collecting the Uroa may be different with different persons. I shall, however, notice both as the natural products of those countries become every day objects of greater interest, and will continue to do so.
According to the verbal information, the uroa is found in prismatic crystals less than an inch in length, and not of equal thickness, nor equally heavy ; I could not learn whe- ther the sides of the crystals were of equal numbers, nor in- deed of how many sides, only that they were angular, and ra- ther flat than uniform in their thickness. A class of the abori- gines, some of whom were at the alcalde's posada, — a very portly muscular race of men, — and they are all so described ; those who work at the lake are called Huragueras, and their labour was thus described : they carry some very rude imple- ments, such as a stake, shod with a sharp iron ; a sort of scoop or shovel ; some hoes, with long handles ; and a sort of little boat (pirauguitas), which they put afloat when they go to work, and the use of which will presently be seen. As described to me, the workmen, either from some skill
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real or imagined, select a space, which, with a lew comrades, they mark off by stakes driven into the bottom, and within which no other party encroaches. The first process is to remove a coat of mud, which is drawn inward, and convved in the pirauguitas to the shore, where it is heaped up ; i s be- ing removed, the crystallized natron is said to be found in a hard crust, that requires force to break it, which is the purpose of the iron-shod stakes ; the masses thus broken arc collected and taken up, and in like manner carried to the bank, and exposed to the sun till the working hour is over, when it is removed into houses prepared for its preservation.
Under the royal power an officer was appointed, by whose direction the operations were conducted ; magazines were provided where the uroa was deposited under his direction, and whence it was distributed to government depots in the provinces where it was in demand. At that period the collection took place only every second year, and continued then only two months. Since the revolution, the royal offi- cers disappeared, and private individuals have appropriated the product to their own emolument, and work it every year at the fit season.
The other account agrees in general with this, but is con- fined to the royal period. At that time the Huragueras were divided into squads of eight or ten, and staked off the ground as mentioned in the preceding account, but no notice is taken of the mud first removed, and the Huragueras are described as diving for the lumps of the natron which they disengage : the operation is represented as very pernicious to health, and that the hair of the Huragueras becomes reddish. At that period the product of the two months in two years averaged fifteen hundred weight ; triple the quantity has been collect- ed since the revolution, and it has been worked every year. Under the royalty Venezuela consumed the whole amount, it being first dried in the sun, and was issued at a real the pound (twelve and a half cents).
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bl'he uroa was connected with another luxury called mo, wed from tobacco. A heap of the ripe tobacco leaves ;ed with the leaves of other green plants, was exposed to fermentation, and in that state yielded by compression a dark reddish liquid, the exhalations from which were deleterious, and the flavour very acrid or pungent. This liquid, called anvir, reduced to a syrup, was called mo, which being incor- porated in the proportions of one ounce of uroa dried, roasted or pulverized, formed what was called mo-dulce, or sweet mo ; if the proportion of uroa to mo was two ounces or more to the pound, then it was called chimo.
In the provinces of Maracaybo, Varinas, and Caracas, these different kinds, uroa, mo, mo-dulce, and chimo, were articles of luxury in very considerable demand, and were kept in boxes of horn : I did not learn how the various kinds were used, only that some people took a small quantity from the boxes, and used it as men chew tobacco, or as the orien- tals chew betel, and like betel it is a powerful stimulus to the nervous system, produces copious saliva, and alight delirium of agreeable sensation, which the betel also certainly does ; I had no opportunity to test the mo, or any of its family, and must confess myself sceptical on this point.
In 1804, six years before the revolution, these articles be- ing comprehended in the monopoly of tobacco, altogether, after defraying all charges, yielded 700,000 dollars to the re- venue ; but I was not able to ascertain how much of this amount belonged to the natron branch of the revenue, and the republic has not yet brought the income to the public treasury ; but it was among the objects of finance under the cognizance of the treasurv, and of a committee of con- gress. The government of Colombia in this, as in many other cases, displays its discretion and moderation ; persons who have laid pretensions to this and other objects upon a mere pragmatic assumption, sometimes construe the revolu- tion as a measure of personal aggrandizement, and trouble
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themselves very little, if at all, about rights or social princi- ples of government ; the government is fully aware of this, but magnanimously prefers moderate courses, though pos- sessed of perfect power to put an end to such transgressions.
Palacios says, that the environs of this place, and the roads near Merida, and the Albarrigas, as well as some mountains adjacent, have a peculiar richness of verdure ; and that certain plants, particularly the Rosa de Muerto, are found there ; and that similar appearances and products mark the neighbourhood of the salt-quarries of Zipiquira and of Enimacon. The beauty of the open grounds near Merida, and adjacent to La Laguanillas, is unquestionable ; but I found it not confined to particular spots there, nor at Eni- macon. Zipiquira itself, in the distance, looked very dreary to me ; but the plains around were rich in verdure.
The Cordillera, which shows its eternal snow in front of Merida, is yet visible at Laguanilla, and its branches seem here detached and cut into groups and lofty steeps. The floods, from these sublime heights, plunge into the lower re- gions on both sides ; those of the north side, upon which our course lay, poured out the turbulent Chama, which was, in this neighbourhood, swelled with the waters of the Gon- zales, and, on our route, the roar of the Chama, like the rush of a great cataract, was constantly in our ears, till we found it forcing its roaring torrent over tremendous rocks, which seemed to have been torn from the mountains by its rage in the valley leading to Estanques. The floods on the south side of Cordillera are more numerous ; they tear the face of the Cordillera into vast vertical trenches, cutting its sides across at short distances, and, by this means, compelling the traveller to ascend the loftiest grounds, because roads along these torn sides would be impracticable, unless upon the line of their direction to their union with the Apure and Casi- nare.
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According to our arrangement we were mounted at four o'clock, and the moon being very bright, we rode with great pleasure through the mazes of this beautiful, but wild, re- gion, when, turning the point of a tremendous rock, we were surprised with — " Quien vive ?" — who comes there ? it was the challenge of the rear guard of our escort, we there- fore answered " Colombiano" which is the favourite response ; paisano, answering to citizen or countryman^ is also usual, and well received. We soon overtook the escort, who were here all infantry. Our appearance, any where else, would have been a fine subject for the humorist. But we were all in fine spirits, the Spaniards notwithstanding, unaware that we were approaching by much the most hazardous part of our road. The officer in command of the escort gave us advice how to act, and signified that there was a long pass in the mountain in which only one could move at a time, and he must send his men forward, so as not to be interrupted by persons coming in the opposite direction. The sun was beaming on the tops of the Sierra as we reached the entrance of the valley leading towards Estanques. The hoarse roar of the Chama had been heard, but yet in the distance ; it ran away from Merida like a growling bear, — here it made an up- roar that stunned us. An opening, such as if a mountain of rock had been cleft from its summit to its base, and each summit had reclined backward without moving the base, had tumbled stupendous rocks into the chasm, under and over which the water forced its way with a tremendous noise, and forming a cascade, poured a vast volume into a great bason formed by its own power.
The face of the lofty plain over which we marched breaks abruptly across the valley ; on the right side a lofty mountain gave a savage aspect to the east ; and quite fresh, as if it had been but just rent from its side, there lay, some forty roods across the valley, the immense debris, which had cast itself down. The descent, from the plain we stood upon, appeared
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impracticable, but the mules, accustomed to the route, soon moved to a gap which appeared to be dug out of the deep side of the precipice, consisting of the fragments and frac- tures of a kind of free-stone, wrought into winding lines of descent and landings, which we all succeeded in descending safe. At the bottom a vast rock spread for many yards, and extended its flat surface to the left, beneath which edge the bason, into which the Chama discharged its torrent, a deep broad volume of transparent water rushed through a channel between forty and fifty feet wide. Across this sublime cur- rent, and thirty feet above its surface, four trees, of about seventy or eighty feet long, were laid, the small and large ends alternate ; upon those trees a bed of brush- wood fag- gots was laid cross-wise over the whole extent, and gravel and earth had been laid on those faggots, and beaten into an even pathway. This was our only way of passing, and it \vas without hand-rail or any other side security. Elizabeth, whose confidence in her mule was well founded, pushed up to the bridge, and went over perfectly unconcerned, and we all followed, though I must confess not without apprehen- sion ; what with the roar of the waters, the rapid race of the current underneath, through which, though deep and rapid, the coloured pebbles could be distinctly seen, the height and nakedness of the kind of bridge, and the trees, giving an elastic action to the tread of the mule, made it really formid- able. No accident whatever occurred ; when we gained the left bank we procured some fresh water, and halted to refresh. The officer of the escort was heard to whistle, and presently some of those he had detached in advance answer- ed and returned, and informed us the pass was clear, and that we should find them at the other extremity.
We commenced our ascent of the Sierra, over a tolera- ble mountain pathway, through a copse or scrubby wood, The Chama, after escaping through the defile, spread its wa- ters more to the right and left, and had wrought a deeper
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bed beneath the steep, whose sides we were now ascend- ing gradually, until we cleared the copse : — the broad bed of the Chama, which it occupies in flood times, was now exposed, covered with several layers of loose rounded rock and stone. The path we had ascended was formed on the left by the scarp of the mountain, out of which it was exca- vated ; and on the right by the dwarf trees ; we were soon at the upper extremity, and a sort of shelf cut from the clayey side of the Sierra, sufficient for one mule to pass, was our only road. The side of the mountain has been here and there washed into ravines, and the adjacent sides rounded into those ravines, the path becomes a succession of winding curves, each terminating in the sharp indenting of the ra- vines, and renewing a new projecting curve. The sides of the rounded mounds, and the whole range, upon which the path- way or shelf lies, is about seven or eight hundred feet above the current of the Chama, and, while riding, I took from the bank, on my left, a handful of the soil, and shifting it to my right, extending my right arm, the soil fell directly into the Chama. To stand even at a window, at so great an elevation, sometimes affects the head ; but here it was rid- den without any dizziness or disquietude ; the mule would sometimes stoop over the very verge of the steep to pluck some wild plant growing there. But this ease and com- posure I attribute entirely to the confidence which cannot but be the consequence of security in the mule, after some days experience.
As our ride was of necessity in Indian file, and very slow, we occupied much time in this passage ; but we had not yet completed it. When we had passed the last curved protru- sion of the Sierra, we had to descend about forty yards, and to gain a rock about twenty feet from the side of the moun- tain shelf path. The connexion between the main rock, was a narrow ledge which seemed to be a large slab of twen- ty-three or twenty-four feet in length, and from eleven to
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twelve inches thick ; this slab stood on the edge in about an angle of 45° with the side of the mountain, and its farther end against the rock we had to reach : from the side of the mountain just beyond this flat rock, and covering a front larger than the face of the remote rock, a torrent plunged from the mountain, the action of which appeared to have per- forated the rock standing on the edge, and an opening, which appeared larger than the dimensions of a puncheon, gave a projecting spout, which fell in a beautiful cascade on the north side of the main rock, while the rest of the Chiquita that descended the mountain, found its way into the Chama on the south side. We had to pass to this rock, upon this narrow ledge, above this formidable sluice and cascade. The officer, in charge of the escort, had placed himself in a position which enabled him to see us approach this place, and he saw us pass it almost without an emotion, while he acknowledged that he trembled for our safety on that pas- sage. I alighted and measured that end of the ledge next to the rock outside, and found it eleven inches ; it was not, however, throughout so narrow, but it was not much broader in any part. After the congratulations of our mili- tary companion, we moved for Estanques, within sight was one of those modes of passing rivers by suspension, which is called a Tarabita. There are many forms ; this across the Chama was a mile north-east of Estanques, and above the point where the river abruptly turns off at a right angle with its previous course, and travels north to the lake of Maracaibo. A stout rope of ox-hides attached to a very large tree on the right bank, was carried to the left bank, and attached to a large timber artificially fixed in the ground, and having in front a mass of rocks piled or placed as a buttress ; two rings of the bejuco, of the size of a horse collar, were woven loose on the rope, a small line from each side was attached to each of those rings, and a basket- like machine was slung to that ring which was on the side, from
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which the passage was to be made, the passenger placed himself sitting or lying down in this suspended basket, and at a signal from the other side, the ring was drawn along the rope to the opposite side ; they had a capstan- like windlass, on the left side, which was to tighten the main rope, which is suffi- ciently strong to bear the transportation of a man and horse, or two or three persons at a time. Bolivar crossed a division of troops at this Tarabita, and the bridge of four trees thrown across the abyss, where the Chama enters the valley, was constructed under his direction, the Spaniards having de- stroyed a Tarabita that stood formerly where this temporary bridge of trees now is.
I have been often surprised that no stand was made at this extraordinary pass by either party during the war. The Chama is not to be waded over, as its stream is not only deep but impetuous, and a few men posted at either end of the shelf-path might defy twenty times their number. We reached Estanques before noon, and resolved to sleep there. This Estanques is not a public town, but a private Hacien- da, or cacao estate, and the steward, in charge of it, conduct- ed us to the best apartment, in a very good brick two- story house. There was a range of huts, and some scattered in front of the house, and it struck us at once that, although there were numerous negro women, that there was not one man to be seen, and there were no other inhabitants. These poor people were slaves, and not embraced by the law which gave immediate emancipation ; the men, upon joining the public standard, became immediately soldiers ; a spright- ly girl, who offered her services, with some fruit, stated that the men all left them and turned soldiers, and she spoke it as if she resented it. I asked why she did not go too ; she said, she wished she was a man, and she would not belong at Es- tanques. She confessed her situation there had nothing cruel or unfair, but then, said she, one would like to see one's father, or one's brother — or — and she turned suddenly
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round and disappeared, leaving the idea of — one's sweetheart to be guessed at — and did not Nature speak for her ?
We now made our mess common to our brother soldier, which before we had no opportunity to do. The stock laid in at Exido was good and ample ; and we contrived to pur- chase here for the use of the soldiers some came seca, or dry meat ; and we added to our own cookery some sweet yuccas and apios, and the best potatoes we had yet seen in Colom- bia. We had among our purchases at Exido some very fine rice in a neat cloth bag, of which we very fortunately got the whole, though it would have been more useful between Tu- cuyo and Merida. The common hedge trees here were orange, and loaded with delicious fruit ; we ate and slept comfortably.
On the 3d of January, at half past five in the morning, we moved, the escort having preceded us an hour, as we delayed to have coffee and chocolate, with some rice and fruit, and meant to carry some dressed rice, which, with sugar and some nutmegs, mace, or cloves, which we had, we could ap- pease the appetite without halting. Our route lay through some cane brakes, and sandy-bottomed rivulets in a multi- tude of windings, where no stranger would expect to find a road. These numerous rills have their sources in the moun- tains whose skirts we were traversing, and contribute to the little river Estanques, at the foot of the Hacienda, which, after flowing a mile, unites in the stream of the Chama. We pursued this vegetable labyrinth for more than three hours, on the margin of the Estanques for a short time, then cros- sing it on a well constructed and raised platform of plank, serving as a bridge, with a good firm hand-rail on each side, ascending through forests, whose sometimes prostrate trees arrested our progress and compelled to a circuit. At four o'clock, this desultory up and down hill, cool moist air, and then close and hot, gave us a relish for food as well as tem- porary rest ; our sergeant, who had not the use of his speech
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so much since we had the escort, now coming where he knew the people ; — the officer, with a trusty sergeant and two men, whom he caused to be mounted at an adjacent Haci- enda, passed in advance to reconnoitre. I have taken no notice of the neivs which every passenger on the road could give us, as to what Morales had done, what he was doing, and what he meant to do ; that he was, according to a dozen persons, at a dozen different places at the same day. Though all these stories were contradictory, yet some one of them might be true ; and as, among other places, the newsmon- gers said he had possession of Bayladores, and it was our next halting- place, the officer had very judiciously deter- mined to reconnoitre, and the sergeant led us up a steep as- cent, where no one could expect to find a human habitation, but it led into a very fine trapeche, that is, a sugar- mill and plantation ; here we had some refreshment, and among other fruit the guava, of which I had not tasted since I had been in Hindustan, abundant fine oranges, and the finest pine-ap- ples I had ever seen.
We had rested and regained our elasticity after an hour's stay, and having the river Bayladores on our left, we moved forward at half past twelve o'clock, much gratified by the ci- vility we experienced, and which the people did not deem enough to gratify ourselves ; they caused some bundles of young sugar-cane to be placed in charge of the sergeant, for all our mules. At half past three we saw the town of Bayla- dores, at the foot of the mountain side we were descending, and we found it totally deserted.
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CHAPTER xxn.
Old Bayladores, account of—deserted by inhabitants— no alcalde— muleteers- fears of the Godas— alcalde appears — vidette from Colonel Gomez — account of the Spanish division— part from our accomplished officer and escort — Ce-
bada beautiful country and fine cultivation — .New Bayladores — accept a
beckon to walk in from a venerable planter — a Frenchman — unites the nation- al politeness with Colombian hospitality — perpetual progression of crops — husbandry, views of — move on — reports on the road — cold night — ascend the paramo — fatiguing route — met by a detachment of cavalry sent to escort us — • Colonel Gomez and suite — fine horses — reach Gritja — alight at the governor's — his apprehensions — and kindness — aspect of Gritja — zeal and effective pro- tection afforded by the colonel — kind precautions against his proposed stra- tagem— and its success — depart by a circuitous route — -escort of cavalry and infantry — gain the high road — the Spaniards abandon their outposts — move in security — meet Colonel Gomez — success of his stratagem — and his amusing vivacity in relation to it — anecdotes of him — El Cobre posthouse — mode of business and accommodations there — Oriental resemblances again — peons — mode of disseminating information — information for travellers by the same route.
BAYLADORES is not a compact town with regular or intersecting streets, like towns generally in Colombia ; from the hill by which the road leads, a spacious and verdant sloping plain descends to the south a good broad mile, and in some places more ; the river of the name meanders in a much deeper bed with a steep bank on the north side and foot of the Sierra, which is washed by the south side of the ample stream ; the aspect of the mountain being north, it appears gloomy as it is elevated, and the forests by which it is covered, during the greater part of the day, have the aspect of a flat bog rather than of trees of one hundred to one hun- dred and fifty feet elevation. It is not a uniform front, but shows deep recesses, and in fact numerous gaps or open- ings ; it was in this direction and through those cliffs and clefts the population had retired, carrying with them all their
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live and dead stock, and every moveable thing. The town occupies the upper or northern side of the north bank ; and the houses stand detached, but presenting their fronts in a sort of semicircle to the plain. As we descended towards the plain we could overlook several of the houses — but the si- lence of the grave was there — not a cow, goat, hog, horse, mule, nor ass — the cocks and hens, the turkeys and the ducks, everywhere else so noisy and numerous — had emigrated too ; all appeared to have died or gone to roost. The houses, as we came in front, were stockaded in a most ex- cellent military style, the stakes with sharpened angular points; well laced and braced together; advantage was taken of the pita walls, which were easily perforated, and loop-holes for musquetry were apparent on all sides— but those who made the stockades and the loop-holes, were not there — they were, God knows where, in the mountains, looking down, perhaps, for the enemy, whom they were numerous enough — if they were cannibals — to devour. We took possession of the town-house, for we looked in vain for the alcalde, perhaps he thought it better to go with the people than to be taken by the Spaniards. The hired mu- le teers,- who had gossipped a little on the road with the people at the sugar-mill, manifested some alarm at the hyperbole retailed by the newsmakers — they have a great deal of Orientalism in their commonest stories, the language favours it from its flexibility, and perhaps the climate may quicken the imagination ; they talked of returning imme- diately ; but, though our sense of danger was not so acute, we were not disposed to be left without any means of move- ment, and, at my suggestion, the officer of the escort in- formed them that they could not depart until we were pro- vided with fresh mules ; and advised them to go in search of the alcalde, or mules for hire, to replace their own, and they accordingly proceeded, and next day found the alcalde. The officer of the escort, who was expert and well adapted
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to the service, had confidential soldiers, whom he divested of all things military, and dispatched to reconnoitre, which they executed faithfully, and returned the next day also.
The alcalde visited us with an aspect most unmagisterial and dolorous, and even while he addressed us seemed to look round from the habit of fear, and while he laboured to con- ceal his apprehensions, only betrayed his chicken-hearted- ness. It required the explosion of a bomb to awaken his senses; and his first information was that he knew not where to procure mules for us, though he had expected us for a week ; but we insisted on his compliance with the or- ders he had received, which our commanding officer further enforced. The alcalde believed that the Spaniards would return, and said he had advices to that effect ; that Colonel Gomez, commandant at Gritja, was collecting a force, and was also expected. Our officer's information was different and more correct; the Spaniards, under Colonel Valdez, had taken a position at Las Puentes, beyond Gritja, and Colonel Gomez was at Gritja with a corps of observation. We were, therefore, obliged to wait at Bayladores till mules could be procured ; the sergeant, acquainted with the coun- try, foraged and provided ample subsistence ; we em- ployed the time of delay in changing our linen, and new arranging our baggage against our departure. The sergeant procured fruit, poultry, and other things, and we were well rested and fared tolerably by the time the alcalde arrived with the alcalde of New Bayladores, a man of spirit and character : a suite of mules came after them. We had, however, so arranged our baggage during our stay, that we had provided places to conceal our trunks in the event of the approach of the enemy, and I had passed the river and made myself acquainted with the paths to the mountain more than two miles on the other side. It was, however, better as it turned out. The road was clear, and a vidette, from Colonel Gomez, brought us intimation that the road was open through
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forest of wild boars, and all the way to Gritja, and an escort of cavalry would meet us at a position designated, and conduct us across the paramo. We were now to separate from our agreeable fellow-traveller and his escort, who as- sured us he would with pleasure accompany us to Bogota if his orders permitted, very kindly took leave, and we parted impressed with grateful sentiments and merited esteem ; his conduct was perfectly the soldier ; gentlemanly, amiable, and cool ; his understanding cultivated ; he was a soldier from sentiment, and acquainted with his profession ; but was anxious that peace should enable him to return to the cultivation of a small estate he possessed, and — I suspected a more tender motive. We had not been able to account for the change of conduct and deportment in the alcalde till we were about to separate ; the officer informed us that the vi- dette of Colonel Gomez had rebuked him for detaining us, and that it was this which had given him so much sudden alacrity ; the mules were at our door earlier than we required them ; eggs and poultry, fruit and forage, for which he would receive no payment, but supplied in abundance ; in the gratification of being able to move secure, and, having no- thing to desire now, we soon forgot the alcalde of Old Bay- ladores. We moved forward, at ten o'clock, and were met on the way by the alcalde of Cebada, who also came to escort us. We ascended the mountain on the right of the valley, and had a delightful day and charming prospect for many leagues.
The country through which we were now passing recalled to mind, from their resemblance in verdure and cultivation, those of Chester, Lancaster, and Montgomery counties, Pennsylvania, in July ; the gradual slopes, and rich fields of grain ; fences indeed were wanting to complete the resem- blance ; but the waving barley and wheat looked as lively and luxuriant; and the maize was rich and beautiful. The points of sight were yet too remote for distinctness, the pic.
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ture was a mass, in which the parts were not minutely dis- cernible, but by the tints, and the occasional motion of a very gentle breeze, which was very acceptably shared with us in our progress.
We reached New Bayladores before it was noon ; its ap- pearance had newness and neatness in the external, and pros- perity appeared all around it; the houses were all white- washed, and the tiles all appeared as new as if the whole had been just built; which appeared the more remarkable from a comparison with the older town, and the recent presence of the Spaniards, who rarely spared any thing that appeared to prosper. I noticed the contrast to the alcalde, who only re- plied by that universal substitute for a speech, a silent shake of the head ; I did not know whether I should take it in Sir Christopher Hattorfs sense, in the Critic, or in our Indian interpretation — but concluded that it meant to say prosperity and neatness was the usual effect of industry judiciously pursued, and a good police ; perhaps he meant more than it was prudent to speak, for he shook hands with us very cor- dially when we set forward, the sergeant once more, with his grenadier's cap and his lance, leading the van.
About noon a well-looking stone house, of two stories, with verandahs above, invited our attention, and the venera- ble grey-haired owner beckoned an invitation to turn our mules inward, and, as the sun shone pretty warm, we com- plied, and our mules in a few minutes were wallowing in good fodder. The old gentleman conducted us to the ve- randah in front, where I had my hammock slung in such a position as to overlook the valley and the mountains to a con- siderable distance ; the scite was happily selected ; our venera- ble host was a Frenchman, above seventy ; he entered into discourse with the affability of his own country, and accom- panied by the taste and hospitality of Colombia ; fine sponge- cake, no better could be had in Paris, cream- cheese, fresh and well made, as if from Philadelphia ; mead, not to be ex-
celled a
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any where, brisk as champaign ; and abundance of sweetmeats and fruit, were handed round repeatedly. We had directed some fowls to be fricaseed, but the cocinero had loitered and talked, and we looked at the pictures around us so long, that it became too late to wait for them ; it was the fault of our own servants, who had, naturally enough, attended to good things present, rather than to the preparation, which, to be sure, was unnecessary, and I left them to follow, pur- suing my journey. This old gentleman had been settled in that position more than forty years ; his manners, and his example, to the cultivators, and his neutrality, in every vi- cissitude, had saved him from entire ruin, and the earth and the climate, which, never ceasing from production, made him rich, who spent very little compared with his income.
While resting on my hammock I could discern the pro- gress of cultivation, which was more contiguous than in the position from which the fields were first descried ; and, upon particular inquiry, I found that every process of agriculture was in operation at the same time — at the east extremity the mules were bearing off the harvests to the depots behind the dwelling ; stacks were on the patch of ten or twenty acres, next adjoining — another patch displayed the rows of sheaves, in another the reapers were at work, and the young people tying them — farther on, the golden harvest tempted the reaper — and still farther west, the waving grain had yet its tinge of pale green — and farther still the tint was more deep, it was the grain in the blade — another patch appeared to show like green threads upon a cake of chocolate ; and next appeared the paisano scattering the grain, followed by a range of mules abreast, with that harrow which instinctive reason provides, in the thorny brambles of the thicket ; last patch of all, the ploughman with his rude formed plough, though then too distant to be particularly described — this was the rotation of crops — and upon a soil which never had any other manure than the rains and dews of heaven and its own
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natural composition ; the progression unceasing and unin- terrupted ; unless the hand of man forgot or neglected to do his duty. But the want of roads to transport those rich har- vests rendered their mercantile value small — wheat could be had here for about a real and a half, or fifteen cents the bushel, barley for ten ; pease, vetches, and beans, for a few cents. The people on the road, as we advanced, were not yet apprised that the Spaniards had moved to the borders of the Cinega, and we were so sure of a contradictory account from every successive person and dwelling, that we made it a matter of amusement to send the sergeant and Vincent to make enquiries, and then quieted their apprehensions by stating the direct information we possessed ; among other things we were told that no person was permitted to proceed to Gritja — that the people at Gritja had declared for the royal cause, and hoisted the royal standard, delivering up their governor, who was in the Spanish camp : there was one part of this story true, but it was not a volunteer business — a brother-in-law of the civil governor of Gritja, who was a steady royalist, had formed a stratagem, and succeeded in seiz- ing and carrying off his republican brother-in-law, the gover- nor ; there had been a family dispute upon some division of property by marriage, and the royal partizan now settled the lawsuit, by demanding forty thousand dollars as a ransom for his prisoner, which the governor himself afterwards told us he had paid, our quarters being with him on our arrival at Gritja.
At half past five we reached a farm-house, where we were received with civility, but not without apprehensions, which were soon dissipated by our discourse ; the place was at the foot of a paramo, the air cold and biting, and our appetites pretty keen ; we procured some potatoes, had some chickens fricaseed, and some good chocolate ; all the doors and win- dows were closed as much as possible, but the night was very uncomfortable with all the clothing we could apply.
II
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The valley at this place, though deep in relation to the pa- ramo at the foot of which it extends, is about forty leagues from north to south and south-south-west, is widest at the north, and narrow to the foot of the paramo, from which we were not more than twenty minutes ride distant. We rose late, in consequence of our bad night's rest, and did not get in motion till ten o'clock.
On the 4th, being Sunday, we travelled up the paramo, on which there was the first appearance of any thing like a really easy road since we left the valley of Aragua ; we reach- ed the summit at noon, and commenced a tedious and ha- zardous descent, from the steepness of the mountain and the badness of the footway, winding through wilds, and shut out from sunshine by the closeness and elevation of the forest trees on the lower range of the mountain ; pools and quag- mires difficult to pass were constantly retarding our journey, and tiring our mules and ourselves.
We were soon met by a party of cavalry, under a lieute- nant, sent by Colonel Gomez to meet us, and, a few miles farther in advance, the colonel himself, of whom we had heard much, with a suite of six young officers, in gay, gau- dy-coloured, fancy military dresses, which had no other uniformity than that they were sleeve jackets and loose pan- taloons, and Italian caps; but of all colours of the rainbow: bluejackets with yellow pantaloons, yellow jackets with red pantaloons, and jackets with green, white, red or yellow ; the caps were neat and fanciful, but alike varied as their fea- thers were contrasted ; they rode the best horses I had hi- therto seen, about sixteen hands high, with handsome short heads, neat short swelling ears, large, bright, prominent eyes, a well-formed, full, and robust arching neck, broad breast, a tapering leg and thin shank, clean fetlocks, neat grey hoofs, rounded haunches and buttocks, and tails that stood out in a bunch, and spread like the water from a fountain almost to the ground, and with which they could be effectually pro-
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tected from winged insects if there were any, and, being thus unmutilated, were therefore spirited but fine-tempered.
It was half after four when we came in sight of Gritja ; we did not enter the town, which was in the bottom of the valley, but passed to the left on the side of the sierra, and alighted in the patio of the civil governor's house, who now came out to receive us, and who afforded us every civility. This was the gentleman who had been ransomed only two days before ; he told us his story with natural pathos, and indicated very sensibly that he was not perfectly confident of being yet secure ; his family had fled to the interior mountains, with their cattle, and all they could carry. A pair of horses stood always saddled in the patio, ready to prevent this Spanish brother-in-law from partitioning the pro- perty a second time.
A good plain dinner of better than common dried beef, with potatoes and onions, seasoned with spice, made an ex- cellent Irish stew — white wheaten bread, good vegetable greens, sallads, and fruit — some guarapa prepared by domes- tics for private use, much superior to that of the posadas ; and, as the Spaniards had carried off all his wine, the gover- nor, who had some careful servants, had preserved a few fine cases of liquor, from which he brought his garde-de-vin of aguardiente ; I took some with fine spring water. Though we were not in the town of Gritja, we could, as the sailors say, " chuck a biscuit into it" from the rear of the gover- nor's house. The town, which lay directly beneath our view, perhaps three hundred yards below us ; our position immediately over the south-east angle, the lines of the streets being north and south, and crossing east and west a spacious square in the centre, about eight streets ill the breadth and ten or twelve in the length. The whole town handsomely tiled and of one story high — a handsome church stood, as usual, conspicuously above the rest. But the silence of death prevailed in the town, not a living thing was to be
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seen, the whole population, reputed to be about nine thou- sand, had fled to the Paramos in the south, which, from our position, appeared piled one over the other on our left till lost in the clouds, or diminished into narrow grey lines of equivocal light.
The colonel, whose animal spirits were of a very different temperament from the poor governor, who had laughed and chatted with us on the way, on our arrival had resigned me to the civil authority, while he, and his fine young men, be- stowed their attentions on Lieutenant Bache and his sister ; and, after some pleasant repartees with the governor, he contrived to detach me from the company, and urged that he did not choose to say any thing to alarm the Senorita, but thought fit to apprise me of our situation, and his inten- tions. The Spaniards, under Valdez, he said were about seven hundred strong, posted at La Puente, on the high road over which our course lay ; his care was to protect us, and prevent the Spanish marauders from molesting us ; that he had already made up his mind on the plan he should pursue, and we might rely on our safety for the night ; but, lest the Senorita should be alarmed at the noise he meant to make, he thought fit to let me know, that, about two hours after midnight, his whole force would be in motion, and that we must not mistake his bugles for those of the enemy; that an officer of influence, to whom he particularly intro- duced me, with explanations afterwards, would accompany us, with an escort of infantry and cavalry ; that our road would be circuitous and remote from the highway, and that we should be conducted clear of the enemy's pickets and every danger. The colonel and suite, after spending some pleasant time, departed ; and taking our sergeant with him, put six fresh mules under his charge, with two muleteers, whom he directed to obey our orders implicitly. The mules were placed in the coral, with forage of molocha in abun- dance ; we directed to have the baggage packed, and all
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ready by two o'clock in the morning, and went to rest in perfect security ; about two o'clock, indeed, the clangor of bugles was heard, not at a single point collected, but at se- veral points near and distant ; appearing to sound and an- swer, and to sound and answer again at different places ; it was too dark to discern distinctly, but the cessation of the motion of objects below, and the gradual decrease of shrillness, showed that the bugles were hastily passing to the north of us ; according to the impression of the sound of the bugles, which never ceased while we were in hearing distance, they were behind the mountains to the north before we could put ourselves in motion to proceed south-west. The governor, who had given up his quarters for our con- venience, and staid at an adjoining house, appeared with some baskets of fruit to be placed on our baggage ; and displaying every kindness, praying for our safety from the barbarous Goths (Godas). Our commandant of the escort was on the ground also before us, and, after moving about a mile with him, we found a detachment of infantry, and in the valley to which we descended southward and eastward, through tremendous ravines and precipices, we saw the ca- valry receive orders how to move on our right ; and now, proceeding up a deep narrow glen, we wound round to the south, and at length to the south-west, ascending. The commanding officer, who minutely knew every spot of these valleys, intimated that there were some Godas in the line of our movement, and he pushed forward in advance. Two fine young men, out of uniform, accompanied him, each carrying a loaded musquetoon on their saddle bows ; they dashed up the side of a steep mound, and passing through a thick hedge, a well- looking house, surrounded by hedges of beautiful shrubbery, presented itself; he rode up to the door, and I followed him ; the young men prepared, with their musquetoons adjusted, to meet any assault or punish insult : the house, however, was closed, its tenants had
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eloped. Some excellent poultry were taken, but the value was thrown into a window, and we passed on through a winding path, crossed several very steep hills, thick forests, and some intricate mazes of rank vegetation. About one o'clock we emerged from the forest upon the summit of a beautiful hill, covered with a close- nipt velvet turf, as if sheep had sheared it ; the cavalry had taken a different track rom ours, in order to apprize us on our approach to this summit, which overlooked the main road, and appeared in front of the position which had been occupied by the most advanced pickets of the Spaniards the night preceding. Our infantry here reposed on the side of the hill, and the horse- men soon after appeared in view on the road below, over which our route lay. We immediately descended, and on the very spot where the Spanish cooks had lighted their fires, which were still smoking, we took leave of our ac- complished lieutenant and his escort, and he pursued his route by the common way back to Gritja, while we conti- nued our march in the opposite way.
After I had been some days in Bogota, and while listen- ing to a debate in the senate, the lively commandant of Grit- ja, Colonel Gomez, stood for a moment by my side, seized my hand and pressed it ; we retired into the corridor sponta- neously ; I to thank him for his goodness, and he to explain his success. His plan, as he before indicated, was to pro- duce such an alarm in the camp at La Puente, as to oblige Valdez to call in his pickets, by which means our passage was doubly secure ; he therefore made the inordinate cla- mour in the night, with a view that the emissaries of Vral- dez in the neighbourhood should carry the news to the camp of his being in motion northward, so as to lead him to think the Colombians meant to attack his rear, and thus menacing him in that quarter, he would draw away his pickets from the side we were to pass. The effect was such as he had calculated. Fighting with four hundred, opposed to between
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six and seven hundred, was out of his contemplation, and he carried no infantry beyond a pass upon which he could fall back and defend himself; but, added he, you have ren- dered us a great service, and the people at Gritja consider your daughter as one of their guardian angels ; for, before your arrival, Gritja was every day annoyed, and we had not a force adequate to drive the Spaniards away until you came. The number of our bugles, and the noise we made with them in so many directions, had so much effect upon the Spa- niards, that they decamped from La Puente the next day, and our good people attribute it all to the Senorita, your daughter, taking from me all the merit of rny bugle-horns.
Colonel Gomez was a handsome mulatto, with crisped hair, his stature good, and limbs neat, but his complexion was rather fair or cream-coloured than yellow, his counte- nance open and of an unceasing gaiety. When we met first we halted some time under a shade, waiting the return of a horseman whom he had sent in advance, and being mounted on a fine mule, and well accoutred, he began to chat and joke with the grace and vivacity of a Frenchman ; asked a thousand amusing but no impertinent questions ; talked of our country and his own ; of the two revolutions ; the battles, and the blessings which they assured ; and said, Colombia had never been free if North America had not set the ex- ample. He had signalized himself in a temporary command at Coro, where he had been, he said, abandoned, but had re- solved to save his corps ; and though he knew he was incom- petent to resist with success, he made a show of resistance, and enabled himself to enter upon a capitulation which might not otherwise be granted ; but the Spanish officer dictated a treaty, which contained conditions over which Colonel Go- mez had no controul, and which belonged to the Congress alone. He intimated the fact to the Spanish commander, who would not change his predeterminations. Gomez sign- ed ; extricated himself and his force; explained the circum-
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stances and the views which induced him to acquiesce in the dictation of the convention by the Spaniard ; all that was conformable to the law of nations was ratified and fulfilled — the unauthorized dictation annulled. The reputation of Gomez had been high before as a partizan officer ; here his intelligence marked him out for higher trust, and he only wanted a force equal in number to Valdez, or within a hun- dred of him, he said, to give a good account of him, which I verily believe.
At half past four o'clock we reached the casa de postas at El Cobrej supposed to be so named from a copper mine in the adjacent sierra. This post-house was a mere hut, of about twelve feet long by nine broad, yet a partition separated the interior, forming one room of seven feet, and another of about five feet breadth. The room of five feet was the identical apart- ment of the administrador de las postas, or the post-office. The eaves of this thatched casa extended a little more than a yard beyond the outer clay-composed wall. The line of direction of its length was north and south ; the door entrance was on the west side into the larger room, and a window, or hole in the wall, of two feet square on the east side, was the avenue of business for this national establishment. Huts of this kind are established throughout the country where towns are re- mote from each other, at such distances as the form of the road, flat or steep, rough or smooth on the route, renders convenient for the performance of a journey by the couriers, in a period which corresponds with the celerity of transport- ation, and the capacity of the couriers to travel. In every respect it is the prototype of the dawk of Hindustan, and by a singular coincidence of terms, the man who carries the pack- et of letters in Colombia and in Hindustan, is called a peon, and he carries his charge, when of the same size, in the very same way ; he also moves indifferent to weather, rain or sun- shine, dark or light ; when he reaches the end of his stage, he wipes himself of dust, rain, or sweat, and goes to sleep*
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awakes, dresses, and eats his meal, and goes to sleep again, till the correoy which he is to bear in return, is ready to be dispatched for the place whence he came the preceding day. El Cobre, notwithstanding the dimensions of the casa and its eamera de occupacion, is what we call a central point, or distributing office, as many routes meet there ; but I seldom saw a mail much more bulky than a common pocket-book. Since the republic has been established, however, the addi- tion of official dispatches has been more constant and fre- quent, and their weight more heavy ; printed official books, laws, and an increasing number of newspapers, swell their magnitude, and increase their number ; more than one peony therefore, is employed on the same route, and on the same day, who start at different times: the government papers are first dispatched; the habitual distinction of^raz^from small men, gives the preference of dispatch to the packets of great men ; the newspapers have the next, and the small men or the unknown are the last in rotation ; but peons are dispatch- ed in every direction as soon as a packet is ready ; a way- bill is prepared, and its duplicate filed ; an open paper is car- ried for the inspection of the municipal and military officers on the route, who sign it successively as it reaches them, at once to serve as a check, by which the orders they receive are acknowledged, and to authenticate the paper to the next magistrate. The government has employed this flying dis- patch with infinite advantage during the revolution, in circu- lating popular information, victories, and other useful mat- ters. On many occasions duplicates and triplicates were thus issued, and intendants, commandants, and alcaldes, were re- quired to multiply and circulate copies, and to post them up at churches and other public places. The provincial magis- trates use them in the same way within their jurisdiction ; a governor writes such an event has taken place ; such persons are on the road ; and I suspect that it was by this means our approach was so constantly anticipated, and such sig-
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nal hospitality and attention bestowed on us so uniformly and unexpectedly.
The climate at El Cobre is not very warm. The camera of the admmistrador was by no means too large for himself — the trunks of my young companions were therefore placed in the camera mayor > and by means of their blankets and cloaks converted into a dormitory ; as for myself I resolved, with San- cho Panza, to hacer rosca del galgo — to make the best I could of it, and hung my hammock beneath the eaves of the casa : the sergeant, kindly conceiving that he could serve better as a curtain than the open air, hung his hammock outside mine. The mules were attached by their halters, and suitable long ropes, which are among the necessaries of the traveller, to stakes fixed in a circle, so as to afford grazing ground to each, and prevent straying — and the muleteers and servants slept in sight, each upon one cow-hide, and, if occasion re- quired, sheltered by another, in sight of the mules, to prevent stealing— which sometimes happens.
The young folks found that their dormitory, in connex- ion with the floor, was not as comfortable as their hammocks, for, although there were neither flies nor mosquitoes, the ants are very numerous in many parts of the country, and troublesome in such circumstances. I slept as comfortably as I wished, though the curtain furnished by the intervention of the sergeant, I have no doubt, very much mitigated the coldness of the night.
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CHAPTER XXIII.
Moving magazines— Commissary of subsistence— army in bivouac — civility of the troops — camp fare and recreations — the Post-house of Challomar — English officer — General Urdaneta — politeness — unexpected adventure — a new light — hospitality — limits to travellers — move for Tariba — sublime disorder of the Cordillera — avoid San Cristoval — refresh at Tariba — reach Capacho — popu- lation singular scite — ants — leave Capacho — geology — sublime aspect of
the mountains — new aspects from the Sierra — exhilarating atmosphere — ef- fects on the vision and imagination — lag behind — fatiguing descent to the Tachira — appearance like a river of milk — old boundary revolutionized — Antonio de Cucuta — well built town— industrious people— change of curren- cy— knowledge requisite for travellers — currency pernicious to the industrious classes — a tax in favour of the cunning — policy calls for a remedy — Rosario de Cucuta — well lodged — fertile valleys around — the mountain aspects savage and wild.
WE found it impracticable to move before nine o'clock, but by ten we were at the summit or lofty side of the sum- mit of the Paramo ; where, though the wind from the south- east was piercing, the track was good. We had passed some very numerous droves of the finest horned cattle I had seen in any part of the world, grazing on the natural pastures, where the forests had left spaces of great extent unencroach- cd upon. We had bivouaced and slept near one of these droves, and so near as to hear the drovers occasionally laugh- ing and singing as they watched ; this day we met a still more numerous drove, and an European gentleman in black, well mounted and equipped, accompanied them. An ex- change of courtesies was natural in the midst of an immense forest, and in the lofty depths of the Cordillera ; those who have not had experience of such incidental meetings, cannot well conceive the pleasure they produce ; strangers are in an instant acquainted, and their conversation would seem to be the result of years of intercourse. This gentleman was
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commissary of subsistence to the army of General Ur- daneta, who, he said, we should meet at the foot of the Pa- ramo : he was going in advance, and there are my maga- zines transporting themselves, as he jocosely observed, and that this kind of commissariat saved a great deal of expense compared with the wagon train of European armies : in fact, the army had no other baggage but the mules which bore ammunition, which was secured in water-proof casks, covered with cow-hides. The system was excellent. A calculation of the average consumption of beef was first made according to the force to be supplied to the army and the followers ; droves were, upon these returns, drawn from the plains, and detached to grazing grounds on the proposed line of march, where the cattle became fat and heavy before they were required for subsistence.
About two o'clock, descending through that part of the mountain called the Forest of JFild Boars, we perceived the smoke of several fires rising above the forest trees, and the monotonous rattle or cadence of the macara, a sort of time instrument, to which the paisanos dance; of which some notice will be taken when we reach Cucuta. We soon dis- cerned the corps d'armee of General Urdaneta, in bivouac on both sides of the road, and in the woods adjacent. We had to ride close by several of their fires, and found their habits and manners so kind and civil, that we could not but compare them, and to their advantage, with soldiers we had seen elsewhere, whose rudeness and vulgar impertinence had no imitators here. Three or four saplings, tied about four or five feet from the ground and extended below, form- ed the area of the kitchen ; a brisk fire between served for boiling, roasting, or broiling ; and the companies, formed into squads or messes, distributed the duties of the mess between them. Cattle, in suitable numbers to the returns, were slaughtered at convenient points, and the portion of each mess supplied and carried to the fires ; and, as the
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utensils are few and rude, tire repast is easily prepared and disposed of; though here, and in all places where subsistence of vegetables is abundant, soups, yuccas, aracatchas, apios, and the never-satiating plantain, composed messes often such as would gratify an epicure. Those squads which happened to dispatch their meal first, were at different points recreating themselves, and it was among these we heard the macara, while we now saw males and females dancing a galeron or a bolera; in other points the guitar, scarcely audible, but yet tinkling beneath the huge forest trees ; and the song, in which Colombia and Bolivar never failed to form the burden.
The spectacle was highly interesting ; and, as many of the fires were lighted on the road, we were obliged in cour- tesy to make a sort of wandering march, which, being more slow than it would have been with a clear path, afforded us an opportunity of seeing more and seeing better than if we had travelled in a right line. The forest trees were of an immense height ; and, whether they grew so naturally, or the soldiers had cut away the lower branches for fuel, the stems appeared in all their magnitude, and the under space clear, but with a dim light, as if a curtain were spread above. The soldiers every foot of the way were cheerful, civil, and good-natured, and often cleared the path for our passage, exchanging jokes with our never-tiring sergeant.
About half a mile below the bivouac stood the Casa de las Postas of Challomar, with its longest front along the valley and its gabel end to the road : it was exactly such a house as that of El Cobre, but was surrounded by crouds of mili- tary men of every rank, horse, foot, and artillery : it was perfectly picturesque, and we must pass through the loose array. An English officer, who proved to be Major Frazer, of the staff of General Urdaneta, seeing us advance, very po- litely approached, complimented, and made enquiries, and gave us the news, and I waited on the general to pay my respects and offer my passports, which he politely declined
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to see, as he" appeared to be apprised who we were : he invited us to alight, and partake of his camp fare. He made some enquiries of what I had heard at Merida, Gritja, and along the road, and I related to him all I had heard ; and we parted, urging our mules to make up for the delay. The route was more intricate and mazy, and the forest evidently deeper, and more dark and humid, and the plain was yet far distant. The sergeant, who knew the way well, pushed ahead, and the mules were evidently becoming feeble from the long descent, pressing the whole weight on their fore feet ; we were winding through a gravelly avenue, over which trickled a light rill, when the sergeant gave a shout, and suddenly plunged into the gap of a thicket, which proved to be merely a hedge, where the stranger would never expect to find a human habitation ; we followed through the brake, when a spacious cottage opened upon us in the area : before the door were spread dry hides, loaded with coffee, exposed to the sun for drying ; and in front the elegant coffee plantation spread deep and wide, and adorned with numerous banana trees. There was a second cottage, that, with an interval between, crossed the direction of the front ; and a delicious rivulet, which served to irrigate the coffee field and the gardens ad- jacent, murmured over a bed of dark green and gray pebbles. We were shewn into the first house by the good dame, who had instantly recognized the merry sergeant as an old acquaintance, and soon possessed herself of the relations of our party. The sergeant here purchased eggs, a fowl, and a young turkey, which was roasted to serve for the next day's feast in the wilds ; and night came upon us before we had well quaffed our chocolate. Our hammocks had, accord- ing to the established discipline, taken their proper places, but it was now so dark we could not know which was which : the good Senora soon removed this inconvenience, and ex- cited our amusement by the novelty and style of her illumi- nation. The fibre of a plant about the size of a stem of
340 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
hay, had been employed to connect, as on a string of beads, a n r«ra her of the beans of the Palma Christi, or castor- oil plant. The seeds were quite dry, and by means of a bodkin they were perforated, and the fibre or straw was passed through them : this string .of beans hung from her hand, with the lower bean lighted, and it cast forth a flame as pure and brilliant as an argand lamp. There were perhaps forty beans on the string, but the blaze did not extend at once above that bean which gave light, until it dropped off in charcoal, and the next bean continued to catch the fire and shew the like bright light in succession.
We were very kindly entertained, and in a manner which appeared to gratify the giver as much as those who received the favours : no compensation would be taken for some fine oranges, and sweet bananas : a service of coffee by the wor- thy Senora in the morning, she insisted should be consi- dered as an evidence of her pleasure ; and she proceeded to give hearty thar&s to Santa Maria with great ardour and satisfaction, when the sergeant told her we should all return that way in three or four months ; which was in fact my in- tention, depending, however, on the course of the business which I was entrusted with. I had travelled too much in various parts of the world not to be acquainted with the use- fulness and advantage to be derived from little trinkets, plain knives and scissors, needles, thimbles, small tapes, bobbins, sewing thread, gimp, and a few cards of mother of pearl but- tons, to be used as presents according to the person to be complimented : I had here, as on other occasions before and afterwards, reason to be gratified by the satisfaction which little articles of this description afforded. The children here were young, and of course gratification more than use was to be consulted ; however, the Senora was particularly pleased with the largest scissors and a plated thimble. I had not an adequate anticipation of the obligation she appeared to think conferred on her ; and I am the more particular in this in-
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,tance, because future travellers may by similar means ren- der themselves and others acceptable. Indeed, I only re- gretted that the articles were not of more value, where such civilities had been bestowed so disinterestedly, and in a si- tuation which was so secluded as to seem cut off from the rest of the world ; for I should never have expected to find a human habitation, much less a fine prosperous coffee plan- tation, in the midst of this wild. We had gone to rest early, and rose late ; and it was nine o'clock before we set out for Tariba.
The mountain regions of the Cordillera present a very dif- ferent aspect, to the traveller, from any thing to be found in written description. The Cordilleras are usually depicted as a long, uninterrupted, lofty, single range. No just conception can be formed from such an idea. I should rather say that? though in a certain sense continuous, they are continually bro- ken ; that is, as the Cordilleras are known to be elevated at Pa- tagonia,— nay, that Tierra del Fuego is an original part of the range as much as the Sierra of Santa Marta or the Brigantine, yet that it is not an unbroken nor a single range ; and that, even where supposed to be single, more particularly beneath the equator, the Cordilleras really consist of numerous distinct groups; that they are intersected in all directions by valleys and plains ; and that their real character would seem to be somewhat like a great table-land or platform, upon which had been piled a mound of mounds, within which another table- land was elevated, and other mounds or mountains thrown in every direction across and around its margin, and still an- other and another within these, till they terminate in such plains as those of Bogota and Quito. Should not this work swell beyond my intention, I shall offer some more particu- lar thoughts on this subject, which were indeed already writ- ten before I left Colombia.
The valley into which we had now descended presented very remarkable appearances. The waters of this valley
342 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
appeared to hesitate between the choice of the oceans into which they should enter ; the prolongation of the ridges of Merida, of which those we had just passed was a continuation, seemed here to wind away to the south and south- east and disappear ; but it was only a seeming ; though too remote to be distinctly perceptible, they were there ; but mountains and hills and plains, diminished by distance and comparison, occupied the vast space ; and have the lofty barriers of the Chisga and the Albaracin for their borders. We were here on the north side of the sierra, but the rio Tariba, which we crossed as a rivulet, and, which would seem to seek its bed in the Caribbean Sea, pursues a different course, and uni- ting wkh other streams augments the volume of the Apure.
The ordinary road here leads by San Cristoval, but to save a few leagues we crossed the Tariba, leaving that place on the left, and struck off north west, taking the route of Capacho. We rested and refreshed at Tariba, and fell in with a French medical man, attached to the army, who, like others of the profession, complained of the healthiness of the climate, where he said they were professionally starving in the midst of abundance. Facts like these speak more than a dissertation. Tariba had been a pretty place, but has been " scratched by the war" — the country in the vast view around it, south east, south, and west, is luxuriant, and the temperature as agreeable as that of Caracas.
After a repose of two hours, soliciting the alcalde for mules in vain, as Capacho was reported to be only three leagues, and whether the leagues were three or four miles long, could not occupy more than three hours, we determi- ned to retain the mules we had, and pay extra for them ; a few reals and some guarapa reconciled the muleteers, and we reached Capacho by five o'clock.
The scite of this place is the summit of a hill composed wholly of a ferruginous sand stone, a naked rock, upon which verdure is to be found only in small holes or fissures ; open
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iround, but steepest on the north and west, in which direc- tion the prospect is wild and forbidding. Nevertheless, it has a spacious church, of rude but firm structure ; and there are some tolerably good houses of the kind ; and a consider- able number scattered on the sides of the hill where any thing like a level appeared to invite residence — if invite it could. The whole visible population, here, were purely of African descent ; excepting at Estanques, I had not seen an exclusively African population any where in my course, and in the whole country not so many as here. They were all free people, and they had no habits but those of the other population of the country. They were civil, unabashed by the presence of strangers, and took a pleasure in rendering kindness. They were better clad than the rock they appeared to fatten upon, but they pointed to the plantations and fields around as the means of their prosperity. An uncommonly fine breed of hogs strayed round this rocky eminence ; we found no difficulty in procuring milk, eggs, and fruit, through the voluntary agency of these innocent people. But it was to me unaccountable why such a spot should be selected for habitation in the midst of a country so beautiful. There was no alcalde, and we stood in need of none ; an obliging young woman pointed out a vacant house, and it was the best in view, and there we hung up our hammocks, and went through the usual course of fricasee and chocolate. — The only mode in which I could form a rational conjecture of the motive for making this rock a residence, was the mul- titudes of red ants, which are more than commonly numer- ous in the adjacent country, and whose labours, in elevating mounds of earth much larger in proportion to their own bulk, than the pyramids of Egypt to man, are manifest in many parts of the country. The absence of every thing like soil or vegetation, on this rock, seemed to protect it from the ants ; where the population were so sleek and shining that they seemed to live upon the fat of the land, and probably
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selected the place as a refuge from those insects. Numerous goats in equally good condition with the other inhabitants were also there.
On the morning of the 10th January we descended from the sterile side of Capacho, into a ravine of argillaceous and chalky rock, which was dissolved and discoloured the water that oozed out of the spongy sod of brown and dark grass which covered the slopes : the course of this day's journey would have afforded ample occupation to satisfy the curiosity of the zealous geologist for a month or more. The diver- sity of the strata which were presented on the sides of ravines and declivities of mountains was infinite ; we travelled down the sides of lofty slopes or ranges of the trap formation, com- posed of calcareous sandstone, tinged with oxid of iron, which had all the appearance of art, and the resemblance of the semicircular stairs leading to some vast edifice ; the re- gularly flat planes and vertical edges giving the semblance of stairs; and the breaches of this regularity in the prolonga- tion, or extremities of those ranges of stairs, corresponding with the appearance of ruins in works of art ; in other places where the flow of a mountain stream had undermined the face of a precipice, and the bank in a mass fell forward, leav- ing the upright section exposed, twenty different strata ap- peared in horizontal, but varying lines, exhibiting anthracite coal of a glittering fracture, a dull carbon, a fleecy white earth, ochreous earth ; strata of siliceous gravel, and quartz, in vast lair masses : indeed, the ideas here given relate only to what was seen in the mere passing, without dismounting or any effort to collect specimens, which could not be ad- vantageously carried and preserved.
The country now had totally changed its aspects ; vast headlands, ravines, discoloured rocks, and gloomy steeps, from which field and forest appeared to be excluded. It seemed to be the rendezvous of the great members and de- tached heads of the confederacy of the Andes, which had
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let there to open their reservoirs, to distribute and send east, west, north, and south, their periodical floods, to cherish and diffuse vegetation and health, and temper the climates around and beneath them, though, in their presence, eternal disorder and sterility seemed to prevail. Looking to the west of north, the great master chain of Perija opens its vast arms, and relieving, by its sublime shadows, the nume- rous lowly valleys, whose richness and fertility it protects and conceals : farther north of the west, the mountains of Socorro appear; the intervening elevated plain of Giron, separated by its own peculiar paramo ; marked on its south- ern side by the mazy current of the dull Gallinazo, and far- ther north, Orcana, east of which the lofty paramo forms a long receding curve, whose horns are eastward. From the northern side of this vast curvature, which is the loftiest of the region, the snow-capped Nevada of Santa Marta rises above the clouds, in nearly a northern direction, casting bold shadows as the noon is distant in the advance or retirement of the planet of day, over forests, cliflfs,-and countless rivers, which flow eastward to the lake of Maracaibo or the ocean, and on the west into the Magdalena, holding in temperate richness and beauty the valley Du Par, and those fertile plains which must, ere long, become the seat of a rich agri- culture, and an innumerable population.
Returning to the point of view, the line of the river Ta- chira on one side, and the Sulia on the other, mark the north- east features of the magnificent groups, which take the dis- criminative names of the Sierra of Gritja, Pedraza, Merida, and Truxillo, over and along which we had travelled ; while to the south the chains take the names of Almozadera, Pam- plona, Chita, Zoraca, Chisga, Guachenuque, and Chingasa, significantly called also the ridge of the -winds ; besides nu- merous others, which take the names of towns or cities con- tiguous.
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When we gained the proud eminence, the prospect con- tinued to offer objects more sublime and new ; the forests again began to appear and thrust aside the rocks, or cast a green veil over their rude deformities ; light and shade were here accidentally caught in agreeable unity ; and the glit- tering cliffs, relieved by the softened verdure, made the pic- tures at once beautiful and sublime ; and in some instances, which were not rare, where the vast faces of steep rocks had been bared to the winds of heaven, they sometimes pro- duced, from accidental lines of dilapidation by the atmos- phere, forms, like vast ranges of fairy palaces or structures, such as might have been originally formed by the Titans and the Giants, whom the poets and mythologists have made to aspire to scale heaven. This was not the only impression acting upon the imagination. In another place, from posi- tions more elevated, when the atmosphere was clear, and the light gleaming obliquely over the distance, the scene ap- peared to bear a kind of flatness or depression, with shadows here and there, but more fantastical than the shades upon a well-executed map, spreading their immensity so broad and vast that the head became dizzy, as if on a precipice, and the pulsation became quicker, from surprise and pleasure : such a vision was not durable ; a change of light destroyed the whole scene, and revealed the really broken and wild aspect, which a nearer approach realized.
I had loitered unconsciously behind on this occasion, which rarely happened, and when I awoke from this trance of the senses, I had to hurry along down the sloping and rugged ravines, which the caprice of nature had formed, and man, not less capricious, had converted into a road to the valley of Cucuta ; where, as if some of those genii, who live in romance, had determined to sport with the susceptibility already produced, presented among a diversity of streams of limpid water wrestling over the pebbles of the valley, a stream
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so full and gently flowing, and so exactly coloured, as to seem a river of milk ; we crossed it, but its chalky colour only indicated the resemblance, the valley was too warm for the play of the imagination ; and we soon entered the peb- bled bed of the Tachira, which spread over the opening space in numerous rivulets. This was the boundary, and the Tachira the line which separated the jurisdictions of the Viceroyalty of New Granada and the Captain -generalcy of Caracas, — a boundary which no longer exists politically, for, by the new distribution of departments, provinces, and can- tons, it now takes a different arrangement. St. Antonio and Rosario de Cucuta, which the Tachira separated, are no long- er under different jurisdictions ; they belong to the Intend- ancy of Boyacca, province of Pamplona, and form part of the same canton,
We reached Antonio de Cucuta about four o'clock, and the descent was so fatiguing, that we entered a well looking pulpureia, where we rested an hour ; and had some oppor- tunity to remark that there was already an evident difference of manners, an appearance of regular industry, the houses more lofty and better constructed. We thought it becoming to purchase some articles merely to apologize for our intru- sion, but the female of the house, who had been industrious- ly occupied in rolling cigars, while she spoke and even ask- ed questions without interrupting her work, or abating her civility, said it was not necessary we should purchase any thing, as we had paid her a compliment in preferring her house to rest ; she directed a girl to procure what we want- ed, some good fruit and some sugar. We had been pre- viously, at our departure from Caracas, apprized that the sil- ver currency of Venezuela called Maquitina would pass on the east side of the Tachira only, and would not be receiv- ed on the west side ; we had provided by estimation Maqui- tina sufficient for the journey, and had guessed pretty well, for we had not much unspent ; it was received, however, but with an intimation that it would not be received at the
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other side of the river, and was not much desired here — though, as strangers, she would oblige us. The ideas con- cerning money here, though in a rude state of society, com- pared with countries highly commercial, take a more ration- al direction than in other places. At Caracas the Doubloon varies in exchange for silver from seventeen to eighteen dol- lars and a half; though there is some knavery in this varia- tion of the relation between two kinds of money, as the true relation is sixteen of silver for one of gold, of the standard twenty-two carats fine ; the principal cause is the established abuse covered by this wretched currency called Maquitina. It is in shape as the varieties of angular pieces into which a coin less than a quarter dollar may be cut ; giving one round edge and two sharp-angled sides — from which the West In- dian term bit is derived ; the tnaquitina consisting of such bits, and these take the denomination of the parts of a dollar, as the real, or eighth of a dollar, or twelve and half cents ; the media, or half real ; the quartilla> or quarter real. This vicious currency is very impure. It is, in other transactions than small retails, put up in bags of ten, twenty, or any round number to an hundred dollars ; the sum is rated by the cur- , rent denomination ; but as one real may be cut into five in- stead of four bits, and each bit passes for a fourth, instead of a fifth, the value in tale, tested by the value of the pure coin in weight, may amount to an average loss of one fifth, or from fifteen to twenty per cent. : when doubloons, therefore, are sought or given, this vicious currency makes the differ- ence in appreciation ; and that it should be less than twenty percent, arises from the circumstance, that all the bits are not deficient ; though, from my own observation, they are much more so than is generally supposed. Generally one hun- dred hard dollars, if exchanged for Maquitina at the current estimation, will not be worth seventy. five dollars tested by weight and purity. It may be said, that this usage being established, and- no one appearing dissatisfied at being so
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cheated, the fraud becomes innocent ; so it was attempted to be justified to me by one of the concerned ; but it must be obvious, that it is, when sanctioned or tolerated by a go- vernment, and institutions established and supported by go- vernment for the support of this fraudulent currency, it is a connivance in favour of the opulent to the plunder of the poor — it is privilege for the knowing gambler to cheat the ignorant and unsuspicious.
In treating of the money and mint of Colombia, I may probably take some farther notice of this pernicious curren- cy; which requires of the government, in justice to its own character, and the interests which it is their duty under a representative government to protect, to apply an effective remedy, which, reinforced by the banking system so unfitly and unfortunately introduced, may entail evils not less af- flicting to the public and to families, than the thraldom which the revolution has destroyed.
. After resting at Antonia de Cucuta, and chatting with the agreeable people who lived in the house, and who came in actuated by a curiosity no way impertinent nor unpleasant, we crossed the principal stream of the Tachira, and reached Rosario de Cucuta about half-past five o'clock, being the 10th January.
The alcalde, here, was not to be*found. I dispatched the sergeant to St. Joseph, the head quarters of the military commandant, and sent by him the letter of General Clemen, te, and the sergeant returned, before it was yet night, with an order to provide us with the best accommodations of the city, and whatever we should else require. We were ac- cordingly conducted to as good a house as there was in Cu- cuta, in sight of the Plaza ; where we had ample and com- fortable accommodations. It had been the house of Pedro So- po, a French gentleman long resident there, but who having attached himself to the Bourbons, fled, and the property was confiscated. The house was in the usual oriental style, with an ample patio, good lodging apartments, spare rooms
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for accommodation ; a very spacious interior corridor and dining room, and a private chamber lighted from the street. The cocincria was out of sight, but with abundant room, and though it had suffered from the confiscation, there re- mained evidence that Part de viver had due homage under its original possessor, though the stew- holes were now nei- ther whole nor cleanly. In the spacious yard or area, to the rear of all, there stood by much the largest tamarind I had ever seen. In Bengal the tamarind tree rarely rises to fif- teen feet high, nor its stem to more than four or five inches diameter ; this beautiful tree was between forty and fifty feet, and the stem twenty-two inches diameter, at four feet from the ground. It was clustering in fine fruit, abundant, but not yet ripe.
This valley rivals Barquisimeto, -in the richness of its soil, the number of its plantations of cacao, coffee, sugar ; and the usual products of the warm climates, oranges, le- mons, limes, pine-apples, and the numerous fruit of the country, were here in the utmost perfection and abundance, though the mountains appear wild and savage.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
Kosario de Cucuta — rich country — cultivators — changes — incidents at Cucuta — the Indians, excellent husbandmen and labourers — go to a fandango — mi- nute account of — column of troops — an interview — departure — Valley of De- solation— an inhospitable occurrence — ascend a dreary road — Post-house at Saltikal — cold, comfortless night — depart early without food — Alanadero — ascend a luxuriant mountain — bivouac and sleep — Indian population — enter Indian cottage— kindness— feast — Chopo— fine cabbages— adventure and de- parture—Witches in a fog— Pamplona— first impressions— source of the Sulia — antipathy to fires.
THE road, after crossing the Tachira, and leading to Ro- sario de Cucuta, which is something more than two miles distant, is luxuriant and fertile. The forest trees are lofty, like those of all the warm valleys. The parroquets, in nu- merous flocks, flit across and along the woods, and give an infallible indication, by their discordant screams, of the pre- sence of cacao plantations ; they are never separate, it would appear. Sugar-mills and refineries abound in this neigh, bourhood, and their riches are evident in the magnitude of the structures for the conservation of the productions, as well as in the fashion and size of the dwellings. The effects of war were indeed evident, but it was also evident that na- ture was too bountiful, and the people here too industrious and numerous, for those effects to remain very long visible. Every thing was already in movement, and the proverbial gaiety of the population was palpable, though not so much so in Rosario as in Antonio, and the rural habitations. The mills here were the best I had seen since I left San Mateo. The families of palm trees were here more numerous than I had before seen them on this journey, and more flourishing, giving an oriental aspect, at least to my perceptions, and made the landscape very much more agreeable than other- wise it would be to me.
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Rosario is not so extensive nor so busy a scene as Anto- nio cle Cucuta. The streets are much wider than at the latter, though both' have the usual excellent pavement. The streets here do not exceed twenty-five feet, and the houses are not generally so spacious, though there are apparently more of two stories. The stillness of the towns in such a country, at this season, is by no means an evidence of its want of po- pulation. The plantations aftbrd more enjoyment and agree- able occupation ; it is as quiet every day as Philadelphia of a Sunday, but very unlike Philadelphia at night. After ele- ven, in Philadelphia, the only evidence of a town to the hearing, is the occasional drone of the watchman calling the hours. In Cucuta, the evening sets in with the buzzing noise of a gay, prattling, moving crowd. The streets are all alive, and the Plaza Mayor, which is a spacious and beautiful carpet of short grass, on which, if the moon shines, as it happened to do when we were there, the space appears alive with a playful population ; the guitar, the tambour, and the mara- ca, or cadence calabash, are heard on every side, as if the peo- ple, dead all day, had risen to dance and sing all night. I had been impressed with other ideas, by perusing some writ- ings of Palacio Faxar ; and my observations in this place afforded me, upon a comparison with his account, proof that the revolution had already antiquated his account of Cucuta, which is to be found in the third volume of the British Jour- nal of Sciences, p. 337 ; for, although there can be no doubt of the truth of his written descriptions, published in 1817, those descriptions would not now in many cases apply ; and, from what I have seen there and elsewhere, I feel per- suaded, that, as has happened in the United States since the re- volution, the accounts which may now be given of the wealth, population, arts, society and manners, will so continue to change in successive periods, as that the account of any one antecedent period of three or four years will not be suitable to describe the circumstances at any subsequent. The face of nature
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its grand anatomy, the climate, and its riches, will be of the same character ; but all things that depend upon institu- tion must undergo a still more extraordinary change and amelioration than the United States, because nature has done more for Colombia, and man has yet every thing to do : indeed the old institutions appear to have been intended to retard rather than to profit by the bounties of nature.
Our quarters were contiguous to the south-west angle of the Plaza Mayor, and the house was very spacious ; the pavement which sloped from the corridore into the patio, shewed the name of SOPO, and the date of the building, as I supposed, which were displayed in round white pebbles on a ground of blue. An aged female mulatto, whose limbs, though lusty, appeared too feeble to sustain the volume of material flesh and blood and bacon, which she carried about her not very well concealed, had taken possession of the kit- chen, that she occupied since the flight of her master, and which, she said, she meant to hold till he returned, or she should die ; the remainder of her story was an eulogy, and by good accounts a well merited one, on the generosity and kind-heartedness of Seiior Sopo; she had no comfort now but in doing as he did, shewing every kindness in his power to the passing stranger, and his neighbours all around. Repulsive as her loose attire and looser flesh were, the con- solement of her being heard and permitted to speak of her former master's virtues, was evident ; and it was not possi- ble but to sympathise with her, when her feelings, overcome, found vent in a flood of tears.
We had notified the alcalde that we proposed to depart the next day, and requested miiles, which he promised a la mana- na, but that manana was succeeded by another ; the sergeant equipped in his full regimentals, grenadier's cap, and a bright- hiked sabre, I dispatched to the superior officer of the district, whose residence was at San Jose, about four miles north. I addressed him a note, with some papers, that were calcu-
45
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lated to obtain his attention, and he returned a very flatter- ing answer, with an intimation of dissatisfaction at the ne- gligence of the alcalde, signifying to him by letter that it was not the first time, and that notice would be taken of it. A peremptory order accompanied, to furnish whatever mules we required, and any thing else the country afforded which we stood in need of.
This city will be ever memorable as the place in which the constituent congress of Colombia formed the constitution in 1820-21 — by which that union was confirmed that had its basis in the fundamental law promulged at Angostura in 1819. This paper, as well as that of the same title enacted in this place by congress in 1821, will be found in the Ap- pendix, (No. I. II.) as they are very frequently referred to, and sometimes confounded with the constitutions.
Senor Palacio, in his notices on the valleys of Cucuta, which are, in some particulars that relate to the country, true at this day, but have, in other respects, undergone a total change — says, " the native Indians of Cucuta are a de- graded, poor, neglected, almost forgotten race of beings, which is indeed the case of the whole race of Indians," and he generously suggests what should be done to restore them to the condition of men. The revolution has gone farther than the benevolent wishes of the amiable patriot. All that existed, connected with labour and the disparity of condition, has disappeared. The Indian is a citizen, and negro slavery has nearly ceased. The Indians are no longer degraded, poor, or forgotten ; they compose the great mass of labour- ers now, and very few of African descent are to be found ; and I say here, lest I should overlook it in the multitude of facts that every where crowd upon the discerning observer, that 1 have no where known better labourers, men who work with more earnestness wherever I have seen them employed ; no men in any country work with more apparent earnest- ness and contcntedness ; and no where have I witnessed such
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heavy burdens borne as by the aborigines, men and women, in all parts of Colombia that I have visited. Indeed I have not any where known people so uniformly muscular, and whose bodies and limbs indicated more strength. I have not been much among the tribes called uncivilized, but speak of those whom I have found in the cities and on the highways, whose huts I have visited, and whose labouriousness and contentment, and consciousness of the freedom to which they are restored, manifests itself in their conduct, and their eagerness to bestow kindness and good offices.
In this climate the nights are delicious — the industrious classes, as well as the opulent, enjoy them ; the latter in their ample halls ; the former under the more ample canopy of of heaven. On the great square, which our quarters over- looked, the evening gray light never escaped before the groups of both sexes assembled, and the music of their guitars, and other stringed instruments peculiar to the coun- try, were heard like distant serenades. Soon a more em- phatic, but less harmonious cadence was heard ; it was the indication of the dance ; the fandango, various dances called folias, the bolero, or pas seul, the capuchin, and the galeron. Of these I have been a spectator in different places ; here I saw only the galeron, which was not exactly such as is described by Palacio. On one evening of many, I walked with Eliza- beth to see one of those dancing parties, and wearing straw hats like all the group, and otherwise plain in our apparel, had a full opportunity to see the whole group, and to ob- serve their pastime. Though the moon was high and bright, there were numerous tapers. The tones of the gui- tar were suspended ; and the cadence of the macara took its place. This instrument is nothing more than a ripe ca- labash, from which the internal substance had been extract- ed so as to leave the firm shell clean and hard. Some seeds of maize are placed in the shell ; the neck stopped, and this constitutes the macara to which the galeron was danced, as
356 VISIT TO COLOMBIA,
I shall describe it. The sounds being the repetition of a few simple notes, which, though rude in the manner of pro- duction and emphasis, admitted of a regular cadence.
A sprightly lass of about sixteen, attired in a handsome bas- quina of black, (a sort of gown and petticoat,) as soon as the circle was formed and the macara began to play, moved airily into the arena, and commenced a series of evolutions in mazy circles ; she held the side skirt of her basquina, and her body and neck made many graceful inflections as she ap- peared to swim over the surface ; for no foot or step was perceptible, and her action seemed to be like that of a figure suspended by a cord in the air, only that there was grace and ease and pleasure in the movement. This was the characteristic mode of all the females who succeeded ; the order I shall now describe : the first senorita who entered had been but two or three minutes in motion when a gallant mozOy or youth, in a short blue cotton coat, osnaburg trow- sers, and good leather shoes, moved into the circle ; the young lady's basquina appeared to corroborate the sarcasm, that ladies have no feet ; she sailed round the arena, and he pursued, in good time, and with some movements which we should call steps ; she fled in mazes, and he followed in cadence ; till, suddenly, the damsel escaped into the crowd, leaving the pursuer to dance alone ; but another female, of about the same age, in a calico garment, entered the lists ; her basquina, however, was not so low as to conceal that she danced in her wedding-stockings ; she too sailed with no less ease than if she had the wings and the balance of a hovering kite, who was about to pounce upon a chicken ; she had made but a few turns, when the youth sprung from the circle ; and another young " squire of low degree," put his best foot fore- most, and commenced the pursuit of the deserted and now flying nymph ; thus performing movements for which they have a nomenclature as significant as those who boast of higher science ; their los races, or retirings ; their movemiento
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 357
irio ; their paso chaseo, &c. This dance, from the rude examples here displayed, had something pantomimic, a sort of ballet of action with a subject, in which transactions of life were intended to %be depictured by a sort of allegory ; some of the persons appeared to act a part, to repel approach, and to fly from pursuit, to evade and to disappoint ; disdain and repulsion, solicitation, and flattery on the other side ; the flight being alternate, and the pursuit as the sexes entered on the arena, she flying upon wings concealed beneath her basquina ; he sometimes in his only shirt and pantaloons, clean washed, the tails of that shirt displaying the needle- work, in coloured threads, perhaps of the dulcinea after whom he travels in the mazy dance, with or without shoes, for it is about ten to one that there are many in the company. I was figuring in my mind some comparisons of the galeron with the rural dances of some other countries, and commu- nicating my comparisons to Elizabeth, who held me by the arm, when, to our mutual surprise and amusement, our Caracanian valet, Fincente, equipped in his best shirt and breeches, " made a leg" to the coquette on the tapis, from whom her squire had just escaped. It was clear that Vin- cente had determined to sustain the reputation of Caracas, and to defend its superiority against all comers ; and, as in other places, there is a kind of merit in dancing long, as in dancing well, Vincente would not give way, but would pur- sue the lass who had commenced the pursuit of him : Vin- cente was, though not so robust as his countrymen gene- rally, a well built fellow, and he was perhaps the best dressed man in the company ; the fair one he encountered — for she was as fair as himself — appeared disposed to dispute the ground by time, as well as execution ; but she was obliged to abandon the field ; only to afford a heroine more disciplined to renew the encounter ; and he, who had triumphed over the arlero of Valencia, was compelled, like other great he- roes, to strike to a damsel, in a somewhat worn green
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basquina,) who fairly danced him out of the ring, to the great admiration of the laughter-loving gay paisanas of Cucuta.
We came away certainly without any reason to be dissatis- fied with the pleasures of these innocent people. The deco- rum which prevailed uniformly ; the decent respect towards each other ; the general desire so conspicuous to please and be pleased, was truly agreeable. I have not seen many coun- tries in which a corresponding class could meet and part so rationally, and without any cause of dissatisfaction ; I have seen such assemblies in other countries disturbed by rude- ness or vulgarity, or by some of those who, presuming to be their superiors, deemed enjoyments and recreation an invasion upon the privileges of a degree more elevated : there was nothing of this nature at Cucuta ; indeed, in the whole tour I have seen nothing of quarrels or indecorum, but real happi- ness in these little rural parties.
On the evening of the 13th, a column of infantry altoge- ther about one thousand effectives, passed by our quarters, being on their route to join Gen. Urdaneta. The troops were very well equipped, and, as they marched on the diagonal of the square, appeared to advantage. After dusk some offi- cers were passing well mounted, one of them addressed me in English, enquiring for the alcalde ; I replied with a sol- dier's familiar tone, that he had better take up his quarters where we were, first, and look for the alcalde afterwards, as the house was ample enough to afford quarters for the staff of the column. He adopted the advice, rode at once into the patio with his companions; we furnished lights, and whatever else we could, and the establishment was complete.
It was Dr. Mayne, a respectable physician attached to the army, a fine manly figure, and a jovial soul ; who handed me an immense powder horn, requesting me to taste, and which I found, instead of gunpowder, loaded with Holland gin. After exchanging our news, we parted ; he moved in the morning. He has married in Colombia since.
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We left Cucuta the 14th of January, at half past eleven, are two roads, one north through San Jose, and the other west, which, being not so circuitous by three or four miles, the sergeant injudiciously preferred. We passed a mazy- course, leading through a valley which presented the wildest picture of nature in disorder, that I ever witnessed. We had not anticipated such a prospect, much less the hazard and difficulty of passing through it. Our steps could not be chosen, and the sagacity of the mule was our only security. The bottom of the valley, as well as both sides, presented such a state of disorder as would induce a presumption that there had been some recent subterranean explosion through- out the three tedious miles of its length ; the rocks of every magnitude appeared as if newly torn asunder, and left in the positions we found them, ready at every step to roll from their impending positions towards the lower fragments, over which our poor mules scrambled with evident pain, but admirable patience. We very soon regretted that we had not paid our respects to the officer at San Jose ; but we at length gained a smooth sandy level, which, with the aptitude of mankind to forget their pains when succeeded by plea- sures, we soon left behind, and perhaps enjoyed the subse- quent part of the day's journey with the more satisfaction.
About half after four, the country assumed a singular and luxuriant appearance ; a small river skirted by sloping banks, like scarp and counter-scarp of a military fosse, and regular as if wrought by the direction of an engineer, formed the side of the route, on the upper level of which we travel- led, about forty feet above the margin of the stream. We soon entered a closer woody region, and a narrow humid lane to the south, into which we had advanced about half a mile, when the sergeant suddenly wheeled to the left, and plunged into another descending lane, and galloped through a dark overshaded thicket, but with a clear path. We followed implicitly, and very soon gained an opening, where stood a
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very spacious hacienda, and adjoining it a handsome church. We rode up to the hacienda, and dismounted.
This place was in charge of an overseer, who sat on his bench immoveabie as the bust of the saint over the church door. Upon being civilly addressed, and requested to afford mere lodging, and for which we should pay what he might require, he declined permission in a very coarse style. We were still standing below, when the sergeant returned with the refusal. It was not prudent, if it were practicable, to pursue our route at so late an hour. I enquired of some of the domestics where the curate or clergyman belonging to the church lived ; the surly boor forbid the domestic to an. swer ; and the poor fellow retired, distinctly muttering "Goda." For the moment the expression did not strike me. Some letters had been placed in my hands, a:-d one for the owner of this place ; I took it, and handed it to this boorish agent ; but either he could not or would not read. Night was at hand, and I undertook to civilly remonstrate, that it was impossible to proceed farther that night ; that we wanted nothing but a place to rest in our own hammocks, and would be content to sleep in the corridor. He seemed immoveabie. A conduct so unlike any thing I had seen or heard of in the country, so unlike the proverbial civility and hospitality ex- perienced every where else, was mortifying. I remonstrated again, and signified that I should represent his conduct to his superiors ; he then retired. I followed along the spacious gallery, saw several ample vacant rooms, and ordered the domestics to bring up our baggage, and desired the sergeant to see to forage for the mules, and secure them in a coral for the night. A household servant was requested to bring some fresh water, and was about to do so kindly, when she was scolded and forbidden. The hammocks were now hung up, our trunks placed in view ; and Pedro passed to the usual fire-place, to prepare our chocolate, and cook our repast,
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,-bich it was very visible afforded much amusement to the lomestics, who were numerous. We had some wax candles, which are often convenient for travellers in such circumstances, and the sergeant lighted a couple ; and we sat some time talking or reading, and, indeed, joking at this unusual inhos- pitality.
The surly boor who had behaved in this ungenerous man- ner, now found the use of his tongue, and approached us in a manner so mean and servile, that I repaid him by a con- temptuous silence. The sergeant, more a man of the world, rallied him, and accepted for himself the eggs and fruit, which had been tendered to us, and refused ; they proved more acceptable the next day, as the sergeant very shrewdly anticipated. The servants of the house now brought water, which we wanted for mere cleanliness, and in this intercourse, a smart girl whispered, pointing at the overseer, " Goda" — which in the morning we found to be the pass- word among those who conversed with our people. In fact the circum- stance of his moroseness was thus intended to be explained ; the domestics denominated him a Spaniard or Goth, as an apo- logy for his rudeness ; and certainly appearances corroborated the impression. We slept comfortably, and took care to breakfast before we moved, which was not till ten o'clock the next morning.
Our route was indeed a labyrinth from which the pre- vious knowledge of the sergeant could alone extricate us without difficulty ; the ascent was steep, and rough, and hur- ried ; the summit elevated, wild, cold, and raw ; and the cor- dillera broken into groups of stupendous magnitude, and se- parated by vast valleys or ravines ; nothing was distinct, but magnitude and disorder. We at length gained what may be described as the rump of a distinct ridge, woody, separate, and prolonged, as if thrown upon a vast plain in its centre, the plain, at each side, forming lovely, verdant, sun-lighted, lawns of great extent and level ; while the clouds wrapt
46
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about us were chilly, humid, and unpleasant. We passed along the spine of this ridge, and at length reached the post- house of Saltikal. The clouds, in which we travelled, had proved to us a " Scots mist" for they " wetted our jackets," and rendered water, to wash our faces at least, wholly unne- cessary. This ascent might have been avoided, were it not for the notion of shortening distance. Roads lay at both sides on the plains below, and while the moist curtain that hid from us the sun's rays chilled us, we could see the plains below bright and warm as the scenes in a theatre ; and we could perceive the youth on the velvet green running races and at other sports, under a bright sunshine, though they did not appear larger than flies on a carpet.
The administrador of the post presented himself, and, as he appeared to be the sole lord of these upper regions, having, besides the post-office, a well stocked pulpureia, and a sepa- rate house for his own residence, he assigned the post-house to us for our accommodation. I had yet experienced no inconvenience from insects, nor even seen a midge, or fly, or musquito, nor any thing resembling them, till we found the gnats making sharp trespasses on our faces ; in fact, they were blood-suckers : the place was a hovel not very clean, but as our hammocks placed us above the floor, we did not suffer in that particular ; but we spent a very disagreeable night, from the number and pertinacity of the gnats of Saltikal. We rose, therefore, very early, and but little refreshed. There had been a pretty heavy rain in the night, that made the freshness of the verdure around delightful; we could see the handsome (perhaps it was more handsome at a distance in comparison with the feelings we experienced at Saltikal) — town of Alinadero distinctly below us ; and, from what we saw and felt at Saltikal, and what we saw and heard of the valleys on both sides, I should advise the traveller rather to go a league or two round on the plain, and sleep at Alina- dero, rather than encounter the gnats and the sleepless stye at the post-house on the ridge of Saltikal.
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The descent from this disagreeable place is worthy of the place itself, a rude ravine scooped out of a slippery soil ; steep and dangerous to descend ; and so eager were we to escape from the place, that we preferred going without breakfast. We gained the valley safely, and passed a tolerable path, leaving Alinadero on our left, and after two hours ride had to ascend another ridge, but glowing with kindly warmth and luxuriance ; the sides of the slopes were picturesque, and the cultivation was extensive and unexpected. Snug cottages were numerous. Spacious plots of apio9 that is ce- lery which benrs a root as large as the common beet, but of a yellow texture ; neat bamboo fences, behind which the pine-apple displayed all its richness, in every stage of growth, its scaly cones and crested tufts giving the various hues which it displays, from pale emerald to deepest topaz, and garnished and guarded with armed blades, rivalling in magni- tude and surpassing in beauty the native aloe, or agave. We gained a spot where shade and prospect, and a beautiful rivulet, induced u^ to take refreshment and rest ; and we accordingly bivouaced, breakfasted, and took a sleep. We found much benefit from our short repose, and proceeded with new alacrity. The difference between the beauty and and luxuriance here present, compared with Saltikal, I could not account for : perhaps it may be the greater elevation of Saltikal, though I could not, from merely passing both, sup- pose any difference of elevation. Our route was here very agreeable. The population was entirely aboriginal, and we had an opportunity of seeing an Indian family in a state of very prosperous civilization.
We were all attracted by a neat and ample cane fence on the right side of our path, as we ascended a knoll on the mountain ; it was placed on the north-west slope of the sierra, and a very beautiful and lofty clump of forest trees sheltered its north side for some distance ; the interven- ing space appeared, some part in cultivation, and a larger
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part as if recently deprived of its productions. As we moved along the fence side, a very humble cottage appeared with the thatched slope to the road ; at the extremity a hatch, or cane wicket, opened to the west end of the cottage, and led into a fenced space which may be called the patio. I determined to enter, and all our party but the baggage followed. A comely cheerful Indian presented himself in a good white shirt and pantaloons, and paragattas on his feet ; he smiled, and, without any sort of surprise, pointed out to us the shel- ter of the roof, which being higher within than toward the road, formed a really convenient though rude corridor ; and he wished us all to dismount ; I had already done so ; and his wife, with a small boy and another child, was there en- gaged with a pot of better than ordinary earthenware, that contained about two gallons, which she was employed in stirring a soup, the fragrance whereof was very agreeable. The paisano had provided some rude seats for us, but be- stowed his first civility on Elizabeth ; the little boy was dispatched on some errand, while the good-natured squaw was occupied with her cookery, and casting repeated glances at her guests : the business at the fire was concluded very soon, and the pot placed on a sort of mat on the floor of the shaded place where we sat ; she then produced some totu- inas, or bowls of calabash, with pieces of the same material fashioned as near as possible like spoons ; a smaller bowl, it was the shell of a cocoa-nut, in which was inserted rudely a handle of cane, served for a ladle, and with which she nearly filled a small bowl and handed it to Elizabeth, and to each of us successively. Some arepa bread, with a little straw basket of limes, were placed on a neat white straw mat, and the obligations of a corresponding civility required us to partake of what had been so kindly shared.
The pot was covered with a greenish scum, and some fat appeared floating in various sized spangles on the surface. As it was evidently the food prepared for themselves, there
-••
z
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uld be no apprehension of any thing but the flavour of mess. I tasted it freely, and was very much satisfied with its composition and taste, and my companions were not backward. The sergeant, who had been familiar with all the concerns of the country, I must confess, encouraged me, as he too had his boyl, and feasted with evident satis- faction. Had we not taken a hearty meal after leaving Salti- kal, I have no doubt we should have found the soup still more delicious. However, we took sufficient for the occasion, and we had just finished when the little boy returned laden with fine pine-apples and oranges, and some smaller fruit, of which I had not seen any before or since. We ate of them all, and the sergeant was (nothing loth) requested to carry with us the pines that remained.
The composition of the soup was of different vegetables, and a small portion of tajo9 or sun-dried beef; the plantain cut in pieces; the white yucca, the apio, or root of the celery, some spices like pimento, and ginger, and abun- dance of red pepper ; bruized maize supplied the place of barley, and some aromatic herbs, of which I could not guess the name nor the resemblance. It was the common fare of the family, and the good-natured paisano appeared delighted with our satisfaction. Upon parting, I tendered him some of the current silver money, for our fare, as well as for some guarapa, which was spontaneously presented also. The ho- nest native looked as if he doubted when I presented the money, and absolutely refused to accept so much. The pine-apples were alone worth a dollar, even there where they are so abundant, and he seemed to think that some little trifles I had given the children were more than ample com- pensation ; we placed the money on the floor, and a hearty shaking of hands closed our intercourse. The poor people came after us upon the road, and remained till we were concealed from their view by the luxuriant foliage.
We reached Chopo about three o'clock, passing over a
366 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
country perfectly new and romantic, in its bold forms > long mounds of earth, with slopes of rubble, and verdant plats less steep beneath on our left, and a vast luxuriant country in our front and on our left, of which the boundaries were not visible; on our right shaggy forests of lofty trees. We entered the margin of a deep ravine, to which the descent -was unexpectedly long and tedious, but at length we reach- ed a small rivulet, the bed of a frequent torrent ; on the sides were cottages, and in the neat gardens behind them fine cab- bages of three different kinds were flourishing, the first that I had seen in the state of vegetation ; Savoys, white sugar- loaf cabbages, and the large spreading kale ; there were others, but I could not discern them so distinctly ; but some of these we purchased, which were equal to the best of the Philadelphia market. Having crossed the ravine, and ascend- ed to the right the side of the hill on which Chopo is scat- tered in detached hamlets, there appeared at first not a living being ; we passed between the ledges on which the houses were perched, and saw a few women, but women only, and apparently much alarmed ; at length, seeing a lady in company, some of them appeared to wait our approach ; but still women, and women only : the fable of the Ama- zons seemed to be here realized. Not being able to obtain an alcalde, for none appeared, and loth to intrude upon those disconcerted females, lest we should offend or more affright them, we enquired for the curate, and the church was point- ed to, at some distance ; thither we repaired, but even there too all was silence ; not even a woman was there. We at once occupied an apartment, and prepared for refreshment and repose.
The sergeant had set out in search of a supply of poultry, eggs, and vegetables, of which he purchased a good store ; he brought also an explanation of the appearances in Chopo. A conscription had taken place in that village a few days be- fore for its quota, to recruit the army of General Urdaneta ;
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 367
we had passed the very men on the road, and had noted them for the usual stiffness and constraint of recruits, with their straw hats, their long-tailed shirts, with rough embroi- dery on the tails. Those who did not like gunpowder and glory, or preferred a wandering and fearful life in the moun- tains to serving their country, had fled, leaving the women in charge of the domestic gods. One man at last appeared, who stole his way to our temporary lodging ; he was one of those whose fac simile is to be found in every country, who, having no qualities to endear or attach them to society, live by preying upon it. He pressed the sergeant to employ him for some service, who gave him two reals to purchase more eggs, very judiciously concluding, that his company might cost ten times less that way than a longer stay ; but, con- trary to the sergeant's expectations, the fellow returned, and presented eighteen eggs. The sergeant detected him in con- cealing the residue of two dozen, and the fellow had the au- dacity to demand another real, though he had taken six eggs ; the sergeant, seeing the design to cheat the old soldier, re- solved to match him, and to get rid of him at once ; under colour of giving him more, he obtained two reals back, and then seized upon the six eggs the fellow had secreted, threatening him with the calaboso^ or jail, and proceeded to uncoil one of the baggage ropes, threatening to tie him ; the sergeant anticipated what followed — the fellow sprung from the grasp of Vincent, bounded at a single vault over the pita fence, and in a few seconds was out of sight in the valley, leaving all the eggs, of which he had robbed a woman of the village, and the money he had by his own roguery failed to rob us, behind him. The sergeant, instead of pursuing this knave, went in search of the place the eggs had been pro- cured, and found the fellow had asserted that we demanded them, and would make no payment ; that she, through fear, had sent the eggs, not expecting payment. The sergeant paid her, and satisfied her we had not any concern with the
368 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
knave ; but she added that he was the terror of the neighbour- hood. We were fortunate in getting so well rid of him, as the sergeant had justly scanned his character at the first glimpse.
We resolved, after resting awhile, to stay no longer in Chopo, and moved at half past four o'clock, ascending a winding but picturesque road to the paramo, through rich forests, until we gained the point above the forest limits, and entered a region cold, and damp, and misty. Our route lay on the east side of the mountain, and the wind was at north- west. Our direction lay along the shoulder of the paramo, by which we were sheltered from the rough blasts. The road was on a flat covered with short grass, as if sheep had nipt it close as velvet ; numerous paths in the black rich loam marked the frequency of travelling, and the activity of the neighbourhood, as all the paths were fresh beaten, and nearly parallel to each other. Rain had been menacing us for some time ; and we resorted to our oil-cloth cloaks, before it should fall too heavy ; and, as the paramo stood between us and the sun, we were in a premature twilight ;* our mules, by aug- mented speed, seemed to know they were near a halting- place ; when turning a short bluff', about a dozen females, all in black, with their long dark romeros floating in the wind, and they moving as rapid as if flying from a similar group of the same questionable shape, that at some distance followed them headlong ; Elizabeth and myself were riding on the middle paths of perhaps fifty, when these murky figures passed between us and the foot of the sierra ; their ap- pearance, and the dusky state of the atmosphere, produced on Elizabeth and myself the same impression ; I was about to say, " How now, you secret, dark, and midnight hags, what is't you do ?" when Elizabeth exclaimed Macbeth's witches
;t Why, upon this blasted heath, stop you our way ?" — They rushed by us rapidly, enunciating a " Whe-e-euh\" giving unconsciously a new incident to lead the imagination
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 369
after the mind's first illusion — the second group advanced,
and fled as if in pursuit, seeming to say — Fair is foul, And foul is fair- Hover thro' the fog and filthy air.
The garments of men and women, it was before observed, changed colour on the approach to the cool region of Mu- chachees ; in the warm valley of Merida, and others, the light garments reappeared, and the black, blue, and brown colours were greater in proportion, in the order here named, now prevailed, and continued to prevail the whole way to Bogota, though lighter colours incidentally appeared where the valleys were warm ; and though the influence of foreign intercourse appeared very visibly in the garments of the opu- lent of both sexes, but more especially the females and mi- litary men.
The mist had now become a mizzle, and accompanied by slight gusts, which, as they came from behind our course, were more sufferable, and still more so when a glimpse of Pamplona broke through the haze, far, far below us, on a verdant carpet to the right as we first saw it. Winding round a steep road, cut out of the side of the steep mountain, which shut out the wind ; but the soil being a slippery clay, the descent required care, and the mule, with its accustomed sagacity, chose to traverse in oblique lines, rather than proceed straight down. The city now appeared as we changed direction to the left of our front, or, as a sail- or would say, on our larboard bow, and before we reached the plain the air moderated, the mist replaced the rain, and Pamplona appeared exactly like Caracas, a picture or a map on a verdant carpet, sloping from the north and west, and its lowest point at the south-east angle, which opened to a narrow defile, separating two lofty mountains, through which a small limpid stream gently crept from the west — it was the first stream of the Sulia, which has its source to
47
370 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the north-west of Pamplona. The valley, itself, was not open at the extremes like that of Caracas, of which it seemed to be rather a miniature ; a range of not very large moun- tains rose on its rear or north side ; the steep we descended formed the face of the valley east ; on the south the Sierra was lofty and steep ; and the north and south sides so paral- lel that it seemed as regular a parallelogram as if so designed. The west face of the valley was a slope, which, though it com- pleted the parallelogram, was not abrupt or elevated like the other three sides, but gradually rose in the distance to an equal height, as we afterwards found the road to the capital leading over it. Elizabeth, and the sergeant, and myself, had push- ed on with more rapidity than the rest, and we presented ourselves at the commandant's quarters, whom we found the handsome well equipt Colonel Guerra ; he had been but a few days in office, but invited us to sit down, and ordered some anniseed liqueur, which was brought with biscuits. He sent an order to receive us in the former aduana, or custom house, which had ceased with the abrogation of the Alcavala, and we proceeded thither.
In the commandant's quarters we saw the first window closed against the external air, an indication of the humidity or coldness of the climate ; there were no sashes nor frames occu- pied by glass, but they consisted of pannels of fine linen, which gave a tempered light in a bright atmosphere, but when it rained gave a very gloomy light, and to us a fire would have been a comfort. But an opinion or a prejudice prevails here and at Bogota, that domestic fires are pernicious to health ; and thus sometimes they are content to shiver rather than obtain warmth by fire ; hence the diseases of the inci- dental kind that prevail here, are the face-ache, tooth-ache, and sometimes slight catarrh among old people, arising from this uncomfortable prejudice. The chambers in the house of the commandant, for they are generally two stories high, had double sets of doors ; that is, the ordinary upright door,
£
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and another which was not upright ; outside the chamber two jambs were fixed in an inclined position projecting six or eight inches from the wall ; to one of these jambs, a frame covered with strong linen was fixed by hinges; and so of other doors ; the philosophy of double doors, which the boors of Russia had conceived, was devised also here in the cold valleys of the Andes, within the tropics 7° north latitude, where the same expedients were resorted to, by in- terposing a column of air between the external atmosphere and the house.
The Sulia I observed flowed from the north-west of the plain to the opening in the mountain, in that direction we learn- ed lay the celebrated gold country — erroneously called a mine — I saw at the treasury of Bogota, a rude lump of the native ore, found in one of the washings of this region, weigh- ing about seven pounds. The washings were obstructed when we were there, as I felt an inclination to visit and see them in operation, but some renegadoes had been sent thither by the Spaniards to intercept the collection of gold, and they threatened all persons found there with death.
37S
CHAPTER XXIV.
Pamplona a general military depot—order of the arsenal— military drills— novel mode of training horses to the fire — comparison with the Persian horseman- ship—delayed for mules— hints for travellers — supplied from the depot — leave Pamplona— field works of Morillo — Paramo of Cocota— dismal place — the white house — a loom for woollen weaving —a domestic missing — returns — and is discharged — Chataga— three routes to Tunja— take the central — moun- tain characteristics — Cerrito — Volcan de Jlgua. — lavadura de Oro — the village of Cerrito— mills numerous in the valley — fine grain country — Jlssuncion— -. the good Franciscan curate.
PAMPLONA is a military depot for artillery, cavalry, in- fantry— for discipline — and a military hospital — and an arsenal for arms of every kind ; the latter was under the direction of a French officer, who, after serving with eclat in several campaigns, had retired after the battle of Carabobo to Mara- caibo, and had acquired a handsome fortune, which he lost on the taking of that place by Morales. He returned to the army and was received, and appointed to this charge. The business going on was all judicious and efficient ; the order established in it, the effective benefits, particularly in the repair of arms, have repaid its expenditures twenty fold.
Pamplona, if it had roads of communication suitable for mercantile transportation and travelling, such as are in other countries, would be, from its cool climate, position, and the richness of the country all round it, a place of great import- ance ; indeed it must become so as the prosperity of the republic grows. However, it is by no means so cold as our spring or autumn days in March and October in Philadel- phia ; it is only after being some time habituated to the warm- er regions that its atmosphere may be called cold. The forests are never unclothed, perpetual verdure prevails, and frost or snow is never known but as it is seen on very dis-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 373
tant and more elevated Paramos. A vigorous muscu- lar frame is characteristic of the population of all de- grees, from Caracas to this place, and in all parts of the republic that I have visited ; at Pamplona the forms of per- sons are perceptibly more vigorous, and their gait more bold and elastic.
I found it difficult to obtain mules here, and was delayed on that account some days. As the morning air was brisk and delightful, I made some rambles of curiosity ; and as the knowledge of any particular art or science is apt to be accom- panied by a desire to see and make comparisons with the knowledge of others on the same subject, in my morning's walk I accidentally came upon the ground of exercise, where I had an opportunity of not only seeing what I had some prac- tical acquaintance with handsomely performed, and entirely to my taste, but witnessed a mode of training horses to the fire of artillery, and the artillerists to practise, which I had neither seen nor heard of before.
The drill of light troops was carrying on in the manner of the American rifle corps, and I found that there was a transla- lation into Spanish of the rifle drills, which I had published when lieu tenant -colonel of the first United States rifle regi- ment. The drill was handsomely conducted by young subal- tern officers, who, besides judgment, took great pleasure and great pains to instruct the young troops, and, to do them bare justice, they were certainly not so awkward as some that have come under my observation elsewhere, and, what is more remarkable, I do not recollect having seen recruits in the regular service take more delight in their first exercises.
The training of the horses came upon me wholly by sur- prise, and, as I was alone, I did not choose to ask questions ; aware that, during a state of war, strangers should be particularly cautious of making inquiries, and especially where there are depots. I was, therefore, waiting to see the practice of a handsome battery of brass field pieces, arranged
374 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
on the west or lowest side of the great plaza, which is more than half a mile in length north and south, as the city stands upon the higher or north side of the plane. The artillerists, after performing a short infantry drill, or movement, to gay dancing music, took possession of their battery, and com- menced a regular fire from right to left — suddenly a nume- rous drove, perhaps three hundred horses, without even a halter, entered upon the south-west angle of the Plaza. A considerable number of peons> who had them in charge, accompanied the horses behind, and at each side, and they were brought into a promiscuous group in that angle of the plaza nearest to the batteries. The artillerists had, at the signal of a bugle, taken their stations at the guns, and were governed throughout by the bugle. Whether this practice grew out of what all experience teaches, that animals, and men among the rest, acquire more confidence, and even en- counter danger with less timidity in association, than sepa- rate ; or whether it was a practice discovered by accident, and pursued in consequence of its demonstrated efficacy, is not material. Upon a signal from the bugle, the horses were put in motion by the peons, so placed as to cause that motion to be continued in a circle. The horses had com- pleted the circle three or four times, all in a mass, when the remotest piece of artillery was discharged, the concussion put the horses into more rapid action, and another gun, somewhat nearer, had a like effect ; a third produced a still greater celerity ; but the fourth, fifth, and sixth guns were rapidly fired, and the movement could not be more accelerated, they were as much at speed as their crowded circumstances would admit ; the firing continued from right to left, and the horses were gradually brought to move in a slower pace, and so continued through another range of dis- charges. Guns were then fired alternately from the right and the left, with an interval, and became more rapid in such alternation ; there was some little starting at the sud-
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denness and remoteness, and alternate nearness of the fire ; some horses endeavoured to escape, but the active peons were at hand, and compelled them to keep within the circle. A rapid and random fire succeeded, the horses pursued their circular motion, their circle became more ample, and they assumed a gallop, as was desired. A short pause enabled the horses to respire, for they were already warm, and it was contrived to give their circle of action a greater expansion, on a figure approaching an ellipsis; at length they were brought to move along the front of the fire, and return and wheel again while the fire was continued. The exercises were finished by the random fire of the light infantry drill. The horses at length became quiet, and on the third day (I did not see them when exercised on the second) I found that the horses followed three or four mounted men, and came right or left about as the mounted horses led.
I understood these drills were preparatory to mounting, as the horses had only just arrived from the plains ; and that as soon as they moved without panic in the presence of the fire, they were to be put into a drill mounted, which was not, upon their manege principles, so essential, but as to the horse, the men are so much masters of the seat and hand, and at a mounted drill I understood they moved close under the fire without swerving. I have given the general plan and mode of the drill, rather than the particular description of any one day's exercise. The system was methodical and perfectly successful. No people that I have seen are equal to the South Americans in the perfect command, or the dauntless confidence with which they mount the wildest horse ; the Persians are as graceful and confident riders, but the Persian horse is not caught wild and mounted the moment he is caught; the Persian horse is kept with tied fetlocks, by ropes affixed to two stakes about four feet in front, and two more four feet in the rear of him ; he feeds with his hind limbs stretched, and without the bit ; yet is seldom
376 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
tamed, or as completely within the government of his rider 's hand as the horse of Colombia, where the horse retains his wildness on the pasture, but obeys the rider with the readiness of the spaniel. The Persian relies mostly upon his bit, the Colombian on his spurs; though only in a greater degree, both use the heavy bit and long-pronged rowel. The Colombian will mount the wildest horse, and, before he dismounts, the horse is tame and obedient. The training of the Persian horse is a tedious service.
The circumstances of Pamplona, as a central depot for so many various services, and the army being then in motion for the neighbourhood of Maracaibo, the demand for horses and mules for public service was immense, and we remained five days in Pamplona, unable to procure any, at any price ; reflecting that the governor, having but recently taken charge, might not have been acquainted with the orders which had passed on, and had procured us so much attention and com- fort on the greater part of the road, I addressed a short note to the commandant, and sent with it the letter of General Clemente, Intendant of Sulia, to me, fromj Betijoque, and some other documents, which experience in travelling through other countries had taught me the importance of — and I sent the sergeant to the governor, who, upon the peru- sal, immediately ordered mules from the public depot, ex- pressed his regret at my detention, and gave me a passport from himself, to be used when it should be necessary. We had mules at the time he appointed, and, on Sunday, 18th January, at noon, we ascended the mountain, at the foot of which the little brook of the Sulia wound its way along the plain from the north-west.
About half a mile from the foot of the ascent we reached a ridge, the prolongation of which was in the line of descent, and at both sides Choked up with deep forest. At this place Morillo, in one of his military operations, cut the ridge com- pletely across, and established a formidable battery ; no po-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 377
sition would seem to be better chosen, or adapted to cut off all intercourse on that side with Pamplona. It was a trench of ten feet in depth, transversely with the line of the ridge, along which the only road lay ; but we learned that it had been turned by a division of the Colombians, and that some of the guns in the arsenal, which we had seen, were aban- doned by Morillo, the surprise of the attack was so vigorous. The ditch had been filled up, to a certain extent, broad enough for a mule road ; but the extent on both sides re- mained as it first was formed, and keeps up remembrance.
The Sierra which we had to pass was very arid when we began to descend, and the steeps tremendous, by which we reached Cocota, a village so miserable, and the steeps so dreary and desolate, that we determined to pass into a better region ; and crossed a tolerable bridge over a small river, ascending the steep side of a chalky, craggy road, through which we gained a mild and verdant region. We could discern, at several miles distance, before we descended the dismal Sierra of Cocota, a white house on the green ridges in front, and thither we moved. The climate, and the aspect of the landscape, had all changed in this short transit of not more than three leagues from Cocota. We found, on reach- ing this place, that it was habitually resorted to, but, as the usages of the country establish hospitality, every house on a road is accustomed freely to afford the traveller accommo- dation, when there is space to receive him. We rode up under this knowledge, and the old husbandman, without hesitating, crossed his coral, and led us to a hovel, where we found standing a rude formed loom, adapted to the weaving of very coarse woollen or cotton. Here we hung up our ham- mocks, but we missed our cook Pedro, and had to draw upon the talents of Vincent for the quieting of our appetites, which were very much excited by this day's varied and tiresome journey : Vincent here unfolded his skill in cookery
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to great advantage, and we were enabled to retire to rest without the necessity of a taper.
Pedro had charge of Elizabeth's black mule, which had re- quired to be spared, in order to retrieve it ; but he had con- trived to lose the mule on which he had himself rode, and after severely wounding the black mule under his care, rode into the coral when we were in the moment of departure. De- termined to do without him, and as he had been indiscreetly paid at Pamplona, and we had no tie upon him, but the dif- ficulty of escaping, if he committed any outrageous mischief, he had in fact spent his money in drunkenness at Cocota. He was here discharged ; and the best remedies of the Ser- geant's skill, as a horse-doctor, were called forth, and with most complete success ; in a few days he cured a wound which threatened to disable the mule for ever.
It was ten o'clock, on the 19th of January, before we left the White house, and late when we reached Chataga, on a river of the same name, over which there is a rude, but conve- nient, bridge. This place was considered formerly as the commencement of a forest of the same name, and though the forests do not appear so stupendous as others we have passed, the route is in that state which may, without impropriety, be called a wilderness. We passed the night at this place, and by nine o'clock on the 20th were in motion for the mid- dle route by Anciso.
At Chataga there is a choice of three routes to Tunja, and it is difficult to say which is the worst. That to the east side of the ridge leads by El Pilar, Betoye, Patute, Pinas. Manare, Pore, Marcotc, and Paya, to Tunja.
The route to the west of the Sierra was by Sulia, Sarrare, across the river Chichimacho, St. Gil, Obia, II Tirano, Soba- ya, Velez, and Leyva, to Tunja.
The road we pursued was central, and we selected it be- cause mules are not so easily and certainly obtained on the collateral roads in any part of the country, as in that which
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the armies, and merchandise travel ; nor is subsis- tence for travellers so good, or the police so regardful of their duty. Indeed, all the routes were described in such horrible terms, that we were very well prepared to be disappointed if any thing agreeable should occur.
Our route therefore was from Puenta,Chataga,Cerrito, Cer- rito Nueva, the Paramos, Tecuia, Conception, Capitanejo, Suta,Asuncion, Sativa,Chota, Pesea, Serinza, Sogomoso,Dhi- lamo, and Tunja.
The country at this point beyond Pamplona is very strong- ly marked by the divergency of vast spurs of the Cordillera, like the radii from a great centre ; the lofty chain of the Chisga shoots off like the trunk of an immense tree, with nu- merous and monstrous branches, whose intervals form valleys, and whose streams contribute to the beautiful and splendid Apure ; the chain of Merida lies to the south-east, having several parallel ridges and valleys, which break their main continuity to discharge their waters to the north, or south, or east ; the chain of Pidraza sends its branches into Varinas ; and that grand chain which terminates its sublime and snow- clad summits in the verge of the ocean at Santa Marta, has its separation and its stem at this place, and shoots forth its lofty ridges due north from this point ; while the ridge over which we were passing, and between the wild chains of which we found Cerrito, there was visible the effects of an overflowing of a water volcano : the main direction here is from north to south, prolonged south from the point at where the eastern ridges diverge.
The Galinazo, which washes the valley, and carries off the countless streams of Capitanejo, has its line from north-east to south west, as far as Tunja, where its great lines of ele- vation are constantly thrown into groups, whose heads are lost in the clouds, but whose feet appear to rest on level plains, from which they seem to rise abruptly, leaving vast levels, and windings round their sides, which afford outlets for the waters to flow, the traveller to pass in shade at all hours, and
380 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the herds to be transferred without ascending the Sierra, Whoever imagines that the Andes are an unbroken chain or a comparatively narrow ridge, mistakes the whole character of those sublime elevations. There is a grouping and inter- section throughout the country, from the Silla of Caracas to the snow-clad ridges of Chisga, which unites the ridges east and south-east of Bogota with the great double chain of Quito. Before we descended this inclined plane leading to Cerrito, a stream sustained by artificial embankments, and about twelve feet wide, crossed our route obliquely from right to left, and wound round an ample space enclosed by stone walls. A timber platform over the stream led to a gate, inside of which was a porter's lodge, and a family with several fine children : we were admitted, and halted ; and, on enquiring as to the cause of the water of the stream being dark and foul, and the banks covered with what seemed to be ashes ; for the stream had overflowed on both sides, and left a ridge of several inches deep upon the banks and the ground ad- jacent, while the stream still continued to flow rapidly, loaded with this muddy, gray, ashes-like substance, and which spread all round, and into the lower valley more than a mile — an in- telligent and civil little man, who was seated on a bench in the corridor of the lodge, informed me that a mountain, to which he pointed, (and whose black bleak summit seemed at top to form the edge of a circular mound and bason,} had a few days before cast forth a volcan de agua, an immense body of water ; that the flood was so great as to undermine and overthrow immense bodies of rocks, and to change the whole aspect and shape of the ridges which before existed there ; and pointed to the new appearances, the stupendous perpendicular cliffs opening on each side to crevices more deep, the naked rocks presenting ochreous and rusted shades, but on projecting ledges displaying piled ridges of the same ashes-like sub- stance, and streams of the same feculence : there is no possi- bility of describing by words the wild disorder of this place. It appeared that the crevice which we saw next the road was
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 38l
but a narrow opening to a more spacious area, from which several vallies opened in different points ; that some of those valleys were now closed up, and ravines replaced former mounds of rock ; piles heaped on piles of this ruin of the mountain were partly visible, and, connected with the ideas of the phenomena communicated by the narrator, formed an object sublime and terrific.
Had we not halted to procure some water at the porter's lodge, this occurrence might have escaped us, with only the bare view of the ashes on the embankment, and the turbid appearance of the stream. I had dismounted, with a view to walk and supple my joints, and had entered into chat with this stranger ; some sprightly children had selected me out, and were amusing themselves and me by their innocent prattle, and giving me, — with their broad black opened eyes, and extended hands, with their palms uppermost, relating in their brief phrases the wonders which I did not yet compre- hend— el volcan terrible — el manga de aguay arpeso — una vortice del areo — una turbellino de la montana ! — atonito ! — y marviliosamente ! I should have remained in the dark still, had not the stranger made me acquainted, as above, with the really marvellous and astonishing subjects of their inno- cent communicativeness. The stranger said the torrent that rushed out of the crevice in view, spread over the whole valley, more than a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, and that enormous masses of rock were removed from posi- tions which they had possessed from time immemorial ; that there were heavy showers of rain, thunder, and lightning, and frequent gushes from the cerro, the roar of which was heard ; that some of the ravines were filled, and steep preci- pices undermined, by whose fall spacious levels were con- verted into steeps, and new spaces that opened ascents to the mountains before unknown ; and that the stream continued to bring away the gray ashes-like substance as we saw it. He added, that before this phenomenon, that ravine led to a lavadura d'cro, or gold washing ; that a party had gone from
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Cerrito, since the inundation, to visit the washing, and had not since been heard of.
There being an appearance of rain on the brow of the ccrro, and not wishing to be deluged in ashes, we parted with those people, who had, during little more than an hour's stay, sought many ways to entertain and oblige us ; we bade our adioS) and moved through the rocky fragments to the valley where Cerrito was scattered upon the shoulders and sides of hills, although the rain had on our way called forth our oil-cloth cloaks. The appearance of the village is in ac- cordance with its name, which signifies steep, craggy, elevated and inaccessible mountains, indicating too probably that phe- nomena such as had recently occurred were not entirely new. The groups of houses stood on detached verdant hills, through which the open doors gave perspective views of other hills ; and little gardens appeared beyond and contiguous, and seemed like carpets hung up to air or dry. We obtained very good quarters, and purchased some very fine fresh butter, though insipid, from the want of salt, to which there appears to be an unaccountable aversion throughout the country ; so that in the most respectable houses, we have been under the necessity of requesting sait^which/though used by us only in the mode- rate manner customary in the United States as a condiment, excited great surprise, and sometimes cautions for our health's sake ; for myself, I suspect, that the use of salt would be a preventive of that very unpleasant disease the Goitre. This village of scattered hillocks, notwithstanding the desolation of the Volcan de Agua in its neighbourhood, has every ap- pearance of prosperity, and the turbid stream which we pass- ed in the plain above, was here employed in turning some wheels of mills, at which good wheat was converted into flour, for the country surrounding ; and the view of the coun- try south was that of a plain laughing with abundance.
About six o'clock, the 21st of January, we left the first Cerrito, and before nine passed a second village of the same name, but of a more regular and handsome appearance ; this
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 383
ige, and the next called Asuncion, stand on the side of the valley, on a broad bank of half a mile width at the foot of the mountain, but half a mile above the broad rich fields of grain that on every side covered the spacious valley. Asuncion had an appearance of newness or neatness ; the houses were all whitened on the outside and inside ; and the church was airy, light, and handsome, in perfect harmony with its vil- lage. This neatness was accounted for by the harvests which it overlooked, and showed that, whatever may be the general deficiency or neglect to use the gifts presented by nature, here a better police, or wiser judgments, led to wealth — that is, true wealth, the capacity to possess and enjoy the bounties of heaven. Wherever this aspect does not appear, if nature has not denied the means, it is an unerring proof that the public administration is imperfect, neglectful of its duties, and should be changed. It is in the power of every govern- ment to form the character of the people, and render them capable of assuring their own happiness. The man who does not believe so, is unfit for public trust. Mankind are naturally too fond of comfort and enjoyment, to disregard either, when either is acquirable ; and no criterion of the character of a government is so infallible as the condition of the population. The village of Asuncion was a striking example of these truths. We had not yet become acquainted with the author of this prosperity, neatness, and superiority of condition visi- ble in Asuncion, where its neatness, order, and general com- fort appeared so strong as to mark its peculiarity. It was the work of a worthy Franciscan, Fra. Joachim GaraVz,with whom we soon after became acquainted on the road, and who ac- companied us with little deviations from Santa Rosa to Tunja. The account of his happy curacy was not derived from him- self, but from others with whom we had intercourse. He said nothing of himself, and I feel persuaded that he travelled only to afford us civilities, and exchange for good offices the information we could severally give.
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CHAPTER XXV.
New appearances. — Anciso. — The Goitre. — Ruins. — Cotton cleaning by a tninia* ture gin.— Meet a traveller. — New and wild route— imperfectly described- steep ascent and tremendous descent.— Capitanejo. — The Gallinazo river. — Savage mountain bluffs and fertile valley.— Liberty tree, an extraordinary scaly palm. — Assiduous and civil alcalde. — Celebrated bridge — described. — Strange sight.— A vidette. — A cavalcade. — The clerical and civil functionaries of Suata — generous reception — hospitality— luxuriant country — agreeable re- pose and entertainment— leave Suata.— Another Tartar. — Susacon— munici- pality come out to conduct us. — The Calderon family — militia muster — hand- some population — tall, very fair complexioned — well clothed — deficient in arms —superabundant feast— fine fresh butter— economy of the dairy.— Curate of Sativa — new hospitalities — departure — appearances of the country.
THE country which had presented such variety of strange forms and aspects, continued to vary its features, at every stage. Plains had become more frequent in the prospect, and the peopled tracts showed vast flocks of cattle, of dif- ferent kinds. We had now, however, to pass a long range of paramo, through thick forests, where the exclusion of the sun's rays and the black soil made the road a series of mule, ladders, most fatiguing to the precious animal, and constantly appealing to the experience and commiseration of the rider. We at length descended, crossed the broad valley to the left or south-east side, and travelled on the foot of the mountain, over a rocky soil, south to Anciso ; which we reached about four o'clock, but much fatigued, and determined to halt there that night. We found the people here, and none more so than the alcaldes, attentive and solicitous to render us civility. The goitre, which had become more frequent since we left the Chitaga, here, perhaps, affected every tenth person, and men, to appearance, the most. The second alcalde, who took some pleasure in communicativeness, although he was at constant pains, though in vain, to cover, with a muslin
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 385
scarf, three large tubercles of goitre, which grew perpendicu- lar to his chin in front, and occupied all the space beneath both ears, was not backward in touching on the subject of his disease. He informed me that all his children were af- flicted by goitre, and that one of his sons was afflicted to idiocy by the disease ; that this was a very general effect on the children of parents who had goitre.
On the 23d we left Anciso about nine o'clock, the sun's rays so ardently reflected by the white, sandy, and rocky re- gion, over which we were now passing, though on the north skirt of the mountain, that we were induced to enter the ruins of a sugar-mill, of which there yet remained some excellent wrecks of good mechanism. The shed, open at the sides, was more than thirty yards long, and about forty feet broad. There were some young people here engaged in cleaning .cotton from the pod, who received us without surprise or apparent concern, offering civilities, and performing them without bashfulness or forwardness ; and returning to their occupations, while they freely, hut modestly spoke when they were questioned.
The cotton-tree was seen all around in its utmost luxu- riance ; cacao and sugar fields, watered by numerous rivu- lets, flowing below the scite. They had a very simple, but small machine, employed in extricating the seed from the cotton ; two upright wooden shafts, about thirty inches in length, two and a half inches in breadth, and three quarters of an inch thick, were made firm to a block below, so that the faces of the two upright shafts stood parallel, at a dis- tance of about four inches. By means of mortices in the two shafts, two cylinders of iron, three quarters of an inch in diameter, were so placed, one over the other, and adjusted by bolsters below, and wedges above, as to admit the en- largement of the space between the cylinders at discretion. The cylinders were not more than three quarters of an inch thick, and upon the lowermost was fixed a piece of ox-hide
49
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with the hair outside and short, serving as a card or brush, which constantly remained on the cylinder as it revolved. Both cylinders had rounces or handles, like that of a grind- stone or domestic coffee-mill, one at each side, and a boy or girl turned each a cylinder, so that each person turning the cylinder outward from himself, the two cylinders revolved in the same direction with each other, and the fleece from the pod being placed at the line where the two cylinders united, the hair skin on the lower cylinder caught the ends of the fleece, and so turning until the contents of the pod was exhausted; the fleece appeared on the other side in a clear and beautiful web, and the seed remained behind, falling in a basket prepared to receive them. The cleansed cotton was then laid several layers one on the other, and put up in small rolls or knots. The machine as to effect was perfect, but susceptible of improvement, and capable of being wrought with one person's labour instead of three ; or of being turned by any of the mechanical forces which are usually employed elsewhere.
A merchant of Maracaibo, who is well known in Philadel- phia, met us at the foot of the steep we were about to ascend ; he was from Bogota, for Caracas, and we exchanged our news, and learned the rumours from the opposite directions in which we were travelling. The paramo we were ascending led into a recess, retiring from the deep glen along which we had marched ; the valley terminated in two immense masses of perpendicular rock, beyond which, crossing their steep extre- mities, the glitter of the sun betrayed the rapid rush of a river. It was the Capitanejo, which we were to see at full length on the other side of the ridge we were now ascending, under the name of Galinazo; our route passing over wild and savage piles of rock, on beds of loose fragments of gray and white sand- stone, threatening to slide from its precarious and tempora- ry bed at the slightest pressure, and crush every thing be- neath ; piles of rock below indicating the frequency of such
I
TO COLOMBIA. 387
formidable ruptures and projections. By various contor- tions and laborious windings, we gained the summit ; and, on looking down, the point of our ascent appeared underneath our feet ; it was like travelling up the steep slope of one of those sharp-roofed houses which were formerly so frequent, and are not yet rare, constructed as it would appear to pre- vent the deposit of heavy beds of snow ; the very top of this mountain was an angle as acute as a ridge tile, upon which a mule could not stand on either side without one end elevated and the other depressed. We expected to find the opposite side a similarly pulverised mass ; but, though the unusually ardent sun made the face of this mountain ap- pear to send forth a glowing effervescence, we found the descent only different in kind and variety of danger and difficulty. It was a sort of perpendicular quarry, which some violence of nature had scooped out of the mountain, and formed into a semi- circular wall of freestone ; a gap or path appeared to have been picked out obliquely into a sort of gallery, formed of the shelving rock ; the face of this curv- ed wall, or well, was a trough of loose, angular, shifting frag- ments of stone, from an inch to four inches on the face of the angles, a sort of rubble, such as is shoved out of a stone- cutter's yard, but more fragile ; on a scaffold about three feet broad, where broadest, having the resemblance of steep stairs or a winding terrace, or what other name may be applied to it, partaking of all, and like neither ; looking over the side, which was unavoidable, the chasm below looked tremendous; and if it had been the first place of danger we had met and overcome, might have induced hesitation before we attempt- ed to descend. I dismounted — not doubting the excellence of my mule, to which I should have committed myself blindfold any where, but the rubble was so unequal that the mule's legs were often hid, and I feared cut by the unsteady mass on which it trod ; — a stone beneath his foot, with my weight on his back, might, by defeating his instinct, have
3,88 V'ISIT TO COLOMBIA.
canted me over along with the mule, and finished my jour- ney more awkwardly than was desirable ; the ease of the faithful mule, I confess, was a consideration with me. Yet my philosophy was overcome before I had descended half the way, and I remounted. Elizabeth and Richard kept their seats with as much sangfroid as if they were in a theatre, and amused themselves with the extravagant sports of na- ture every where around us, or as if they were only looking at paintings.
Arrived at the foot of this prodigious work of unciviliza- tion, looking to the south, the river which rises in the Sier- ra of Albaracin, south of Bogota, and which, before it reach- es this valley is called the Galiinazo, but here is called, after the town by which it passes, the Capitanejo, was before us in full length : after it leaves this valley, till it unites its waters, under the name of the Sagomoza, with the rivers Suares, Moscos, and Sarrare, takes the name of the Chia and Chichamocha, till its descent into the Magdalena, where its waters form a spacious port called La Torra, a long time abandoned, but, from its position and facilities, likely to be- come an important commercial entrepot at no remote period.
This river moved in very ample volume from the south, and so near, before it turned off to the west, that its rapidity and unusual line of descent were very perceptible. More than half a mile wide, its rapidity resembled the swell of a mill-race, immediately after its issue from the gorge of the dam, and its force against the foot of the lofty mountain of rock, against which it drove like the impulse of a battering ram, bore at its base, and on the face of its cliffs, not only the evidence of greater violence and greater elevation, but that the constancy of its action had frequently detached vast mas- ses from above, and produced that magnificent disorder which its front presented. Passing the eye to the. left from this point where we had halted to breathe and congratulate each other on our escape from the house-top, the town of Capi- tanejo stood on an elevated ground which sloped towards the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 389
left of our then position, and on the east side of the river which occupied the west side of the valley, with its single but grand palm tree, elevating its scaly stem 120 feet, top- ped by the elegant forms of its fan -shaped leaves and branches; we travelled towards the town over a path that paid annual tribute to the accumulating floods of this valley ; the sides of which were every where cut into trenches, and opened their mouths to the common reservoir, leaving their chasms open like the teeth of a saw ; the face of the coun- try around was in wild disorder, yet upon the space contigu- ous to the ordinary elevation of the floods in the rainy season, haciendas and trapiches send forth their beautiful products and their rich odours. We entered the town about five o'clock, and found the alcalde in the suburb, as if he had received intimations of our approach ; he led us through the great square by the foot of that palm which we had distin- guished in the distance. He told us it was the liberty-tree planted by the people soon after the revolution, and here it was that all public orations were delivered, and festivities celebrated along with those of the church, near which it stood, surrounded by a well-built cube of masonry of ten feet on the face. I had supposed that the palms of Hindus- tan and Pegue surpassed all others for their altitude, magni- tude, and the regularity of their stems, but this excelled in all respects any that I had seen in Asia. We were conducted to very comfortable quarters, and had leisure to change our garments, and take a ramble, as we constantly practised when our fatigue was not excessive, or our arrival too late.
I had heard very much of the bridge of Capitanejo ; it had been represented to me as if it was a new wonder of the world ; perhaps this exaggeration was one of the causes that our admiration fell short of this general opinion in the town and country around : it was held forth as being thrown over the river where it was unusually wide, deep, and rapid. Had this celebrity been qualified by referring to the humble state
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of all the arts, obstructed and cut off by Spanish desire of perpetuating barbarism ; had it been shown as an object pro- duced, where there was neither science nor models for imi- tation ; and in the entire absence of those implements which facilitate and finish the works of well-conducted labour ; or had it been the work of an untutored Indian, though still nowise a prodigy, it might have commanded more admira- tion ; but the river does not exceed seventy feet in breadth ; and, instead of six or seven fathoms, it was not more than ten feet deep. Though the torrent which must pass beneath it in the wet season must be stupendous, it is not more than about a fifth of the waters of the valley which enter its chan- nel above the bridge, as the bridge is not distant from the upper extremity of the valley, which is about three miles and a half long, and about two miles broad.
Capitanejo is on the more elevated part of the east side of the valley, and it is united by the bridge with a causeway well formed, having flank or wing walls of good masonry, broad and inclining outward as you approach the causeway, and closing as the bridge is approached. There was skill and forecast, and labour judiciously applied on this part of the work, which had a gradual ascent to the immediate en- trance upon the bridge ; good buttresses of stone- work sus- tained the walls of the causeway, and the road on the surface was excellent. Having gained the summit of the causeway, the entrance to the bridge is closed by a double gate of good workmanlike execution, and the bridge being " -well housed" with a competent roof; within the gates are apartments for the keepers. I think it was a media for every unburdened mule and head of cattle, that is the sixteenth of a dollar, six and a quarter cents — laden mules paying double. The mi- litary and members of the government are exempted from toll, and no doubt the religious also.
The roof over the bridge was constructed in a good plain style of carpentry, that betrayed in its forms a foreign hand ;
there both
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was an attempt at a rough facade on the exterior of th sides, though it was not until after passing midway, or after crossing and moving out of the line of its prolongation, that the pediment above and the gallery-like hand-rail were seen to advantage, and the principle of the bridge brought to the eye. Another gate and lodge was on the west side, and was entered from another cause-way ; the platform or path of the bridge about fifteen feet above the surface of the river. The bridge is not an arch of wood or stone ; the piers on- ly are of massy stone, well wrought into masonry, ten feet above the water level. Upon the summit of the stone piers floors of the most durable timbers of the country are formed, the squared ends side by side projecting over the stream about twelve to fifteen inches ; another floor is laid upon the first, of which the ends projecting over the first, as the first project beyond the stone pier ; a third still projects farther, until the height required is gained ; and the like process on the opposite side ; the courses being ten or twelve, say ten, gives a projection of twelve to fifteen feet over the river. Beams adapted to the space unoccupied are now thrown across, and by the usual sort of carpentry the whole are so se- cured, that the superstructure becomes an easy ordinary work. The timbers, of which the ends project, being very long and buried in a bed of stone and mortar, so as to ex- clude moisture and bind them in their position, left only the wing-walls and the braced causeways to finish the work. The workmanship is more useful than elegant, and be- trays the hand of a European carpenter, who in his rambles through the world, discovered that with very moderate me- chanical skill he could render great benefit ; though his suc- cess seems to have turned his head, having abandoned la- bour. I understood he was now travelling through the sur- rounding country living upon the fame of the bridge of Ca- pitanejo, and is looked upon much in the same light as
392 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
Faust the printer, who it was believed could never have ac- complished such works without the aid of the devil.
The utility of this bridge is unquestionable, as the toll testifies. On the 24th January we crossed the Capitanejo at a quarter before nine o'clock, and proceeded without any in- cident unusual, until we halted in the forest, at a rivulet, where we remained some time in the delicious shade ; we were again on our way towards Suata about four o'clock, when the sergeant, whose military habits had made his eye a perpetual centinel, discovered a sort of tartar- look ing cava- lier, or outscout, apparently reconnoitring, and who, upon obtaining a distinct view of our party, took to his ass's heels and scoured the plain, the side of the precipice, and the val- ley, as if his Pegasus, like that of Belerephon, had wings ; and in truth the appearance of his romero floating on the wind ho- rizontally behind, gave him the appearance of flying : the sergeant had set out with his lance couched, the very mo- ment he discovered this vidette, but he lost the race, and he had just commenced a prognostic of some danger, when an enemy, of a different character from that he apprehended, ap- peared in front, and spoiled his anticipation.
A cavalcade of fifty or sixty persons moved towards us, and from among them the Beierephon who had excited the sergeant's vigilance rode up, and enquired for me by name, intimating that the curate, and alcalde, aud the principal citizens of Suata had come to escort us into town, and pray our company to an entertainment. The curate himself now approached, and after introductions had passed round, we moved into Suata, bag and baggage, in the midst of this live- ly civic train.
We alighted at the house of the curate, a cheerful jolly gentleman, without any of the starch of clerical stiffness, and as we found, on nearer acquaintance, without any of that in- solent austerity, which so ill becomes a Christian pastor, and casts a gloom over moments that cannot be rationally taken
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human happiness, and wherever practised, or by whatever t, ag-iinst another, or their educated opinions, is always a )f of superstition in him who is capable of displaying it. lad we been his richest and most bountiful parishioners he could not have treated us more kindly, irom whom he had nothing to expect.
We were at our ease in a moment ; several citizens, men of good intelligence, formed a little assemblage, and the cu- rate, who was more conversant on human affairs ancient and recent, than might have been expected in so remote a quarter of the Andes, and especially so near Capitanejo, which looked like that chaos which was at the beginning, and is to be at the end of the world.
The country here had a very different aspect, and a little enthusiasm and a little imagination well mixed up, might make out of it a better paradise than some ingenious men have heretofore demonstrated. The air was exhilarating, the country rich and blooming, and every one solicitous to oblige us ; we were conducted into a commodious and well-fur- nished apartment, where we found glass windows, and a table spread with snow-white damask, and an ample and luxurious feast. The table was exactly full ; and, although the curate was abstemious himself, he put about the bottle of excellent Canary with the course of the sun, and gave some compli- mentary and some political toasts, and appeared as full of en- joyment as if he partook himself of the circling glass. He had appropriated some sweet wines, real sack, for the Sefto- rita Americana, as he called Elizabeth ; and for us all no en- tertainment could be more timely, nor more agreeable, from the kindness with which it was given. We enjoyed it the more upon contrasting the present with our passage over the short roof, and over the wall of the freestone well, and (I was going to say) the infernal regions of Capitanejo ; but these recollections soon fled before our present enjoyments, and our good spirits : our pleasure had not flagged when
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the coftce appeared in social style, followed by chocolate in freshness and fragrance ; and so we sipped and chatted till it was near nine ; and if Elizabeth had not unwittingly yawned, which the attentive curate translated into a signal for retiring, I think I should have been apt to have sat till midnight. It was a two- story house, and the curate himself led and placed us in the separate but contiguous rooms that had been prepared for us. Every convenience that could be found in an opulent house in Philadelphia, we found here; excellent feather beds, and sheeting, napkins, basons, soap, brushes, mirrors, &c.
We rose at seven o'clock on the 26th of January, and a breakfast awaited us with the kind gratulations of the wor- thy priest ; we had trays of fine and various fruit, coffee and chocolate, fine white bread, sponge cake, and the never- failing sweetmeats. It being Sunday, while our host was at prayers, we made an inspection of our wardrobes and a change of apparel, which our comfortable close apartments enabled us to do at leisure, and we spent the day most agreeably.
We left Suata, accompanied by our good curate and friends, who escorted us into town, and parted with them at ten. The sergeant said he should be content to live at Suata a couple of months ; but at the moment, he descried another Tartar, who, after seeing us, made a flight across the fields like his predecessor, and soon after the whole municipality of Susacon approached : after salutations, we pursued our way to the lofty, open, airy town on the side of a gentle slope : the curate was advanced in years and unable to ride, but sent his gratulations, and the alcalde, Senor Calderon, as he had to himself all the honour, determined to share it with his wife, a lovely buxom gentlewoman, tall but full, about thirty-four years of age, and fair, and in as full roseate bloom as any Hibernian mountain nymph. She had two sisters, and two younger daughters like herself; and the honest alcalde seemed to feel his delight doubled by the pleasure so mani- fest in the countenances of his really charming wife and their
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female friends. I felt not a little pleasure myself at seeing this fine group, and their innocent and fond curiosity ; they were never tired of conversing and examining Elizabeth, whose cheeks here found rivals ; and they tittered with open eyes of surprise and delight, when told that all the seftontas (young ladies) of North America were of the same complex- ion. " 0 madrede dios /" exclaimed the girls, and they blushed and apologised for their incredulity. The good lady of the house had left the young folks together, and I mixed with the crowd, which was considerable, it being muster day of the militia. I could not but contrast the appearance of these comely, well-clad, clean, cheerful, and orderly peasantry, with those I had seen in other towns, such as Truxillo, Valeria, &c. Indeed there is a striking difference between the appearance of the people in Venezuela and Cundinamarca : the change is evident before leaving Venezuela, for, after reaching Mucha- chees, the country presents on the plains more cattle, better farmers' houses, and a cheerful people. The war had desolated Venezuela so much more than New Granada, that it is seen in the visages as well as in the houses and apparel of the people.
The officers of the militia, chosen by themselves, did not exceed their just authority. The sound of the bugle brought them into line of double files. They had but very few mus- kets, but they had " the queen of weapons," the lance, in abundance ; they looked very well, but did not move, which I regretted. The population here was taller than usual else- where : the good lady was herself tall ; and the female specta- tors were fair and rosy-cheeked.
The alcalde introduced me to several of his relatives, as if I had been also one of his relations ; and by the time the muster was over, about two o'clock, we were summoned to dinner ; we were placed on each side of the interesting mistress of the house, and the table was long, well-covered, and the scats full. It seems an entertainment had been prepared the preceding day, but our spending Sunday at Suata had marred that
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purpose ; but time only was lost. The good lady did the honours of her table with the simple dignity and ease that marked her appearance when I first saw her ; every one was attended to ; and as she was aware that certain products, to which we are accustomed in the United States, were not al- ways to be found on the road, she had been at her dairy, and presented us with some fine pale-gold-coloured butter, equal to any the Philadelphia market affords. It was a whim that induced one of the young ladies to form it into an imitation of the shape of a cow, and so it was placed before us. The butter was of the finest flavour, as its appearance indicated, and we used it with sliced bread, and the hearts of the best celery. The good lady and her female friends were delight- ed with Elizabeth, as she was with them, their manner^ were so unaffected and ingenuous : they threatened to overload her with sweetmeats and other articles that were transportable, preserved fruits, ginger, citrons, oranges, limes, and half a dozen small pots, of which we did not know more of the con- tents than their excellence. These were placed in charge of the sergeant, with an injunction of secrecy, and he was true to his trust ; for our first knowledge of their possession was on a paramo, where there was no opportunity of procuring refreshments, which made the kindness of the charming fa- mily of the alcalde of Susacon of tenfold value.
It may not be amiss to notice the process of the dairy in the preparation of butter, at Susacon, and other places. The milk, kept in pans of the country manufacture, is skimmed of the cream in the usual way ; it is transferred to a round earthen pot, which is suspended by cords so as to be swung, and jerked, and agitated, till the butter is separated, and taken out carefully, placed in clean cotton cloths, and com- pressed till the milk is entirely extracted ; but the economy of salting appears not to be known, or not to be regarded, as there is a general prejudice against salt, though I understood that prejudice to be giving way very much. In other parts
of the cc a more
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country I have understood, that butter is produced by a more rude process, the cream being put into a leather bag, and shaken till the effect is produced. The churn and staff, and the revolving-churn, are unknown where I have been. I have often wished that it was within my power to present some perfect utensils of this kind to the amiable fa- mily, as an evidence of the gratitude of which their kind- ness has left a deep impression.
We broke away from these charming and kind people about half past three o'clock, much against their wishes and endeavours to detain us at least a week ; and it is question- able whether the parting did not overbalance, in painful feeling, the gratification of an intimacy, which, though so short, was delightful and honourable to the human heart. The curate of Sativa, who had expected us two days be- fore, had come to Susacon in search of us, and now accom- panied us to his parish. As we approached Sativa, the cor- poration came out to receive us, and as we entered the vil- lage, a group of young ladies of the neighbourhood presented themselves to receive the Senorita Americana, of whose ap- proach they had somehow heard three or four days preceding. Where the young ladies are, the gentlemen will follow, and their salutations were, Viva la Republica Americana ! Viva Bolivar ! Viva ! Viva ! — for, unless Bolivar be associated with every festive act, the act is incomplete. It was some time after five o'clock when we entered Sativa. Our halt on Sunday had disappointed the expectations of those good peo- ple, and preparations had been made for our entertainment, of which we had the evidence on our arrival. A spacious table, covered with damask cloths, viands in great abun- dance and variety, alternating with bouquettes of pinks of un- usual tints and magnitude, and whose perfume mixed with that of the jessamine and rose, and other flowers of great beauty, which were strangers to me, impregnated the air. Fruit, pastry, wines, red and white, were abundant and ex-
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cellent, and the worthy curate, who was not feared by his pa- rishioners, and who mingled in the spirit of equality with the crowds that were drawn hither to see the sight, sat with us, and enjoyed the pleasure and conviviality of the en- tertainment he had prepared for us.
It is proper once for all to state, that in the whole course of this kindness and honour so unexpectedly bestowed on us, we had no expense to incur ; that the generosity was spontaneous, and had its compensation in its own grateful- ness, and our comfort and gratification.
On the 28th, escorted as before, we left Sativa : the prac- tice of " doing good by stealth," of which we had many ex- amples, as well as at Susacon, was here practised upon us also. The curate had caused a very fine turkey to be roast- ed, and placed in charge of the sergeant, who was told, that in a few hours after our departure we should have a paramo to pass, which would give a better relish to our dinner. I soon experienced the sensation of hunger on the rough, winding, and steep passages, and, when we had descended to the plain, I was agreeably surprized on alighting at the hamlet of Tienrey, by the appearance of the roast turkey, and a bot- tle of wine, of which two accompanied the good curate's providence.
Though the roads, if paths for which art had done no- thing can be properly so called, were rugged and precipi- tous, the atmosphere in this day's journey was warm, but not oppressive ; population appeared to be considerable ; and as no very high mountains appeared, perhaps, as Humboldt says, because " the Andes were beneath our feet," the verdure all around was uninterrupted ; there were indeed no level tracts, but hill and dale, and many dwellings, and number- less cattle, were seen in every direction. The population and dress, which changed from light to dark near Muchachees, and again became lighter in the warmer valleys, between that place and Pamplona, where colours became sombre and
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clothing warmer, on this route had assumed a medium ; the body clothing being generally light, but never separated from some warmer garment, which was worn in the cool air of the morning, or put on with the setting light of the evening.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Theatre of Bolivar's greatest triumph— an intelligent fellow-traveller—ideas of the Moscas nation — metaphysical notions — a vast chasm in the Cordillera ,a work of human labour — traditions— Serinza— Spanish desolation— another Tartar -uidette— cavalcade— alcalde — meet a Caracas acquaintance— traits of the people— entertainment — position of Serinza — departure — the paramo fer- tile— sapling fences — ploughing — M. Mollien, a French traveller — his views contrasted — extravagant mistakes — hypochondria — anecdotes of M. Mollien — patriotism and generosity of the people of Serinza — the white heron, — cats metamorphosed into warming pans.
THE country around us and over which we were passing, at this moment possesses a celebrity which belongs alike to aboriginal traditions and more recent history. To the right, south and west of our route, lay before us the plains of So- gamoso, and from Paypa to the marshes of Vargas, Santa Rosa, and Tunja, to Boyacca, is the theatre of that series of military operations, which followed Bolivar's astonishing passage of the Andes from Mantecal, and terminated at once the hopes of Spain at Boyacca. Here the issue was decided that established the seat of the republic in the centre of the Andes, eight thousand feet above the ocean. A plain-look- ing country gentleman travelling on the same route towards Serinza, entered into discourse as we rode along the plat- form of one of those singularly formed and sublime summits. He was conversant in traditions, and drew my attention to the plain of Sogamoso, which, though not very distinctly visible,
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was perceptible in the distance like a vast field with a low dark mound at its extremity. He mentioned some instances of the institutions of the natives, as he considered, indicative of a higher state of civilization than was usually allowed by European writers ; I urged that their superstitions were rather adverse to the idea of much refinement, as well as the absence of certain arts, and above all the want of iron ; and urged that high refinement, such as reason and humanity would inculcate, was not to be expected where the arts did not also flourish. I confess I spoke rather from a desire to be ci- vil and sociable, than with any other view, unless it was that I found some difficulty from a yet deficient readiness or want of confidence in my power of communicating my ideas in a lan- guage of which my knowledge was more incidental than stu- died. He descanted on the high civilization of the Moscas, the works they had accomplished, the artificial nature of their chro- nology, and the progress they made, compared with other na- tive nations ; that they were clothed in fabrics of their own manufacture ; that they had a knowledge of gold, copper, and lead, if not of silver ; and it was supposed of tin ; that they had many refinements in the furniture of their temples, and domestic economy ; and that their agriculture was ex- tensive and methodically carried on. I ventured to remark that in some of their institutions, as well as those of the Peru- vians and Mexicans, I could perceive very remarkable coin- cidences with different sects of the Hindus ; that the Mex- icans appeared to resemble the worshippers of Seib or Chiven* which was a system of demoniacal terror, and that, like the early Jews, they offered up human sacrifices ; that the Peru- vians resembled the worshippers of Vichenou, the Genius of good, the Preserver ; and that the Moscas were an interme- diate sect, who had discarded human sacrifice in the detail, and had only preserved it in rare cases, and in all other rites were very much like some worshippers of Vichenou. How they could come to derive their systems, I did not pretend
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> premise ; nor were my ideas, on this subject, peculiarly
line.
" Ah ! senor ! said he, religion is constitutional, to a being who knows nothing but what he sees — understands it very little — and knows nothing of the cause, or the purpose, or the end of his being. His existence is a mystery, and he is therefore prone to mystery himself. The Moscas who oc- cupied those plains, had the same natural faculties as all others of the human species — and some among them found out, that they could be governed by fear — and they set up chimeras to supply the means by which they could hold the less discerning in subjection.'7 But I observed, they had also called in the agency of hope. " O sir,*' said lie, " hope is only the offspring of fear ; hope has no existence alone ; it may be the illusion of the miserable, upon whom fear has already laid its heavy manacles : but where there is happi- ness there can be no occasion for hope ; like that of its oppo- site— the presence of hope is already realized."
I found some difficulty in comprehending him, and am not very certain that I have exactly expressed his sentiments, but I was not a little suprised to hear them from an inhabi- tant of the Andes — he drew my attention to a remarkable opening in a distant range of the cordillera on our left — it ap- peared to the eye as if a large space of the mountain had been sawn across, in a line very steep and sharply defined, at two places, to appearance, which was at a great distance, a quar- ter of a mile apart, and the intermediate mountain complete- ly removed ; I expressed my impression to him. " Yes," said he, " it is precisely what you have supposed it to be ; there is an evidence of the power of superstition ; but it is al- so a proof of the vastness of the population which once oc- cupied those regions — immense as it may appear, that ex- cavation is the work of human labour ; that is only a path opened to the plains, and it is but the intersecting point of an inclined plain which is continued four hundred miles into
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the Llanos, and of which the counterpart is on the other side of this mountain, which, though not of such magnitude, ex- tends into that plain of Sogomosa, which is now of such charming temperature, though tradition has represented it as before entirely sterile. By the construction of new moun- tains, and changing the direction of the old, numerous streams have been dispersed over regions before sterile, and which are now rich, and fruitful, and salubrious."
These circumstances were entirely new to me — and, I confess, doubtful ; but it would not have been decorous to dispute what he gave only as tradition. The work he de- scribed appeared too much for human hands to perform, though I could not but frequently remark, on looking at the aspects around, that those sports of nature have certainly some- thing like the appearance of order, method, and art. I in- quired as to the supposed author, or chief, who directed these great works. He said " the tradition attributes them to a Zupa, named Sojamuje, who was at the same time the po- litical and sacerdotal chief ; and he was a descendant of Bo- chicka" — and he added, he is considered as either Noah or Adam, I know not which. The nation was called Miskayas or Mozcas, and were here when the Spaniards arrived ; they were reputed to have expelled a race less civilized, but had taken up the religious system of those they had superseded, and had erected numerous splendid temples, which the Span- iards found when they invaded the country, and who over- threw and destroyed them — vindicating, as they said, the cause of God — as if God stood in need of human vindica- tors ; but their zeal, St:nor, was only the corner-stone of their avarice — and that zeal which consigned the poor Moz- cas to the flames, only to enrich the oppressors with the gold which embellished those structures." He added that " the tradition states, and it is another evidence of the civili- lization and numbers of this native nation, that the confla- gration made of their temples by the Spaniards, had not ceased at the end of five vears !"
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We were now approaching the defiles which lead into the plains of Serinza, and our communicative fellow-traveller took a path more south, while we continued our route south- west. I took his information as he had given it, but as I had not made any note of it till we reached Santa Rosa, much of what he said escaped me, and I omit more which I am not sufficiently satisfied that I understood, and, as it was of an unusually bold cast of thought, I do not wish to risk misapprehension. It struck me that if this long, artifi- cial, inclined plane, really existed, that Bolivar must have known it, and made it his route from Mantecal in 1819, in- stead of crossing the Paramo of Chisga.
We continued to wind through the mazes of the moun- tains, their abrupt bluffs, their rocky ravines, and the flow of innumerable rivulets prattling over the pebbles. We at length reached a more tranquil, and deep, and broader stream, which came lingering along to meet us, as the plain of Se- rinza opened before us. The space was so extensive that the paramos in the distance north-west and west, seemed diminished, and stood like stacks of grain in groups. The plain spread broadly to the west, and some beautiful rivulets stole along in broad meanders. Here and there were patch- es of verdant grass, and again tufts of rank marsh grass and rushes, among which were seen the gray-bittern, but more numerously, the snow white-heron, marching like a grena- dier, in grave and regular cadence ; slowly lifting its long leg, distending and planting it abruptly, looking to the right and left the while, as if dressing by a guide on the flank of a platoon.
To the left of the plain over which our road lay, there appeared a scene of desolation : — pita walls, in the greater part of the country, are the common fences and bounds of rich plantations, usually six or eight feet high, and capped with stones. After some four or five miles along the sKirt of the plain, in a south direction, we were intercepted by
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these pita walls, which crossed the whole plain in an oblique direction, about two points south of west ; here we entered upon a spacious causeway, thirty feet broad, with ditches on each side, and abundantly supplied with flowing water; beyond the ditches pita walls, from which other walls issued in various angles, forming the bounds of fields wont to be covered by rich harvests, but which the armies of Spain had consigned to sterility and ruin. The walls of houses, whose ruins spoke their former amplitude, were every where visi- ble ; we had not yet seen a glimpse of Serinza ; we ap- proached more near the Sierra on the west side, but the long causeway and the long pita walls appeared still to promise no end. Here and there a chasm in the wall had been made by the unregulated stream, which had been visibly directed by art over an immense surface, for the purposes of irriga- tion ; the wantonness of the enemy, and the magnitude of the damage, aggravated the ruin by the hopelessness of at- tempting to mend or repair works which had been produced only by great opulence, and many years of systematic labour.
While we were ambling along this endless causeway, amidst these apparently interminable ruins, the sergeant de- scried another Tartar a-heacl, and put his spur to his mule to speak him ; but in vain : as soon as he reconnoitered and perceived a lady in company, instead of passing along the route which we were going, he broke into a gap in the an- gle of a wall, and was seen flying along the plain diagonally, and leading the eye in the direction of the town, a glimpse of which only we yet saw. Having gained the point at which the outscout entered, we had to travel along the mar- gin of a very fine rapid stream, sufficient to supply ten thou- sand mills with water-power.
Very soon a numerous cavalcade appeared, with which we were instantly in contact — the alcalde complimented us on our arrival, and made introductions to the notables of the place followed : we proceeded on to Serinza. The military com-
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landant, who was a colonel of militia, received us as we itered the town, and our quarters were a matter of arnica* ble contention. We had not advanced quite to the town, when we recognised some officers in the Colombian uniform, on horseback, dashing towards us in the desperate style of riding so common in Colombia ; it was Colonel Lyster, and five other officers of the Irish legion, on their way to join the army under General Urdaneta. Lyster was from the same county in Ireland as General Devereux, (Wexford,) — he had served in the British army in Spain, and with the experience of war had acquired the fluent use of the Castilian language — after the peace in Europe, he pursued his profession to Colombia, where he had to encoun- ter hardships and endurances to which the soldier of Eu- rope is an entire stranger, besides the common perils and privations incident to war. I had experienced his kindness at Caracas, and we were gratified at meeting in the bosom of the Andes, as if we had been both from the banks of the Barro. Military life had not diminished his national viva- city ; he was warm-hearted, brave as gallant, busy every mo- ment of life, with as much earnestness as if he had resolved never to lose happiness for an instant — heedless of the past, and reckless of the future ; at home every where ; — the grave priest unpursed his gravity, and the lively Senorita laughed outright at his sprightliness and unceasing gaiety. Sometimes indeed, the habits of command in Spain were visibly breaking over occasion, but it was the experienced observer only, who could trace the habit to the tone and the terms of expression.
A sumptuous entertainment awaited us here, where, by the same unexplained means as elsewhere, our approach was anticipated. The population of Serinza were more plain than gay in their attire, which, though it was warm as we rode along, must be cool in the night. Their kindness, though not so interesting as at Susacon, was very impres-
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sive ; they appeared like quakers in their plainness and sim- plicity, but they entered into the spirit of the festivity with as much glee as other people, notwithstanding their grave habits. Our visit certainly afforded them much gratification ; and the concourse of both sexes at the house of the com- mandant, where we lodged, was numerous, and afforded a most excellent specimen of the materials which are to supply future citizens to the republic. Though we were not very much fatigued, we thought it due to our hospitable enter- tainers, not to keep it up late ; and we contrived, with the aid of our friend Colonel Lyster, to separate, so that we went to rest by ten o'clock.
Having already spoken of the appearance of the plain, and the ruins of former extensive plantations, it may be proper to notice its position. The town, which consists of houses of a single story, resembles Gritja in its distribution and extent, the streets crossing at right angles, new churches, many scattered cottages on the extremities and between the mountains, which are on the rear or west side of the town. The impression all along made by the appearance of the mountains, on the west side, from the plains, was that while the plains were progressively more elevated, the mountains became progressively lower ; and this impression I felt after passing Mendoza, with very little variation. The mountain behind Serin za appeared lower than the hills on the south side of the Guayra at Caracas ; and the town not half a mile from their base, but, like the plains generally, it in- clined, from the mountain foot, gently towards the ground watered by so many abundant rivulets, and made remarka- ble by its endless ruin of pita walls.
The continuation of the road over a not very lofty moun- tain is to the south of the town, and we left Serinza on the 28th, escorted by our friends of the municipality, and Colo- nel Lyster and his friends, who were on their route to join the army under Urdaneta, and parted with us two miles out
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KT he paramo of Serinza presented, contrary to the ares of paramos, a succession of beautiful slopes, surrounded by plains, in pasture, covered with countless flocks of horned cattle, sheep, horses, and mules ; clumps of foliage, bearing the appearance of orchards, with culti- vated fields adjacent. The forests seemed to have retired to the hills, leaving the black and chocolate- coloured loam to tempt the ploughman's courtship. There were some fences here and there, seeming to be intended to keep out sheep or horses ; and, as we passed some of them, on our route, we found them composed of saplings, sunk in the earth, at about six inches apart, held below by bandages of bejuca, interlaid in five or six strands, a foot or eighteen inches from the ground ; another band, about six or seven feet high, and the saplings eighteen inches or two feet higher, perfectly firm, and more effective than our best Pennsylvania post and rait.
Seeing a plough at work on one of those beautiful slopes, to the left of the road, which a single ploughman, with a pair of bullocks, was preparing to redeem from nature, and bring into productiveness, I suffered my party to go on, and rode up to the husbandman, whose track lay towards the road ; he stopped his team, and we entered into discourse. The plough was my principal object, and the manner of its application. It was very simple ; art had done very little for it. It was a single piece of timber, which nature had bent in such a line, that, while about four or four and a half feet lay along the ground, the remainder rose in about an angle of forty degrees, forming a single handle. On the part which lay along the ground, a piece of hard wood had been dove- tailed into the side of the shaft, with a very small inclination obliquely forward beneath, and not longer than four or five inches. This piece of wood, about two feet from the head of the beam, served as a coulter ; indeed it served all the purposes, for there was no soil- board, nor any thing that indi-
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cated the turning up of a sod or deep ploughing. The earth was but indifferently scratched, though not always conceal- ing the short grass. A hole in the front of the beam re- ceived two ropes of cow-hide, whose other extremities were wound round the horns of the pair of noble cattle which dragged along this rude plough ; it differs in nothing but being larger, and the cattle much larger, than the plough of Hindustan, and that of Egypt.
The paisano was very inquisitive, and heard my account of our ploughs with attention, and, with a pencil, I gave him a rough sketch, and explained the power gained by two handles in directing the line of the furrow ; the uses of the soil- board, and the turning over of the sod. He expressed a wish, if it were possible, to obtain an American plough. I gave him a side sketch, and a separate sketch of the coulter, and the soil-board. He prayed me to recall my friends, and to spend a few days with him ; he had a very good .wife, he said, who would love the Senorita. I excused myself, and thanked him. He was very curious about America, and having about me two small books I gave them to him, and he expressed great pleasure at the gift, and said he wanted books very much. This husbandman, and others whom I had intercourse with, remote even from the great cities, and from the sea-coast, very obviously displayed a con- sciousness of the change which the revolution had made in their condition. Men accustomed to liberal institutions, and accustomed to talk and think of their rights, may be supposed to enjoy the removal of some abuse, or the few securities which are established by legislative power, with a suitable satisfaction ; but, from what I have seen in Co- lombia, the emotion and the gratification appeared to me more intense, and it is not unnatural that it should be so ; I have conversed with persons whose countenances flushed with delight, a sort of emotion between exultation and
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doubt of the reality of their escape from the multiplied ty- ranny of their former condition.
After I had transcribed my journal for the present publi- cation, some extracts appeared in a New York paper from "Travels in Colombia, in the years 1822 and 1823, by G. Mollien. Translated from the French, London, 1824." — The remarks of the American editor were at least indis- creet. Mollien's statements are at once repugnant to just ideas, both of the political and moral state of the Colombian republic ; I conceive it then to be an act of necessary pro- priety to notice the work, and disabuse society, so far at least as this volume may circulate.
I had some intercourse with M. Mollien at Bogota ; I had been there before his arrival, and I was there after his depar- ture. His being an emissary of France, with no good pur- pose, was obvious in his deportment, and the indecorum of his ordinary conversation was very generally known ; — even at the hospitable table of the resident minister of the United States, (Colonel Todd,) he betrayed an hostility so extravagant, not only to the Colombian institutions, but to all republican government, that was extremely painful to the feelings of the American minister, and which the laws of hospitality only prevented him from personally noticing. It was, however, noticed by an American, who was of the par- ty, and in such a manner as to be highly gratifying to the minister, as it was unexpected, and conclusive upon the sub- jects of Mollien's asperities, and ultra assumptions. My opportunities enabled me to know, that the government of Colombia was apprised of the nature of his mission ; he pre- sented no credentials as a public agent, yet his conduct had an air of that kind of insolence which little men display, " dressed out in a brief authority." The government considered him as a spy, but the members of it treated him with forbearance, and even an attention that only concealed the derision in which he was held. When he intimated a desire to visit
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Quito, which the government was apprised to be his origi- nal destination, he was politely advised not to visit Quito, because, if he should be found there, he might not find the same indulgence that he experienced at Bogota ; and that when he thought proper to leave Bogota, it must be by the route by which he entered it. The deportment as well as the discourse of this person was ordinary, hisutemper morose, and his manners had nothing of the ease and suavity of a French gentleman.
I am induced to notice M. Mollien at this point of my journey, because Serinza was the farthest eastern bound of his travels in Colombia, though he has pretended to give some account of Caracas and other parts of Venezuela of which he was never within five hundred miles. His account of Serinza, which has been noticed and faithfully described in the preced- ing pages, is a tolerable specimen of his fidelity, and the exact- ness of his descriptions. I have not altered nor added a word to what I had written concerning Serinza, and if I did not know that he had been in Colombia,'! should have doubted, upon the evidence of his book, whether he had ever seen Serinza or Santa Rosa. I shall here notice what he says of Serinza, and afterwards of Santa Rosa, and then pursue my own course, and, if my materials should not swell beyond the bulk of the proposed volume, I shall examine M. Mollien's book more at large.
" Nothing is so dismal," says M. Mollien, "as Serinza, seen from below ; its frowning brow hidden in clouds, while the summit is rarely illuminated by a cheerful sky." p. 97. I have already described Serinza, which is not to be seen from below ; it stands but very little elevated on the north- west angle of a spacious plain, at the foot of a very low range of verdant hills, which range east and west, not lofty enough to be called mountains ; and the town is in fact not to be seen on approaching it from the eastward until close upon it, from the interposition of beautiful and lofty hedge rows. If, through misapprehension, he has given the name of Serinza
mist;
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e paramo south of the town two miles, he has made a istake so far, though " the brow-hidden clouds and sum- mit rarely illumined with a cheerful sky," would describe every paramo, indeed every mountain in the world, fora few moments or hours in the year, but is by no means true of this paramo, or any other in Colombia ; which, though fre- quently clouded, are not always sunless, and we passed this paramo on our route, when the sun was in its fulness and glory, and the landscape, in the whole range of vision many miles around, presented some of the richest prospects both in beauty and productions to be found in the universe. This paramo is, in fact, a limb of the great Cordillera of Chisga, and is usually called the paramo of Sogamozo, be- tween which beautiful region, and the plains and blooming valleys to three-fourths of the periphery ; and it is the sepa- rating screen on the north-west; unfortunately too for the au- thority of the traveller, it is never covered with snow. It was on the face of this beautiful paramo, I conversed with the young husbandman at his plough, who was scratching over a soil as rich as the bottoms of Kentucky, or the rice- fields of Burdwan in Bengal ; fields which produced maize, wheat, and barley nowhere surpassed, and two crops in the year ; yet, from what follows, it would seem that the travel- ler was amidst the mountains of Norway or Nova Scotia at the same season of the year.
M. Mollien continues : " some springs, whose livid and icy waters are not potable, escape from the barren sides of the mountain, but never produce on them that fertility to which they contribute on the lower regions ; muddy pools, choked up with bulrushes and other aquatic plants, occupy the bottom of the valley. The scream of the white heron, when the winds are hushed, is all that breaks in upon its silence. The earth produces nothing but a short kind of grass, eagerly sought after by animals." Now, whether this be intended for the mountain or the plain is scarcely ascer-
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tainable ; but the temper in which these descriptive traits are given must be manifest. He could not but see the immense ruin which covered many thousand acres on the plain ; that they were marked by the desolation of war : that Serinza had been particularly obnoxious to the Spaniards he might have known, and it may have given to his vision a jaundiced influence. When Bolivar had, after a march of seventy-two days from Mantecal, crossed the snowy sides of Chisga, he reached Serinza with his troops almost naked, without shoes, and in ill health ; they had lost the greater part of their horses, and lived for some part of the way upon some of them. He and his troops were received at Serinza with acclamations and affection ; the troops were lodged, fed, clothed, and shod, and the horses they had lost replaced ; those that were jaded, but survived, were taken care of, and substitutes provided. A people capable of such magnanimity must be virtuous and opulent ; but the generosity they displayed was not con- sistent with the wretchedness which M. Mollien describes. The Spaniards had desolated the5 plantations, whose walls were the testimonials of a former vast cultivation as of pre- sent ruin, and whose rivulets, wandering out of their former well -constructed channels, might have shewn that, though desolation was visible, it was not the sterility of nature, and that no such walls, or artificial channels for irrigation, would have been erected on a sterile soil. Whether his temper of mind closed his eyes and his understanding, is not material ; those streams of crystal water, which flow in abundance through very full channels, I can verify had nothing livid in them ; and if, in a temperate region, producing coffee, the icy coldness of the water be a misfortune or a reproach, the town of Serinza is indeed unfortunate, and reproachable for the coldness as well as for the wholesome purity and crystal clear- ness of these streams, which the Spaniards sent vagabondizing over the plain. He finds a bottom and a valley at Serinza. In relation to the mountains all round, it may be called a
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valley, but it is rather a spacious plain ; and this plain is its only bottom. The beautiful white heron is the inhabitant .of all the savannas or plains on which there are pure streams, and on the sublime plain of Bogota is considered, by persons who take pleasure in the caprices of nature, as among its most beautiful ornaments. It is not a noisy bird ; though its screams are not perfect melodies, yet they are not such as to grate the ears or affect the nerves, unless perhaps those of the hypochondriacal — and I confess that the sullenness and discontent which clouded the visage of this gentleman, even when every one else was convivial, led me to devise an excuse for his moroseness in this disease. The heron is a beau- tiful bird, of exquisitely fair plumage ; our sergeant, who had a shot at every thing, killed one to procure feathers for his grenadier cap ; the body, as it appears standing, or in flight, looks as large as a barn-door fowl ; when in the hand, the plumage is so delicate, downy, and light, that the body is not as heavy as that of a pullet.
If the earth now produces nothing within the pita ruins which were before the Spanish troops had desolated them, the scenes of rich production and abundance, their former fertility is the best answer to him who discovers sterility in a ruin produced by the troops of the adored Ferdinand, not quite two years before.
He subjects the town to the reproach which, if it vyere real, belongs to the cloudy paramo above, which he says, " si ponebravo" (when out of humour) " threatens the traveller :" by this personification of the clouds or mountains we under- stand they come on purpose to threaten him ; in the same way as at Santa Rosa, where we shall find him charging the unconscious people of conspiring against him, while they were asleep, and making the heavy rains a party in the conspiracy ; though the poor people probably never heard, even to this day, of such a person as M. Mollien, who describes " the winds loaded with vapour, (which must of course be unlike the
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winds in any other mountains;) thick darkness covering the earth, (which happens nowhere else;) and concealing every trace of road." In truth, I have often found it difficult to discover a trace of a road at noon day. But these republican clouds are no respecters of persons ; and as this poor gentle- man very often lost himself dreaming of his own consequence, to the amusement of many who marked him, it is not sur- prising he should take umbrage at the clouds of Serinza. It is scarcely necessary to remark that in another place he con- tradicts this asperity of the clouds ; for he says, in another page, " when I traversed Serinza, the temperature, though cold, was bearable, but the air was excessively dry:" this is literally blowing hot and cold, wet and dry, out of the same mouth. His account of the device of a host at the Venta de Basto, where he passed a night, deserves notice : — " The prejudice of the inhabitants of the Cordillera against fire, which they conceive to be unwholesome, prevents them from light- ing any; I was benumbed, although my birth was the least exposed to the outward air, and was wrapped up in thick woollen cloaks, &c. The cold, however, did not last all night, for my host had conceived the singular idea of bringing up a great number of cats, which were trained to place themselves upon the feet of travellers ; I had two of them, whose thick furs kept me very warm." p. 99. This story merits record in the history of the feline species, and may have a place in the same chapter with the fight of the Kil- kenny cats — equally authentic.
I shall leave M. Mollien till we reach the next stage, where we shall find the dignity of the secret agent of the most Christian and Catholic kings, exposed to conspiring rains, alcaldes, judges, and curates, who went to sleep in order to prepare a ducking for him at midnight.
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CHAPTER XXVII.
Leave Serinza— Santa Rosa—Striking resemblance of Washington city and 'the Potomac — the usual reception — Dr. Origen — Catholic clergy and Liberty — effects of clerical fanaticism — the beauty of the youth — Entertainments — Pa- triotic sentiments — depart forPaypa — liberal priests— Library at Paypa — M. Mollien's account of a conspiracy — Dos Diablos Azulos — Remarks.
THE commandant of Serinza was a colonel of militia, a plain country farmer of about six feet high, and a well- filled figure, with an open countenance, and a cheerfulness which in- dicated true contentedness, and a right estimation of freedom : he made no pretensions, but understood his duties. The people in this district, as I have observed in other regions where the temperature is a medium between the extremes of heat and cold, are taller than in the warm vallies, or those of the cooler paramos. Before our departure, the commandant had repeatedly urged us to remain with them some time, and the females of the family and town were still more pressing, from a desire to be acquainted with my daughter. We were, however, constant to our purpose. There were many intel- ligent citizens in this place, but it was impossible to enter very connectedly into discourse from the shortness of the time, and the number of visitors. We understood, however, in a sort of effort to vindicate themselves as to the ruins over which we passed, that it was not their neglect which caused them; the Spaniards had found the bounties of nature too widely spread over the valleys and plains all around, to be within the compass of their power to destroy ; and they had devastated Serinza in vengeance and as an example of what they would do every where if it was in their power ; the neighbouring rich country had therefore escaped ravage and desolation, so that if we should only remain a few days,
416 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
we should find a numerous society solicitous to show their good wishes towards us from the surrounding plantations. Our refusals were expressed with very sincere regrets, as in truth our inclinations were there, as in many other places, to remain some time. The commandant, however, determined not to part from us so soon ; and, as we would not stay, he would go with us ; and, in order to show how kind he could be, he intimated, that, after so long a journey, our riding mules would be better for a relief; he therefore provided for us riding and baggage horses, so that our mules travelling without burden were well refreshed. The horses generally throughout the route are of a low stature, usually twelve, seldom fourteen hands high ; at Serinza they were something above the height that is common, longer limbs and neck, but very full breast and haunches. Those animals appear to be affected, as to stature, by the characteristic features of the country. Where the steeps are frequent and extreme, the declivities rough and wild, the horses appear to be short limbed and more muscular ; and where the country is more level, or not steep and rugged, and the temperature mild, the horses appear to be longer bodied and longer limbed ; though what we should call a raw-boned horse is an object not to be seen, forage every where grows so rapid and luxuriant.
We gradually gained the beautiful sides of the paramo, and found ourselves at the upper range of the road, almost unconscious that we were ascending, until winding beneath a sublime forest we found that the vast plains, pastures, plan- tation houses, sugar fields, and a wide spread culture mixed with forest clumps and silvery rivulets, lay open to an ex- tent of which the eye could make no measure or bound, but the faint blue cloudy line, immensely distant, in the south-east, and south, and south-west. We were descend- ing with this rich region spread before us, when, almost at our feet to appearance, but really four miles distant, a town lay before us of a very neat aspect, and by its position pro- ducing such an emotion as is felt on revisiting, after a long
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absence, a place that had been before familiar and agreeable. I was not at first conscious of this involuntary analogy ; the town stood on the easy slope and bottom of the valley on its north-west side, and the plain extended to the south and south-east, skirted in the distance by a range of mountains, which seemed to be the rim of the bason of which the valley or plain below was the bottom ; the sides all round sloping inward to that bottom. Across the plain from the west, and pursuing its course to the south-east, a beautiful river revealed its current by the tremulous silvery light reflected from the sun. This feature of the landscape soon identified the resem- blance of which I was not before conscious ; but it was a very striking likeness of the position and valley of the city of Washington, as seen from the brow of the Capitol Hill. The river, however, was not so spacious as the Potomac, and the town, which was that of Santa Rosa, was more com- pact : the neatness of the white-washed houses, the clean tiled roofs, and the rectangular intersection of the streets on a closer approach, broke up the similarity, though the view in the distance remained still striking. The brightness of the sun gave the appearance of the month of May at Washington.
The curates and corporation here came out as usual to re- ceive us — and I must here observe, in order that it should not be attributed to an improper vanity, that I am so parti- cular in noticing these incidents, because it is at once an act of justice to those good people, and goes to show manners and hospitable dispositions, better than any general terms could do. Several of the secular clergy came out on this occasion, and an amicable and good:humoured conten- tion arose among them, who should do us the most honour — many more joined us in the suburb, but they led us into the Plaza Mayor, and halted, as I understood it, at the re- sidence of Dr. Origen, a secular clergyman of very prepos- sessing appearance and manners, and, what struck me — not with surprise, but as a new occurrence, he wore at his
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breast the ribbon and medal of the order of Libertadors, an institution, in all respects, resembling our order of Cin- cinnatus. I never before could reconcile myself to such de- corations, which, ever since I had the exercise of a free mind, I have looked upon only as marks set upon man, to show by what baubles they may be deluded or bought. Up- on analysing my feelings on this occasion,. I found that, by a rapid association of ideas, I had identified the catholic priest and the apostle of liberty, and excused the bauble for mitigating the contradictions. Not that I believe the ca- tholic priests to be more hostile to human freedom than any other. Priests of all religions, Christians, Moslems, Bra- mins, or Jews, seek to govern mankind for themselves* and are prone to adhere to any form of power, which promises them their peculiar domination. Where they are other- wise, they are no more than exceptions to a general rule. I have known many catholic priests, and some in Colombia, besides the worthy man at Santa Rosa, who are ardent lovers of human rights. The overthrow of the Cortes, in Spain, was the work of the monks ; they were the instruments of Monteverde, after the earthquake of 1812, and had not the fear of France and the same cry of atheism been raised in Venezuela, on that occasion, which was raised in Spain in 1808, the career of the revolution, if not jeopardized, might have been at least more tardy in its process. The men of enlarged minds, in Colombia, saw that Spain must have been subjected by the legions of Napoleon, had not the monks produced that fanatical rage, which undertook to ex- tirpate men under colour of vindicating the Almighty!— and when the same fanaticism was adopted, and upon'instruc- tions to that effect from Europe, the friends of American li- berty saw the necessity of passivity, as by means of this delu- sion independence would be better assured ; since, if France should gain the title, the difficulties of resistance would be greater than to Spain. These ideas do not accord with those of many, who would have it believed that there was a
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of national dislike in South America to the French, and ho would have it believed the South Americans were dri- ven by necessity to independence. In truth, no nation of Europe was so much preferred in South America, as the French ; the French language had been for three fourths of a century carefully cultivated ; the French writings, introduced by stealth, the favourite study ; and at this day few men of a good education are to be found in Spanish America, who are unacquainted with that language. The patriotic leaders did not wish that Spain should be subjected to France, not from love of Spain nor hatred to France, but because independ- ence was to be secured by the failure of France. The eccle- siastics, in this way, unconsciously contributed to the success of the revolution. I have had the satisfaction of much inter- course with clerical men in Colombia, whose political princi- ples were the cause of our acquaintance — and whose prin- ciples in every relation, I found such as would do honour to virtue and liberty in any country.
Dr. Origen lost nothing of the impression made on me by his first appearance, on the interchange of sentiments ; he was cheerful, frank, and persuasive, and his political opinions I thought (perhaps because they exactly squared with my owrn) the best in the world ; he was a perfect master of modern as well as ancient history, and talked with equal mastery of the wars of Peloponnesus, and the thirty years war, the Dutch, French, and North American revolutions, the constitution of England and that of Sparta, and those of the United States ; he knew even the more recent history of the United States, and could name our triumphs and our disasters. This in the bosom of the Andes was a matter of surprize, and I regret- ted when the good-nature of the company prevented a more protracted intercourse ; as the civil and military appeared to contend with the ecclesiastics who should b»b most kind, it was necessary to render equal respect to their kind dispositions. I know not whether it was a stated day of festivity, but not only the house but the plaza was covered with people of every de-
4SO VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
scription ; it seemed to be a general holiday, and every body uncommonly well clad, and neat in their style of attire. The complexion of the people generally was here more than com- monly fair, and the females rosy, much fairer generally than at Caracas, of whom we had a concourse to pay their res- pects to the senorita blanca del America Norte. However complimentary the title of fair American, the young people of Santa Rosa were so numerously of the same complexion, that it would not be overstraining probabilities, to presume that the town derived its sanctification from the roses on their cheeks, which rival those on the luxuriant hedges around the town ; many among them would have appeared lovely among the nymphs on the tanks of the Kuban, the fairest daugh- ters of Erin, or the blue-eyed damsels of Delecarlia.
A large company of both sexes sat down to a dejeune de la fourchette, with whose ease, gaiety, and contentedness, I felt inexpressible satisfaction. The tabjle service here was as complete as in one of our own cities : china, glass, knives, and silver forks, and plate of different kinds. The fruit were luxuriant, and the sweetmeats, in which, from Caracas to Bogota, they excel ; chocolate and coffee in the greatest perfection, and of which we partook gratefully. We return- ed to the saloon, and answered to such inquiries as they made concerning the United States, Washington, and Frank- lin. I afforded the gentlemen whom I sat with an unex- pected gratification, when they inquired about Franklin, by informing them that Lieutenant Bache, the youth who was conversing with a group on the opposite side of the saloon, was a direct descendant of Dr. Franklin, and, more than that, perhaps the best picture of the doctor, at the same age, in form and features, that could be found. They were parti- cularly pleased, too, when I told them of the resemblance which the valley of Santa Rosa bore to that of Washington City in the first bloom of spring. All the clergymen present were gay and familiar. Finding the matrons had engrossed
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ie for some time, they contrived to carry me off, and to ake such inquiries as suggested themselves, principally on political and social subjects. I gave them all I had of politics and opinions on what they touched, and congratulated them on the nearly closed war and their triumphs. They were conscious that much was yet to be done to give society its completion, and one of them, when it was observed that great sacrifices were made, replied, that it was worth more than it cost ; the loss of lives and sufferings of families (I think it was Dr. Origen who said it) were great, for " those who have died in the cause have only passed away a few years before us, but liberty and independence will remain to fu- ture ages and endless generations." Our time was so con- •stantly occupied by the kindness and curiosity of this hospi- table people, that we had no opportunity to see more of the town than we had seen on our entrance, and from the veran- dah of the house, which overlooked the great square, and what we saw on our departure.
Our intention, on reaching Santa Rosa, was to take a plain breakfast of chocolate and fruit, spend an hour or two in seeing the town and some of its manufactures, and then move forward twelve or fourteen miles before dinner. But we had been too much engrossed and pleased to be conscious of the time, and were about preparing to depart, when we were informed that dinner was already on the table, and to which we were immediately conducted. The description of feasts and entertainments so frequently, has an air of epicu- rism in it ; but none of us were of that cast ; our powers of abstinence and our taste for rough fare had been already well tested; we had travelled whole days without halting for food, and our fricasees, with now and then a turkey pout, a quarter of kid, with fruit, were our greatest luxuries; in- deed, our rough fare was to us a constant source of merri- ment. But, as it is in the domestic and social relations the state of society and manners is best seen, as well as the cha-
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racteristics of the climate and civilized state, it would be to omit what is essential, if incidents such as these were not noti- ced, even though it may seem like vanity to describe the fa- vours heaped upon us. The dinner had been in silent prepara- tion while we were in conversation, and we found it not only excellent, but sumptuous ; the snowy cauliflower and the ar- tichoke superior to any I had seen before, besides the rich variety of edible roots and plants, of which the names were not known to me ; the coos lettuce ; eschallots, the want of which, in our American cookery, is so remarkable ; game of different kind, pheasant, partridge, and quail — but we had here, in the midst of the Andes, the vermicelli soups of France and Italy, and the tasteless oil of Florence, at what cost may be imagined, seeing that the ocean was far distant, and these exotics found their way amidst the Andes on the backs of mules. The viands altogether, and the wines, could not be found superior or more abundant anywhere. The wines were not inoperative, for we had brindis on every side, in which La RepiMca del Norte was not indif- ferently drank. A young, married lady, who was beautiful and accomplished, gave me much pleasure by giving as her sentiment — " Perpetual friendship between the republican families of the New World." I found she had been edu- cated in the United States, and had returned about eight months before her marriage. Further detail would be superfluous.
These good people would have delayed us longer — when we wished to go at noon, it was too soon or too warm — it was now too late — and, moreover, that a bull fight would take place at three o'clock, for which purpose the angles of the plaza were already enclosed with a stockade. The last persuasive was not such as would be likely to prevail, though courtesy would not permit us to say so, — and we expressed our thanks far from what was equal to our feelings — and we departed: our worthy commandant of Serinza still deter-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 423
lined to keep us company, and we were several miles be- >nd Santa Rosa before he took leave, with the kindest emo- tions of a generous, social heart.
It was half past two when we left Santa Rosa. Dr. Origen had introduced me, among others, to a Franciscan friar, Fra. Joachim Garcia, who also accompanied us on our route for several successive clays. As we approached Pay pa, Padre Rincon, the respectable curate of that village, with several of his parishioners, met us about four miles from the place, and conducted us to his dwelling, where a handsome entertain- ment awaited our arrival. This venerable curate is much advanced in years, celebrated for his hospitality and liberal principles, and is particularly friendly to Americans ; his attentions to us correspond with his reputation. I had let- ters to him, which I did not produce till he was about to retire : he asked why I had not given them to him before ; and he was much amused and pleased by the reason I as- signed— that I wished to be his guest upon his own good will, rather than upon the recommendation of any third per- son ; and he laughed heartily, and thanked me, and shook me by the hand for the compliment. It was nine o'clock when he finally retired, and, as we moved at the dawn of morning, we saw him no more, leaving a billet of thanks, with our cards of names. The spacious hall in which we had sat, was his parlour, library, and refectory ; and his books, though generally of dogmatical theology, had among them some few works of science and polite literature, among them Totze's History of Europe, the works of La Vega, and other Spanish writers. He spoke with great zeal of the United States, and how much mankind was indebted to their revo- lution ; he thought that the population of Colombia would augment even more rapidly than the United States; and that many thousands of the former population, supposed to be killed, were now settled in remote valleys, from which they would not return ; but, added he, population will soon catch
1S4 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
them. Like others whom I conversed with, he was surprised to learn that our clergymen of all sects wore no costume in society. This impression is no more than a proof of the in- fluence of habit, which confounds what is partially usual with what is universally right.
I have stated our reception at Santa Rosa, and described the country, town, and people, as I saw them ; I might have said much more of the town, which Palacio Faxar describes as " the most beautiful town in a beautiful province ;" and I might, while the topics were fresh, have particularised what I had been informed of as to the productions of agriculture, and of manufactures, carried on there, in cotton, wool, leather, hats, pottery, and other things. The account given of Serinza, by M. Mollien, induces me to notice his extra- vagant misrepresentations ; what I have said of Santa Rosa above, was written before I saw M. Mollien's book ; and I cannot pass over what he has said of this beautiful town with- out offering some remarks upon the preposterous things he has uttered, though in such a way as to expose his own ab- surdity : for example, he says —
" It was night when I entered Santa Rosa : hospitality is every where exercised with so much generosity, that I thought, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, I should find no difficulty in getting a lodging ; but I was deceived ; every door was closed against me: I knocked at the doors of the alcaldes and the civil judge, but they refused opening them, on the pretext that their masters were absent : the curate, to whom I applied as a last resource, did not manifest more charity than his neighbours. It was late, my clothes were wet through, I had not eaten all day, and found myself obliged to lie in the street ; I was, indeed, in much distress ; all were deaf to my prayers ; one only, and that for the second time a woman, took compassion on me, and offered me half her cabin ; I joyfully shared it; and although it was difficult to sleep among the pots of chicha and heaps of onions with
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which it was stored, I passed a delicious night in comparison with that reserved for me by the inhospitality of the inhabi- tants of Santa Rosa, by listening to the rain which fell in torrents."
This account of his adventures in Santa Rosa is so mar- vellous, that it is only by considering him as accompanied by el Diablo Consejo, or that sort of miraculous power which le Diable Boiteux exercised, when he made stone -walls transparent, and not only heard the conversation, but pene- trated the thoughts and the dreams of those whom he saw from the house-tops. Like Asmodeus, he enters the town at midnight, and, though, every where else and to every body else, the people are hospitable and generous — here they had gone to sleep, out of sheer antipathy to him ; even the ser^ vants are, according to him, their masters out of town, which, though not unusual, this Asmodeus Mollien infers was an incident of the conspiration — for they were all alike — the masters who did not hear, and the servants who did hear, deaf to his prayers ; and even the curate was as great a con- spirator as the rest ; by all of whom he was obliged to sleep in the street — though it appears he did not sleep in the street — for he passed a delicious night in comparison with that re- served for him by the inhabitants of Santa Rosa. Now, to make this Asmodean story consistent, he must have apprised the folks of his intended arrival before the people went to bed, or to the country ; and the curate or the magistrates must, besides their ordinary functions, have had the power of reserving torrents of rain to be poured out on him : — he continues —
" The name of Santa Rosa sounds well to the ear, and from the regularity of the houses and streets, the town, in some degree, answers the pleasing ideas to which the appel- lation gives rise. But the temperature was very cold ; and, as the environs produce nothing but corn, potatoes^ and onions, the population would not be very rich, had it not, as a re-
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source, several manufactures of woollen hats and cotton stuffs, much in request among their neighbours in Socorro. Goi- tres are very common here," p. 94, 95. English translation.
If any thing could form an apology for absurdity uttered with so much deliberation, it would be found only in men- tal or bodily disease ; for romance, absurdity is allowable machinery ; but here are genii, by the Spaniards called Los Diablos Azulos, in our language the Blue Devils, whose in- fluence, indeed, appeared in the visage and deportment of M. Mollien, all the time I knew him at Bogota ; under this gloomy influence alone could his wayward imagination con- vert a hospitable people into conspirators against him, whom they had never heard of — and made the rains of heaven a party in reserve to the conspiracy, to drive him into the arms of a poor Chicha -woman : it was midnight when he entered — he sees nobody but the Chicha woman, he passes a delicious night in listening to the torrents of rain ; and departs before day — yet he not only reprobates the magis- tracy and the curate — but he discovers the poverty of the place — nay, that " Goitres are very common."
Malevolence characterises this account, and it is the per- vading spirit of his whole book. I should pass it over with these few remarks, but that the collision produced by such extravagance leads often to a better knowledge than might otherwise be produced, concerning places thus disfigured by hypochondria, or a worse impulse.
After Bolivar, in 1819, crossed the cordillera from Man- tecal, and the sufferings of his army required a temporary repose in an abundant country, he selected Santa Rosa, as at once the most fruitful and salubrious part of the luxuriant department of Boyacca. The greater portion of the popu- lation, old and young, were, I believe, assembled in the plaza while we remained there ; the visitors of both sexes, and of all ages, were numerous, and the most respectable people ; and as the prevalence of the goitre was a subject
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f constant observation and comparison, since I saw the first r Truxillo, I feel satisfied that the goitre could not have escaped my observation ; for if there were any so afflicted, they certainly did not come abroad that day ; and it cannot be presumed that M. Mollien's opportunities were more favourable.
I have often heard objected to the scholastic system of edu- cation, and to that which remained as a professed reformation of it, which prevailed under the ancient regime in France, that it is too rhetorical ; the force of artificial forms substi- tuted for rational principles, leads to prefer conceits and the whims of imagination to truth, which loses its power, and facts are discarded for hyperbole. The deportment of Mollien was sulky and suspicious, and the bias of his prejudices was visible in every conversation in which I heard him take any part. Had a stranger entered a town of France at midnight, say Troyes, Arras, or Orleans, places of unquestionable hospitality — had he knocked at the door of the mayor, or the sub-prefect, or a district judge, or even the curate, what would be his reception — where would his lodgings be ? not perhaps so delicious as in the pulpureia of the Chichadera of Santa Rosa !
Having so far noticed M. Mollien's book, written after I had a personal knowledge of him, I shall defer further notice of his book until I shall have ascertained whether there shall remain any room, after discussing the subjects originally proposed for notice in this publication.
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CHAPTER XXVIIL
Parching1 Paypa— peeled faces— sublime wildness of the country—features of the Andes not well understood— an appearance like an army— anecdote of a Spanish commander — forms in order of battle to receive three columns of Colombians— three columns of goats— diversity of fruit in the same patch- reach Enimacon— Virgin of Chinchinquira— has the faculty of multiplying her- self—procession described— hospitable mulatto— the Virgin becomes a patriot, and makes a donation to Bolivar— Bull fight — realization of Mr. Windham's ideas of a brave nation— ecclesiastical visit— example of a traveller's acquire- ments in the vernacular tongue in the "West Indies.
THERE are two places of the name of Paypa, or Pipa, one of which is called parching Paypa or Paypa the windy, and this latter we had to pass this day ; and we did pass it at the ex- pence of the searf skin of our faces, and with lips so sore, as to have continued unhealed till we were some days at Bogo- ta. This passage is not literally a paramo, for fertility and vegetation flourish all the way, where man has thought fit to occupy and gather the product. But the road being carried along on the south side of the mountain range, and exposed to the reflected heat of a series of rude and wild rocks, which wind from the south and east, and sink into low ranges on tlie east ; the hot air appears to be drawn by the moisture and verdure on the length or south face of the moun- tain along which we were marching. Those who travel this journey should be provided here, and on other paramos, against scorched faces and split lips ; not that the wind or air appears hot, or to differ materially from the mountain breezes where no such effects are produced. In passing over Paypa, we were warned of this parching wind, and advised to screen our faces from its effects ; we did not pay due re- gard to the advice, and when we saw the natives of the coun- try, mounted on their mules, and travelling the same road,
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ith their faces so tied up, and their mouths so covered, t nothing but the eyes were perceptible, we, so much are men the creatures of habit, we treated them in our private discourse as unbecomingly effeminate. We purchased ex- perience by several days of very unpleasant pain, before our faces were entirely peeled^ and a new scarf skin supplied the place of that scorched off. The first remedy I found for the lips, was the pellicle which separates the shell from the meat of a boiled egg ; and this, though it protects the lip from reiterated scorching, does no more. I apprehend that oil of a pure quality, used with a sponge, would defend the face. The people of the country, however, secure them- selves by the practice they pursue.
The country which spreads abroad its spacious, but diver- sifted plains and waving grounds to the east and south, among the mountains beyond the scope of distinct vision, is so perfectly new, and unlike any preceding part of the journey, as tor excite curiosity and surprize at every step. As the main route of travelling hitherto, lies along the lofty sides and often the lofty ridges of the Andes, the hasty reader would be apt to conclude, that where there was so much mountain, or as it would seem all mountain, there could be comparatively little room or soil for cultivation. No infer- ence could be more mistaken. The general notions derived from maps, the best of which are very defective, beyond what relates to latitude and longitude, and which, to render the mountain system comprehensible, should be upon a large scale, and depicted circumstantially ; maps generally repre- sent a long pervading ridge, rising near the south Capes of Terra del Fuego, passing along to the equator in a waving but northern line ; there dividing at Assuay, into three great limbs, and taking their separate directions, each still depicted as single limbs. These errors, very innocent under the defective state of topographic drawing, should be guard-
430 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
ed against. Those very limbs, like the great chain, con- tain, within their summits, vast plains and valleys of im- mense extent and diversity of direction, upon which the An- des, seen on either side from within, are reduced by position to the apparent elevation of ordinary hills. The same cha- racter belongs to all the limbs and ranges of the Cordillera, till they sink in the slopes and platforms of Choco and Da- rien, in the bluff cliffs of Santa Marta, or in the gulph of Paria, before Trinidad. Nor is this characteristic of the American Andes alone ; the country of Mysore, in Hindus- tan, is such a platform as that of the plain of Bogota ; and the steeps of Hindu Coosh, which separate the northern India from Tartary, and Tibethean Asia, exhibit the very same character. The cordillera which passes to the east from Assuay, ap- pears like a knot of several cords tied at Pamplona, from which the separate parts spread more or less wide, leaving the most fertile plains and valleys intermediate, closed in with walls, by which they seem shut out from all concourse. The moun- tains here seem very remote, and the hills that intervene scarce assume the mountain elevation. The sloping grounds, the vast pastures, which at a distance seem to move, or to be animated, by a sort of mirage produced by the motion of in- numerable flocks and herds. On approaching Pay pa, the country presents still new and bolder lines, huge sloping banks of many thousand acres appear cut off from their for- mer continuous line of unison with the mountain ; these phe- nomena are not ravines wrought by descending torrents, which are nevertheless there, and form a part of the great work of eternal revolution ; those separations are transverse to the descending line. On approaching Paypa, the face of the country presents lines and forms still more bold and singular, huge sloping banks of many thousand acres of an- gular figure, break into steeps and overhang lower flats, which cut across transversely, hang over others in several suc- cessive but unequal ranges ; the lofty ridges, diminished by
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 431
distance, leave no idea of the Andes, for which, as Humboldt truly observes, the traveller is searching around him, when in fact they are beneath his feet ; occasionally, but not fre- quent, a rill or a foaming torrent present themselves, just show their glittering or their frothy figures, unite and rush together into a partial oblivion, leaving the yellow or the gray bluffs, which their insidious currents have, by undermining, left as the monuments of their resistless power ; little hills which recal remembrances of regions more remote, with clumps of forest or of fruit-bearing trees, give emblems of the peach or the apple orchard ; lawns spread out where the cattle graze on luxuriant pastures, recalling still the habitual recol- lections of the dairy, but rendered still more picturesque where the dell recedes so low from the cooler range of moun- tain, and gives heat and sustenance to the varied palms which, as far as I have seen, are more numerous in their species than in continental Asia. Far beyond, and softened into paler shades, the plains, for distance makes all plain, the verdure takes a tint of blue from the transparent heavens, and diversifies its aspect by the shadows cast on lower fields, from hills unseen but by their glittering tips. You pass a mass of forest lowering and retreating to the right, or west, or north ; from beneath their shades rills of limpid water gush and traverse your path ; here the Colombian soldier gives a lecture upon the diversity of human character ; he does not court the stream to cool his wayworn feet ; he springs like a deer across it, for the water would make his feet effeminate ; it would call for the unready expense of shoes, which, were he rich, money could not purchase ; his philosophy is com- pounded, like all habits in all countries, into imitation, and the experience taught by stern necessity in a state of society not yet acquainted with the simpler arts. The rills unite like passing neighbours on a journey, and travel together chatting on their way to the lower warmer valleys in search of luxury and a warmer temperature. There the hato, with
432 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
its thousands of horses, breeding mares, mules, and asses, spread over pastures fenced with saplings ; spaces set apart with clumps of forest shade for breeding ; hamlets appear in the remote spaces where accumulated mountain-streams dis- play a momentary glassy pond, and in the vast semicircle which the vision makes, presents to the observer pictures which are nowhere more rich, expansive, or sublime.
On the right, near old Paypa, the mountains appear to crowd in closer, and give a new contrast in their dreary, bar- ren, chalky ravines, and their dusky clods of faded moun- tain grass, as if to add more diversity to the vast landscapes, in their southern and eastern front. Passing this region, while comparing the height and aspect of those ridges on our right, with the more chalky mountains west of Barqui- simeto, our party was much and agreeably amused by the pleasantry of our sergeant. He had learned, by some means, that our domestic, Vincente, had been once captured by the Spaniards, and that his apprehensions of a recapture were among the few, perhaps the only disquietudes to which he was subjected. The sergeant possessed animal spirits inex- haustible, and as the mule pursues the " noiseless tenor of his way," in a gait so sedate and unhurried, there is ample opportunity, time, and much temptation to conversation, on a journey that is ninety-nine in an hundred parts solitary. Our negro servant, Pedro, was of St. Domingo, and not less apprehensive of the Spaniards. While we were viewing those chalk-riven mountains, the sergeant suddenly halted, and exclaimed, as if in affright, " Mira ! Mira ! los Go- das arriba /" — Look ! behold ! the Spaniards are above there ! and he pointed to a particular track ; began to describe the objects to which he pointed, and whose motion was very vi- sible, and in a direction that approached bur path ; the ser- geant described them as three divisions of Spanish troops, and gravely showed that they were pursuing parallel paths, des- cending towards the route we had to cross ; the objects moved
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in very regular order, indeed, as the sergeant described ; and, fact, the line of the direction from which they were ap- proaching was the mountain road of Toca. The panic of the servants was indescribable, and at the first exclamation and view I was myself staggered, and should have continued perhaps under the same impression as the domestics, had I not recollected that there could be no Spanish troops in that quarter. Poor Vincente approached me for counsel, to know what was to be done, because, he said, if the Spaniards took him again, he should be most undoubtedly put to death. The sergeant, apprehensive that I should spoil the affair, gave me a supplicating hint, and I told Vincente I should call him presently to see what was to be done, but that for the present we must move forward. Those formidable columns ap- proached by this time within perhaps two miles of us, and were then not very distant from the plain ; their order was in close Indian file, and covered a considerable length of line, on three parallel paths. Having gained a position some- what elevated, the sergeant requested us to observe them, and then told us an anecdote of a Spanish general, marching as we were, on the way towards Tunja, who had encountered a difficulty at the very same place ; but he had supposed the lines descending to be Colombianos^ and, calculating as well as he could the numbers of the approaching body, drew up his troops on this spot, said the sergeant, and determined to give battle ; after manoeuvring an hour, continued the sergeant, and finding the Colombianos did not approach, he determined to advance upon them, and moved for that little village on the right, and when he arrived there he found they were in- deed Colombianos — but Colombiano goats ! Vincente and Pedro, who had listened with opened mouths and dumb anxiety, now looked at each other with different emotions. Poor Vincent appeared to hesitate between doubt and abash- ment, as if he had rather the Godas were there than that he should be so taken in ; the negro laughed outright, and ex-
55
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claimed, " that sergeant is a debel ov a fella." In truth, there was no great reason for Vincente to be ashamed ; for, consi- dering that war existed, and that battles had been fought on the very ground we were then passing over, and the array of the goats moving on parallel paths on the steep sides of the Sierra, and the uniforms of troops in that country being ge- nerally white, with the regularity of their motion, the appear- ance was very deceptive.
We now wound along through defiles, formed by the near approach of contiguous mountains, at the foot of one of which I saw a space enclosed with a loose stone- wall, in front of some pretty prospering cottages ; within the enclosure there was a very fine fig-tree in fruit, an elegant ap- ple-tree in blossom, a peach- tree, and a plant which I recog- nized as a species of palm, in India called the paw-paw-tree, The perfume of the apple- blossom I thought uncommonly delicious, and that of the paw -paw seemed to be blended with it. The fences of saplings, on this day's journey, were numerous, and handsome, and the grounds appeared as clean and free from rubbish or decayed vegetables, as if there was much skill and pains employed in the husbandry'.
On Thursday, before dawn, we set out with an intention to make a long march before night. The climate was now lovely ; there were no declivities ; and population and abun- dance seemed to smile all round. At the end of about twelve miles we reached the village of Nimacon, or Enima- con. It is a small, though a very ancient village, and from the suburb to the plaza was but a few yards ; we found the whole population in motion, the paisanos with their best clean shirts, and the tails embroidered with the needle- work of their sweethearts, hanging, for grace, and ornament, and attraction, over their osnaburg or Santa Rosa manufactured cotton pantaloons ; neat paragattas put on in honour of the vir- gin ; the damsels in their bettermost attire ; their blue mantillas of woollen cloth paramount ; their hair sleekly and handsome-
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:ssed, and, where the measure of pecuniary opulence did afford a comb, a handsome bodkin of ebony-like wood or fancifully carved horn, gave to the apprehension the simi- litudes of taste and ornament in the valleys of Canaan, on the banks of the Ganges, in the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, or the sunny shores of Otaheite. The only varieties of fe- male apparel designating difference of condition, were a few silken black petticoats, and uniformly accompanied by stock- ings and silken slippers; but they were very few; the manti- lla was more usually associated with wedding stockings and slippers, which the owner always carried to the brook for washing ; a neater paragatta, or sandal, sometimes interfer- ed between the foot of a young damsel and the soil ; the present of some swain, the tail of whose svirt she had em- broidered— rivalling the mosaic forms of the antique, and in a style equally original and not less fanciful. One only fe- male we saw, who might be called well dressed, of whom more presently. It was the anniversary of some festival of die Virgin of Chinchinquira, very celebrated for many hun- dred miles around. The original virgin holds her original place at the village, to which she gives her name, about fifty miles north-west of Bogota and thirty from Tunja, and has acquired almost as much celebrity from the credulity of the population, and the artifices of the Dominicans, who have the management of the imposition, as the shrine of the simi- larly celebrated Virgin of Loretto ; but here, at Nimacon, the original virgin was not present, but her representative. This delusion, equally lamentable for the infirmity of the de- luded, and the depravity of its managers, cannot be too of- ten exposed ; and although few travel through that country without hearing some part of its history, I shall give it in as few words as practicable. At a period not very remote, the date of which is uncertain, and unimportant, a poor woman, Maria Ramos, residing in a hut on the site of the present sumptuous church of Chinchinquira, reported herself, or
436 VISIT TO COLOMBIA*
some persons, more artful, reported in her name, that the Virgin Mary had in person presented her portrait painted on canvass to Maria Ramos. A storm disregardful of this precious portrait, overthrew her rancho, and she fled to the house of the curate, to whom she is stated to have revealed the secret of the portrait, and appearance of the virgin, by whom it was presented, and that it was buried in the ruin of her rancho. The holy fathers of St. Dominic, apprised of this miracle, hastened to recover the sacred picture, and it has ever since remained the object of devotion for many hundred miles round ; but the virgin, like the Saraswati of the Hindus, has a sort of omnipresence, and has multiplied herself to ma- ny distinct places ; as far as Carthagena and Antioquia, and elsewhere. The difficulty of travelling over immense spaces, in these countries, had rendered this expedient more accom- modating to the pilgrims, and to the keepers of the sanctua- ry ; and, as one miracle is as good as another, the canvass painting at Chinchinquira not only renews itself, but ap- points representatives— another and the same — who, like the virgin deputy we saw at Nimacon, assumes not the flat form of a canvass portrait, but appears in the fulness of the modern fashion, and the substantial forms of a fine-dressed milliner's Paris doll of two feet four inches. This accommodation of miraculous power, to the pious and to the priests, has been very fruitful ! ! !
We chanced to arrive in the very midst of the solemnity. The alcalde, considering the serious character of thefuncciofi now going on, appeared too much engrossed to think of go- ing beyond the next rancho on the north side of the Plaza, where he placed us, with just room enough to hang together; and went about the solemnity of the day. The thatched roof of our rancho, however, advanced four feet beyond the wall of our " parlour, kitchen, and all," forming a sort of corridor, whence, at only the expense of being stared at, we could see every thing. The alcalde, in a moment of recovery from his
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 437
returned to tell us that \hzfunccion would render it out his power to provide mules that day ; so we were fixed for the night at Nimacon, and, making a merit of necessity, set our folks to provide a good dinner, and purchase eggs for the next day's march.
We had little more than brushed off the dust, and rubbed up our faces, when the procession was seen issuing from the ample gates of the church, which stood on the east face of the plaza in our full view, and passing along the north side where we had taken post in our corridor, perambulated by the west and south sides of the square, and re-entering the church, chaunting the while in no mean measure of solemn music. Several horsemen led to clear the way, and, as the square was without a fence, the multitude had ample room to see the show. Some persons in surplices preceded, others with censers threw forth the odours of frankincense and myrrh, then came the cross with other followers in costume, and then the curate in the damasked robes of high service ; a choir in surplices followed, all bearing wax tapers lighted, and giving the chaunt; then came other surpliced youths and more censers and incense ; the chief object of all followed, a litter carried on four men's shoulders sustained a canopy, curtained with rose-coloured silk and ornaments of gold ; the curtains were festooned, and displayed the Virgin of Chinchinquira, or, as the Hindoos have it, one of her incar- nations. This was the shrine, of which the curtains, usually closed, were on this occasion festooned out of special grace to an admiring multitude. The face of the virgin was of wax, and the figure in the best modern taste of Paris milli- nery; and, making a little allowance for an unbending erect- ness not so becoming in mere mortals, she had all the exter- nals of a pretty little ruby-lipped, rosy cheeked, black-eyed girl of three or four years old.
Immediately after the virgin came two younger ecclesiastics in surplices and stoles, and, if they did not govern, at least par-
438 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
took in the chaunt ; though I could perceive as they passed their eyes more engaged with us than with the ceremony. Prior to and during the procession, the angles of the square were occupied each by a table and a sort of white muslin screen, which I suspect were originally intended for altars ; they were overhung with pictures, trinkets, and baubles of every description, and some distiches in Spanish which I had no opportunity to peruse, as they disappeared at the close of the function.
Before the procession commenced, a good natured mulatto, who had been making free with the good things of this world in honour of the virgin, and in whom his indulgence had diminished natural bashfulness, while it augmented his good nature, though it rather affected his articulation, solicited us to take possession of the balcony of his own adjacent two story house, and went very near the precincts of swearing at the alcalde for putting such folks as we were in such a shabby rancho ; he told us that he was rich and free, and, por gracios a dios, he had fought under Bolivar ; then he sung a stanza, of which Bolivar was the theme ; and then prayed us almost to provocation, to take possession of his house ; the virgin, he said, was a tried friend to Bolivar, and when the army was in great want, the virgin had presented Bolivar with SI 50,000, which entitled her to the love of all Colombians. The fact as to a large sum of money being presented to Bolivar for the public use, was unquestionable ; but the virgin, on a former occasion, had been equally liberal to the Spaniards : the mulatto, however, either did not know this, or sunk it out of veneration to the virgin. The zeal and good will of this kind mulatto had, however, contrary to his intentions, annoyed us very much, and drew a crowd around that rendered it disagreeable ; had we arrived an hour earlier, or he had asked us before the procession begun, we should certainly have accepted his offer for our own comfort, ns his house was the best built on the square, the curate's
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 439
only (and always) excepted ; and I was painfully obliged to request his absence, acknowledging ourselves obliged by his good will ; he retired readily, but rather in discontent at his disappointment in not having the pleasure of entertaining los estrangeros bianco s (the white strangers) in his own house.
The gift of the virgin to the patriot army is spoken of in all parts of the country. The good brotherhood of St. Do- minic, who are her confidential advisers, alone know how the money was delivered, and are so modest as to say no- thing about it ; though they have derived from it, in addi- tion to their reputation as priests, a great celebrity as patriots, of which before too many were incredulous. However, those who were sceptical as to their politics, did not take into consideration other circumstances ; the Dominicans had once been exiled from Bogota, under the viceroyalty, and sent to Panama ; their wealth was at that time enormous, and if they had followed the fortunes of the royal govern- ment, the Virgin of Chinchinquira would not follow them to another country. Their inordinate wealth, contrary to very general experience among men in general, who are very apt to become indifferent to any principles when they be- come rich — it is their riches which makes these jolly fathers most zealous republicans.
The funccion had ceased but a short time, when a powerful and as handsome a brindled bull as could be seen, was dri- ven on to the square, which was indeed a well covered green field. He bore a strong bull hide collar, but no rope at- tached. He was driven by as substantially characteristic a mob, as could be picked up at a London bull-beat, in Smith- field, or Petty France — las gentes baxos y de los malos pro- cederes — the celebrated Mr. Windham of England, had he been living, and present at this bull- bait, would say that " the nation must be heroic whose bulls were so fierce, and its mob so fearless."
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The poor bull however had not quite fair play ; there were no dogs indeed to muzzle or gore him, but, without a shield, he was obliged to fight men in ambush ; the mata- dores, which, from analogy, they may be called, some an- noyed his rear by a small sharp pointed goad ; while others in front, who had brought their cloaks or roanas, placed them on a stick, and, covering themselves, the bull plunged at the cloak, while the man evaded him by alertly jumping out of the line of the projectile. Another and another pro- ceeded, until the bull appeared to have discovered the de- ceit, and, in one or two instances, disregarding the cloak, plunged at the assailant behind it : had the violence of the plunge not carried the bull ten or twelve feet beyond the assailant, he must have floored his man, or done him up for ever. The man was indeed trampled upon, but, before the bull could recover the violence of his own plunge, the fallen man was on his legs, and the bull occupied by half a dozen other matadores. He had now become so fierce that, by means of lassos, he was brought to a post, a long rope hitched to the collar — and the other end affixed in the centre, he had the full range of the square. There was a post like a lamp-post, within fifteen feet of our caravanserai, and it was within range of the bull's tether ; the same indi- vidual, who had before twice escaped, seemed to be marked out by the bull, who pursued him in the direction of where we stood ; the matadore had no resource but to clamber up the lamp- post, which he did with the agility of a monkey, to the great disappointment of the bull, who aimed repeated butts at the post, but without effect. The rope was soon after loosed and the show was over.
Sometime afterwards the two young clergymen, whom we could distinguish also as cavaliers at the bull-fight, paid us a visit, apologised for the curate's being occupied on our arrival, and fatigued at that time, and tendering any services
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in need of. A most lovely woman, a sister of one the priests, accompanied them ; she was elegantly dressed, though in simplicity and neatness ; she would have been an expressive model for a Minerva — in figure, complexion, and easy manners. One of the priests, her brother, a very jolly fellow, let us know he had seen the world, for he had been all the way at Jamaica, and lived there several months ; en- quiring what progress he had made in English, he said he could make no hand of it ; for he had learned nothing but how to address the servants — seeing our negro servant, Pe- dro, standing by, he asked him in Spanish where he came from, and what his name was. Pedro answered directly ; the priest, thereupon, gave us the only part of an English edu- cation which he had acquired at Jamaica, by saying to Pe- dro— " Go to hell, you d d son of a b ." The visit
soon terminated.
That night we heard, almost without intermission, the kind of hautboy which we had heard before at Timothes, but we slept well nevertheless.
There are salt works in this neighbourhood, like those at Zepiquira ; but the festivity absorbed so much of the genq- ral attention, that no other subject was attended to.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
Ascend the verdant Sierra— Fra. Garcia-— Valley leading to Tunja— the Daisy and the Linnet of Europe here— beautiful aspect of Tunja— lodged at the house of Col. Banos— the National Nitre Manufactory— crowd of visiters— lovely Women — the blue Mantilla an established costume — described — former state of Tunja — present state — delicious climate— Churches numerous and loftier structure than common — curious position for a triple of the Virgin of Chinchinquira — ideas of the natural riches and actual poverty of Tunja — want of roads universal, cause of the lands being valueless — prejudices ex- posed— Seiior Soto, a Senator from this district, his beneficence — an example of the success of the Lancasterian system — leave Tunja 31st January — cross the scene of the battle of Boyacca— Hato Viejo— plain leading to Choconta — surly Commandant — march on horseback.
THE alcalde was as good as his promise of mules in the morning, and we moved very early, having to pass el Monte arriba, or up hill a great part of this day's march. The roads were, however, no way disagreeable, and we had the com- pany till within a few miles of Tunja, of our acquaintance, Fra. Garcia, whom we found to be a very intelligent and ami- able man, and circumstantially curious in his inquiries on every topic : the United States ; its extent ; population ; geo- graphical position ; climate ; customs, &c. The route, as the approach comes nearer to Tunja, lies on the side of a mountain, which has very gentle green slopes to the east, and forming the west side of a long but undulating valley ; the soil good ; the verdure delightful ; and the forests, to the west only, lofty and majestic ; the valley at the foot of the slope is narrow, and not so much occupied as is usual in such positions. The opposite or east side of the valley was skirted by a mountain more elevated than that on which we moved, and of a very sterile aspect ; the verdure was scanty, and the little vegetation that was perceptible, had a brown- ish hue, furrowed by rain into little diverging ravines, the
2
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(ges of which betrayed a gray or chalky hue. There were forests nor plantations on that side, but, as is characteristic of the whole body of the Cordilleras, the apparently long continuous chain was frequently intersected. On the face of the mountain some villages were made conspicuous by the whited churches, and through some transverse sections of the range villages appeared, and churches, and most singu- lar a lively verdure, and grazing flocks and herds, as if the eastern sides had been composed of different materials, or in a different climate from the western exposure.
On the verdant close-dipt sod over which we now travel- led, I recognized the daisy of Europe, and in a shady copse the gray linnet, which attracted me first by its thistle -note ; I recognized it by its plumage and song several times after- wards. Another bird of the European family, frequently amused us on our path, the water- wagtail, alighting a few yards before us, and taking flight in advance and waiting for us again ; its manners, as well as its form and plumage, ex- actly the same as the European bird.
My long acquaintance with the late M. Torres, minister of Colombia, had made me familiar by description with many parts of Colombia, and particularly with Tunja. I was struck with the truth of his description the moment we descended to a long lawn covered with a velvet turf, across which a rill of pure water reluctantly crept ; the city soon arrests the eye, and seems to the approaching spectator, as if it was hung up in air; its spires and edifices numerous, and rising a mphi- theatrically to the rear ; advancing nearer, a broad and well- formed road, bordered by the grass-clad carpet, continues for some length of way, and presents the openings of the streets rising from the plain, and lengthening from north to south. Presently the road diverges into three narrower paths, leading to three principal streets. We took the central path, and by a gradual ascent gained the pavement, pursuing our route to the plaza. Passing a lofty edifice, and seeing sentinels post-
444 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
ed, I asked for the head quarters ; a subaltern, who had just reached the wicket, enquired, I presume, sir, you are Colonel D. Answering in the affirmative, he said, quarters were pro- vided for you for two days past at Colonel Banos', and po- litely led the way, complimenting me and my daughter on our having made so long a journey in such good health and spirits. He led us to the house of Colonel Banos, where we were received like old acquaintances by the old gentle- man.
This gentleman superintends the manufactory of nitre at this place, which belongs to the government ; the want of chemical knowledge had rendered this establishment bur- densome to the public, as powder, ready made, could be procured from abroad at a lower price than the nitre pro- duced here. It was placed under the direction of this old veteran, conditioned to furnish nitre to the government at a given price. The process here, and at other similar estab- lishments, is the same as before modern chemistry had re- formed them, simple solution and evaporation ; but the use of lime had been introduced, as I understood, by his son, a promising youth of eighteen, with the best education of the country, but wanting chemical knowledge, to acquire which he had applied himself to French and English study. I ad- vised his going to the School of Mines at Paris for two years, as the best practical chemical school existing.
We had arrived but a few minutes when the house was crowded whh female visiters ; there were some beautiful, and more homely ; but an agreeable vivacity was striking among them all, more so, indeed; than at Valencia. Here I saw, for the first tirr^, that costume of females which pre- dominates here and at Bogota, the blue fine cloth mantilla, and the black silk petticoat. The mantilla is not a cloak, though it serves the purposes of a short cloak ; it has no hood, though a hood is contrived to be made out of it by the wearer ; it is a square piece of fine woollen, and when
c
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t on the centre line of one edge is placed in front over forehead, and drawn down under the chin, so as to cover or expose the ears or any part of the face at the will of the wearer, or to hide a part or all of the hair, or none, at discretion ; it covers the shoulders behind, and hangs no lower than to conceal the elbows, and is lapped in front, or with a skirt thrown over either shoulder, and a low crown, broad-brim, clean black hat, beaver or silk, (usually from Santa Rosa,) of which the crown is too narrow to press upon the head, and therefore swings on the summit of the mantilla in such a way as that a graceful, pretty, coquettish girl of Tunja plays so many pretty airs, in balancing her hat, and with so apparent an unconcern about it, that she bewitches you while you are in vain attempting to repro- bate the clownish costume.
This costume differs from those of Peru and Chili, in being confined to the blue colour and woollen material, and the black, broad-brimmed hat ; in those countries a shawl or scarf of silk, of any colour, will perform the services of the mantilla ; and straw hats, such as men wear in the United States, are usually worn by females in the country places, with, however, a few ornamental ribbons round them. The body garments beneath the cloak are never visible, unless in the domicil ; besides the body linen, a short tunic is worn, very open in front, and, usually, with a scarf covering the neck and bosom.
The first female I saw in Tunja was attired in the man- tilla and black hat. I thought I never saw a prettier woman, the mantilla and the hat to the contrary. Tunja has a foot pavement, and she was " tripping on light fantastic toe'* down the pave as we ascended ; her figure was neat, as her handsome feet and bright stockings ; and her cheeks, and lips, and eyes could not be neater if she was Hebe. She was one of the visiters of the evening, and, after being in- troduced, we were as much acquainted as if we had been
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familiar a year : she told me she took notice of my looking after her ; and, when I frankly acknowledged that it was be- cause she was so handsome, por esta razon vos mui bonita — mid hermosa — she appeared pleased and surprized at my not affecting to conceal the truth.
Tunja had been the rival city of Bogota, during the vice- royalty, at different times, and had become a place of retire- ment for numerous families who had been exposed to the rapacity and other vices of viceroys, who had influence enough at Madrid to stifle all complaints against those deputy tyrants ; and Tunja, for its serene and delightful clime, had become, in consequence of these quarrels, a place of great wealth. My impressions were, in all that relates to natural circum- stances, realized ; the buildings of every kind are superior to those of any other city I had seen in Colombia. The ap- proach by the lawn from the east is so bright and light, that it seemed hung out to look at, like some toy in a fairy tale ; and perhaps the picture was more striking from a compari- son with the chalky hills along the valley through which we reached it. Besides the houses being two stories high, they are more elevated than at Caracas, Merida, or the greater part of Bogota ; and the streets are wider, besides having a walking path at the sides, which is not to be seen in any other of the cities. The elevation of the site may perhaps have made the impression that the churches are more elevated than elsewhere, but it is sufficient that they appear to uncommon advantage on the exterior. The interior I did not examine, as I found but one church open, and the decorations are ge- nerally in such bad taste, that they produce unpleasing rather than agreeable sensations : the churches had less of the ori- ental, and more of the heavy Italian architecture, with large mouldings and projections, though the dwellings maintained, in and out, the;Asiatic arrangements.
The Church of St. James is the most favoured in local opinion ; that of Sta. Barbara is next, and Las Nieves is the
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next ; the others I did not see, and could learn no particu- lars worthy of taking a note. The monasteries of St. Fran- cis and St. Dominic are much spoken of; Lieutenant Bache visited that of St. Francis, along with Fra. Garcia, and was pleased with the guardian, or superior, who was a man of much science. Monasteries generally, but particularly of females, are not objects of gratification to me ; they impress me, at every instant, with emotions of repulsion, as outrages upon the laws of nature, wholly apart from the vices they too often engender. Whether the convents of St. Dominic and St. Austin, or the nunneries of Sta. Clara and the Con- ception,— (rather an unlucky name for a nunnery) — or any others, continue in defiance of the restored rights of man, I did not learn. The Virgin of Chinchinquira, whose double we saw at Nimacon, has a triple at Tunja, which stands on the summit of a mount called Los Ahorcados, that is, the hill of the hanged men, or gallows hill ; which name, how- ever, was derived from the aborigines, who did not hang men, but at this place offered human sacrifices — the jolly Dominicans do not hang or burn any one since they were forsaken by the inquisition — but they levy contributions in a manner that is incompatible with the duties of any persons calling themselves Christian priests.
In conversation with Colonel Baiios, whose curiosity was as active as mine, and his intelligence superior, accurate, and extensive, I spoke in admiration of the climate and the po- sition of the town ; and asked him what the neighbourhood' of Tunja produced ? His answer was — " within a circle of sixty miles, there is nothing which this earth produces, that we cannot produce — we have cacao, coffee, sugar, rice, to- bacco, salt, ananas, bananas, plantains, guavas, oranges, limes, cocoa palms, common and sweet potatoes, yams, apios, yuccas, aracatchas, peas, beans, caravanches, maize of a dozen kinds ; timber of more than one hundred species, adapted to every use ; we have gold washings, and mines of lead,
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which yield as much silver as those of Mexico ; we have copper, iron, and nitre ; we have cattle of the finest breed, and sheep not inferior to Spanish, our horses are equal to any between the Andes." The enumeration was more comprehensive, but he concluded — " There is nothing to be derived from earth, climate, and art, which may not be produced in this circle." I enquired — and where are your markets ? he took me to the window, and pointed to three dis- tant villages on one segment of the circle, then to two others in an opposite direction. — " There, Senor Coronel, is our whole world ; beyond these five villages, all the rest of the world is to us as if this circle was an island in the centre of a boundless ocean ; so far our exchanges and our productions go." The manner of his expression betrayed concern, and shewed that he had thought much about it before. He pro- ceeded to tell me, " that this enigma was solved in the want of public or any roads ; it had been the policy of Spain, not to make nor to mend roads ; and here we are placed in the midst of the bounties of heaven, and riches of nature, said he ; and though the Spaniards and the earthquake had spared us, this lovely city is going to decay ; we produce cotton, flax, hemp, and wool ; wheat, barley, and maize — but who will go to the expense, and the labour of production, when he cannot consume a tenth of what he can produce, nor ex- change the surplus for money or other productions. I have read in books written by thoughtless and prejudiced foreign- ers, who never saw our country, or never knew how to look at it, that we are an indolent and a lazy people ; have you seen, on the way, any thing to warrant such assertions? It is very true, nevertheless, that we do not think it neces- sary to labour under an ardent sun during the whole day ; nor to undergo such daily fatigue, that the remaining hours are barely sufficient to refresh us for another day of unvaried fatigue. Whether such rigour of labour be necessary any where or not, I do not enquire, but it certainly would be
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preposterous, where the same field affords two, and in other places three crops in the year, others five crops in two years ; and any one of those crops, greater than the whole annual crops of other countries. This fecundity, which would be an apology, if any were required, for not labouring without ceas- ing, does not, however, produce the supposed effect — look at the muscular forms of our peasantry, where are the peo- ple who can undergo such journeys, subsist upon such plain food ? who can tame the wild horse, or carry such heavy burdens ?" The appeal was not in vain, every word corres- ponded with what observation had already established in my opinion.
Speaking of the state of knowledge, and the causes of its retardment, it would be indelicate, having named him, to speak of his free and liberal opinions, under the actual cir- cumstances ; but he remarked, that the worthy Senor Soto, a representative in Congress from Tunja, had done wonders in the way of general education, and had already established, in the province, (now the department of Boyacca,) twenty-nine schools for intuitive instruction, upon the Lan- casterian principle ; and that the intelligence thus diffused, was already beginning to be felt and appreciated ; he called a boy who was apparently idling in the patio, who had no shoes on, but slight trowsers, a shirt, and a cotton roana, and desired him to copy an account, and see if it was correct ; the boy, about fifteen, made no hesitation, folded his paper, tried his pen, and wrote it off in an elegant hand, counted the figures, and told him there were some fractions omitted ; this was one of the first fruits. I saw another accidental oc- currence of the same kind, as I was paying an account at a posada in Bogota, on the eve of my departure. A youth about the same age, with a blanket roana, without hat or shoes, was looking for employment, and sat on a block in the pulpureia ; the pulpero could not make out his own ac- count ; this boy desired permission to look at it, and make
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it out for him ; throwing the fore-skirt of his blanket over his shoulder, he set to. work, and furnished a bill and a dupli- cate, giving one to the pulpero, the other to the person whose bill he drew. This youth, in modesty of manners, and easy deportment, would have become better apparel, and a more respectable station. Other examples might be cited, but these alone may serve, as they were wholly unlocked for, as some evidence of what the revolution has done, is doing, and will do.
We had a large company in the evening, and the table gave evidence of that abundance and variety of which the worthy colonel had previously spoken. When about to re- tire, their importunities for our spending, at least, a week with them, were kind, indeed, most earnest ; then, at least to leave the Senorita and her brother behind, and they would make a party for Bogota, when Bolivar arrived, (he was then hourly, but mistakenly, expected) — we avoided offence, and felt grateful for their kindness.
We moved early on the 31st January, and, after a march of about thirty-four miles, halted at Hato Vieja, or the old Grazing Ground, a section of the same plain as that of Bo- gota, but outside of the range, usually given to designate the plain. Besides the great plain, seen at one view, from north to south, the same level surface extends largely and over a greater space than the plain itself. The great plain I have heard usually estimated at forty miles from north to south, on a dead level, and from fifteen to twenty broad, in that length ; but the level surface embraces a much broader space, and extends much farther south and south-east. Humboldt, from whom it is not pleasant to differ in opinion, considers the course of the Tunja, through the chasm of Taquendama, as the only outlet of the plain, which he sup- poses to have been a lake ; no doubt every appearance sug- gests a resemblance of that description ; but it is a mistake to say there is no other outlet; the little streams at the
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jorthcrn end of the plains, and at the continuance of the >lains, which are of the same surface, have openings as am- ple on the north-west and north-east, and little rivulets take their course, in some places, to the north and the west, in- stead of following the Funza south.
The level surface winds round the northern mountains that skirt the plain ; a very considerable plain runs north arid south, parallel with the great plain, and leads towards Medina and the valleys of Albaracin. The long mountain, which forms the west side of the plain, rises abruptly, as it were, from the centre of a great ocean, and giving to the plain of Bogota the semblance of a comparatively small, long gulph ; that mountain is the Zepiquira range, which is in- sulated at both extremes ; and, on its west side, overlooks the vast range of country, between the Messa Grande, and the sources of the Rio Negro are within its circumference ; and the numerous streams which unite in the lake of Fune- que, which is the source of the long Sarabuta, which unites with the Magdalena.
The plain around us at Hato Vieja, was far from display- ing any evidences of general industry, though there were numerous patches in good cultivation ; the ranchas were very numerous, and vast flocks of cattle covered the greater part of the plain ; esculent plants were abundant, as I suppose, for the Bogota, and perhaps the Tunja market ; and poultry must be very numerous, if the incessant crowing of cocks in all kinds of pitches and keys, and all night, be a criterion : oxen, horses, goats, and mules, were perpetually marching and countermarching ; and the little rills were no less nume- rous, wrestling for a passage over the pebbled beds : in the midst of this negligent economy, the tropical plants and vines here and there formed canopies and shades for the rustic cottage ; and at some distance, on higher ground, the indus- trious potter was spinning his earthenware, his chicha and
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guarapa pots of thirty gallons, which are here as celebrated in their rude way as the finest antique forms of Wedgewood, The first of February we were not ready till nine o'clock : we set out for Chocanta, midway between Tunja and Bogota ; it \vas also the frontier in primeval days, where the chiefs of aboriginal times wrestled for dominion. Here a great battle was fought, in which the zeipa or cazique Mtchu of Tunja, and the zeipa Chaquanmachicha of Bogota, both fell in the conflict. It being a military station, we rode up to the com- mandant's quarters in the plaza, and sent in a message that strangers were at the gate. The great man was at dinner, and the officer is placed in a military post without soldiers ; where the town appears as silent and destitute as the sands of Mesopotamia, what is a commanding officer to do, if he does not show he has power to somebody ? and as nobody comes but a passing stranger, why let them wait. And so we set to, cracked jokes upon the good order and silence of this garrison town, until it was time to send another message ; we succeeded no better ; and the sergeant was despatched to see if the civil was superior to the military ; but the alcalde was reported three miles out of town. How delightfully M. Mollien would have worked upon this piece. At length I took some documents I had about me, and despatched Vin- cente with them, but Vincente was not admitted, and the sergeant, after brushing the dust from his cap, entered, sword in hand, and, as the great man had dined, we were invited to dismount and enter. I experienced on this occasion what ought to be guarded against in travelling any where, that it was very indiscreet to travel so many hours without eating or drinking, when it might be prevented by carrying some cold fowl, bread, or even good sweet plantains ; and further, that from want of such precautions, especially after being spoiled by the governors, and curates, and alcaldes, all the way from Merida to Pipa, the best good temper may become
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issatisfied at being kept in the open air a good long hour.
""he subaltern \vho came to the door on this occasion, on seeing us, turned abruptly round, and disappeared, and ap- peared again : had there been any alternative, or a good open shed, in which we might sit down secure from sunshine, I think we should have galloped off before this time, and com- menced eating from our travelling establishment ; but the place, in its silence and the absence of population, resembled Balbec, or any other place not wholly in ruins. Though not perfectly satisfied, we marched in, and without disturb- ing the passivity of the great man, whose attachment to his seat, and the gathering of himself up on his couch, led me to suspect he must be of the pure Saracenic breed; the uniformed hidalgo remained on his hind legs a la Turque, when at least the appearance of a handsome young lady might have revoked his distaste to politeness and the laws of hospitality. His manners appeared to me (more, I suppose, because my stomach was craving) — his manners appeared rude, and per- haps the abruptness of his questions would have been tole- rable— in Morocco ; but, though well disposed to say nothing, he was answered, not without courtesy, for that is due to one's self, but in the fewest words possible. Among other questions, he asked how we came from North America. I answered, in a corvette now belonging to the government. The corvette brought his hitherto immoveable legs to the floor, and he entered into a descant on the expenses of naval equipments and expeditions, and, I suppose, suspecting I was one of the concerned going to Bogota for payment, he said, that a frigate would cost more than a whole army ; that the government was spending the money with which they ought to pay the soldiers, and, in fine, that naval extravagance would ruin the country. As this was not for me to discuss, I said only " humph !" and he asked if that was not a just idea. I simply replied, that I did not possess the data which would justify me in forming any opinion. At this moment the
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alcalde, who had been reported several leagues out of town, appeared, issuing from an inner apartment, and presented himself to the hidalgo, saying it was by mistake he was re- ported absent ! We solicited quarters, and mules for the next morning, made our lowest bow, and followed the alcalde across the great square, where good quarters indeed were given us. Reflecting on the hospitality we had experienced from the moment we entered Merida up to this place, I never could conjecture of account for the incivility of this man in office ; and I could not but exult in the reflection that the country must be fortunate, indeed, which, in a long line of a thousand miles, has so few in public stations who know not what best becomes a public officer, or is most reputable to his country and government ; yet this man, with all his des- garganillada y desemejanza, may have some apology at home as powerful as our long fasting : however, we ate and slept as if nothing had happened, and were laughing in the morning of Saturday over our chocolate at the past day's adventure, when a corps of smart horses were drawn up before our quarters instead of mules ; which, as their gait is more lively, and action more rapid, we found agreeable as a variety, though, in the end, much more fatiguing than the unvarying step and motion of the mule. " Talking of horses," we saw 4ione shod but at Caracas, Valentia, and Bogota.
CHAPTER XXX.
Halt on the plain of Bogota— Suesca, remarkable bluff— Zepiquira Caxita— Ri- ver and handsome bridge of Sopo— Funza river— Hacienda of the Vice-Pi dent— halt within three miles of Bogota— proceed to the city— kind recept by the Secretary — lodged in the Plaza San Francisco— generous hospitality- meet Col. Todd, American Minister— the approach to Bogota described — hedges of roses in perpetual bloom — appearances of the city on first entrance — its origin and some account of— its public buildings and institutions— the Plaza Real a great market-place — particulars — and of the Calle Real — the ri- vers— customs — incident to absence of arts — and civilization under Spanish policy.
OUR march on the morning of the 2d February was agree- able ; the horses provided were good-tempered, manageable, and easy paced. We had yet to pass over a very spacious but irregular winding plain from Hato Vieja, giving only a fore- taste of the most extensive plain of Bogota, which we be- came now impatient to reach. But keen appetites, and the action of our horses, had rendered food and repose requisite, so we turned off the path into the plain, and halted at a posa- da to inquire for some wine, and for accommodation ; there was no wine, and we had recourse to an oriental sherbet of oranges sliced, with some cinnamon and sugar, infused in fine pure water, which made a beverage perfectly refreshing and grateful. This posada was on a skirt of the plain which leads to Medina, to the east and rear of Bogota ; our track led across one of the numerous and ample streams which pay tri- bute to the Funza, over which we passed upon a platform of trees stretched across the stream, crossed and covered with faggots, and with a surface of earth and gravel beaten firm. We wound to the north, north-west, west, and south-west, and finally south, on a path at the foot of a mountain of sin- gular appearance and materials. It was the northern extre- mity of the ridge of the mountain to the east of Bogota, and
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which forms the east side of the plain, of which the ridge of Zepiquira, some fifteen to sixteen miles broad, forms the west side, and whose northern extremity terminates on the plain in the same manner, leaving the level of the plain open and exposed as far as the vision can distinguish. This mountain bluff, of which I have overlooked the name, round which we travelled, presented to the north an immense mass of detached and flat slabs of pudding-stone of very consider- able magnitude, lying in such a disordered heap, as if re- cently discharged out of some vehicle or sack, sustained one by the other on those angles or ends of the fragments which appeared beneath them, without any intervening earth or ver- dure, but here and there on some of the vast slabs a va- grant tuft of sycophantic moss, hanging loose and impending, to appearance ready to slide and carry destruction on the path below ; but they had stood in that direction and state time immemorial, as if they had been an unfinished heap which the Titans had cast there in an effort to close in the plain, and cut off the skirt over which we had travelled.
As soon as we had passed this rude promontory, the im- mense plain of Bogota opened before us, its southern extre- mity too distant for distinct perception. The shaggy side of the Zepiquira range, lying also north and south, formed the west side of the plain, and so continues full forty miles, till it breaks abruptly opposite, or due west of Bogota, leaving the verdant plains continued south and west exposed.
The road that had been most commonly travelled, formerly led due west across the plain, and round the bluff of Zepi- quira, as the salt-mines there rendered it a rendezvous for mules, and thereby accommodated the traveller ; but it made the distance to be travelled longer by seven or eight leagues. A clergyman, whom we had fallen into conversation with at the posada, advised us to take the route on the east side of the valley by Suesca, and, as he was himself going the same way, we adopted his counsel, and passed by the way of
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Caxita. We had passed but a few miles on this route when we crossed the neat built bridge over the river Sopo, one of the numerous tributaries of the Funza, which was now visi- ble in many of its numerous and long meanders moving slug- gishly across and athwart the ample plain, the river being from sixty to a hundred feet wide, and evidently of depth sufficient to bear boats of considerable burden ; but not a boat, nor man, not even a canoe did I see on the Funza at any time during my stay. After ambling along on the slop- ing skirt of mountain, about thirty feet generally above the plain, a well-built dry stone wall attracted our notice, and formed the side of the road between us and the plain for se- veral miles ; a hacienda in the midst of a grove of lofty trees was distinct to the west of us, and when we had reached nearly the southern extremity of the stone wall, a spacious door, surmounted by a handsome pediment, attracted our attention ; on the space below the cornice was the following inscription, handsomely painted :
HACIENDA DE LOS AMIGOS DE LA GENERAL SAN ANDEB, 1819.
That is, — The country-seat of the friends of General St. An- der, 1819. — As the distance of the hacienda from the road was too great, we did not use the privilege of hospitality indicated by the inscription, as it would have retarded our arrival a day longer ; and, as our stock of provisions was now reduced to a single day's subsistence, we moved on to a village within three miles of the city ; and as there are no hotels, lodging-houses, or taverns in Bogota, strangers must either hire a house and furnish it, (if possible,) I deem- ed it advisable to leave my young fellow travellers at this place in the morning, and proceed to the city with the ser- geant, to provide the necessary accommodations. At eleven o'clock, on the third, the sergeant leading, I entered the
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city ; and as the concerns I had charge of were with the gov- ernment, and as I had some friends in the administration, I pro- ceeded to the government house, where I was received by the secretary of state with the most unaffected kindness, and leaving me no time to talk of any thing else, led me across the Great Plaza, and placed me under the care of one of his friends. The secretary was much surprised to see me at Bogota, and I was not less pleased to find him, after all the vicissi- tudes of the revolution, compensated for the privations he had suffered, and during which I had known him at Phila- delphia, now happy in the freedom of his country, and full of well-merited honours and public love — without any alter- ation in the simplicity and softness of manners, than when he was in adversity. " Is it possible ? Colonel — why did you not apprise me of your coming hither before — that I might provide accommodations — come along" — and he hurried me along, talking all the way, till he met a friend, and said — " take care of my friend and his family, and oblige me." He took leave, and I proceeded along the Calle Real to the Plaza San Francisco, where I was placed at my ease at once, by the hospitable owner ; the sergeant was dispatch- ed for our party, and they were with us by three o'clock, just in time to partake of an elegant entertainment, at which we found ourselves, before we rose from table, surrounded by a number of old friends, and new acquaintances who gave us their assurances of kindness, which we found uni- formly realised during our stay, and of which the remem- brance is not likely to fade.
The novelty of a young lady from North America, having accomplished a journey over the Eastern Cordilleras, a route esteemed difficult, laborious, and hazardous for soldiers; together with the good wishes of those members of the go- vernment to whom I had been known personally, or by re- putation, during the revolution, had made our residence an interesting resort of the principal ladies and gentlemen of
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; a public entertainment, and the return of visits, the most flattering intercourse and intimacies, which made our time agreeable. While I attended to the affairs which carried me to the capital, my young companions had friends of their own age to occupy their time and gratify curiosity.
The minister of the United States, Colonel Todd, was, however, among the first to visit his country folks, and we owed not a little of the gratifications we enjoyed in the capi- tal of Colombia, to his kindness ; as well as to that of his secretary, Mr. R. Adams. It would be gratifying to enu- merate the kind and hospitable attentions we experienced ; but, as it would be ungenerous to omit many, if any were particularised, and all would be too uninteresting and nume- rous to state, I prefer not naming any specially ; I can truly say, that I never experienced more kindness, nor found so- ciety where the females were more amiable and ingenuous, nor the men more kind and liberal.
As the journey is now so far completed, it may be proper to fill up the views which the course along the plain pre- sented ; and to follow, in the same unstudied way, with some conversational account of the city, its institutions, and such other objects as belong to the Visit to Colombia.
The approach to Bogota from the north, after entering the plain, is by no means on a direct line ; the plain appears indeed as flat as the ocean in a calm, but its sides are une- qual and often encroached upon by the mountains, that form its east and west bounds, which here and there project forward in irregular bluffs or long slopes, and again recede, leaving large recesses at the foot of the steeps. The road, usually lying above the plain from twenty to thirty feet, fol- lows the diverging line of the mountain base ; towards which the sluggish Funza occasionally winds its way, and again wheels round in ati opposite direction. The road thus winding and elevated, is generally dry, but often rough and
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rocky. Several villages are planted along the route, of greater or less population ; sometimes a single rancho stands in a position convenient for the charge of one or other of those immense flocks of cattle which graze upon the plain, and whose apparently countlesss numbers would seem to defy appropriation. Yet these flocks are private property, and no difficulty is found in selecting them when necessary.
It is not until the traveller is within about seven miles of the city, on this route, that he gains the first glimpse of it. A vast limb of the Sierra Albaracin, thrusts its bold bluff some hundred yards into the plain, and screens the city from the view of the approaching visitor. Emerging from the cove formed by the north side of this bluff, and passing round its base, the dome of the Cathedral and the spires of several other churches, give a very imposing first glance of the capital, which appears placed on a slope more elevated, very distinctly marked, and relieved by the dark face of the lofty, bleak, and steep mountains, immediately at the feet of which it stands. The city stands, in fact, in front of one of those vast fissures or openings, which I have before remark- ed, as constantly characteristic of the Cordillera. The sides of this vast cleft are so steep as not to be accessible, and on the summit of each side is fantastically erected a church — one named the Virgin of Montserrat, the other the Virgin of Guadalupe, which present very picturesque objects to the stranger from the distance.
About four miles from the city, some farms and gardens appropriated to the production of vegetables for the market are seen, with neat cottages carefully whitened, which ap. pear in brighter brilliancy, relieved by the richness of the sur- rounding verdure ; a long suburb of detached dwellings of various denominations, some small, and others spacious, mixed with lofty trees, dispersed and in clumps ; while the side of the Sierra, on the left, presents an alternation of naked rocks, ravines, cliffs, and clumps and groups of trees and
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ket ; through which crystal rills gush into rude channels 07 which art leads their streams for the uses of irrigation ; spacious and well-tilled gardens now occupy broader spaces ; patches of edible plants, and roots, shrubbery, hedges of flow- ering shrubs, and parasites on stages of trellis, and all the variety of tropical products which flourish in a climate that is neither cold nor hot, but uniformly averaging 68° of Fah- renheit, rarely ascending or descending five degrees. About three miles from the city, the road, which was a rugged maze on the scarp of the mountain base, is superseded by a new road constructed upon the fashion of our modern me- thods. It is straight, about forty feet broad, a convex surface of about twenty inches elevation in the centre above the sides — and flanked its whole length by a ditch of sloping sides and four feet broad ; beyond the ditches, on the banks, rise thick-set hedges of rose-trees, of two or three species, and whose perfume delights and warns the traveller long before he discovers whence they proceed. The mile remotest from the city was yet incomplete, but the two nearest miles were in a good style, and covered with the natural rubble of the ravines adjacent ; no country in the world has worse roads, none has better, or more ample and costless materials, and no country on earth stands more in need of them ; the great secret so obvious to any man of discernment, by which the lands of the desert may be made valuable, that of making roads and canals, has not yet become a measure of poli- cy, public economy, or finance, in Colombia ; but this will not appear so extraordinary, considering the perversity with which the policy of Spain had systematically opposed every species of internal improvement ; I recollect, when in the United States, with so many superior advantages as to social concerns, and it is little more than twenty years ago, when I have been spoken of as a hair- brained speculatist, for publishing and pointing out the importance of public roads and canals, and only one road, that of Lancaster, was then attempted upon
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permanent principles. If Colombia pursues the policy of im* provement, with as much effect as she has established liberal institutions, there is no possibility of anticipating the prosper- ity of which that country is susceptible. This road, adjacent to Bogota, is a good specimen of that style which is con- structed with broken stone. As the country is unaffected by frost or snow, and stone and gravel every where to be had without purchase, the whole cost would be only that of the wages of skilful directors and labour ; and more faithful and hardy labourers are no where to be found.
The entrance in this direction to Bogota is not so imposing or striking as from the causeway on the west side. My guide did not lead me the whole length of this handsome road, but shortened the distance by an inclination to the left, and after passing some narrow streets, entered upon an open but irre- gularly formed area, well paved, in which several streets cen- tre, and a fine stone bridge gave a better presage of a fine city. This bridge crosses the stream, which is called a river, Rio San Francisco, and was at this time a deep unsightly ravine, with a very shallow spreading stream ; it has its source in the crevice of the Sierra to the rear or eastward of the city. This area and some of the streets running west, are the usual pro- menades of the citizens in this quarter ; and the streets being very clean, they make a favourable impression. The bridge here is of very excellent workmanship, and I remarked a structure of well- wrought stone- work on the area, which I^at first supposed to be a fountain, but it may have been a mo- nument of some description ; the workmanship of the mould- ings struck me on the passing glance as being executed in a good style. From this lower bridge looking along the ravine to the eastward, another bridge was indistinctly seen higher up, which I soon after found was a continuation of the Calle Real, or principal street, and north of which stands the Plaza San Francisco.
The streets I now passed along were narrow like those of
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Caracas. The houses more generally of two stories high than at Caracas ; but not so lofty as at Caracas, Valencia, Me- rida, Cucuta, or Tunja ; but more spacious than at Truxillo, or Pamplona. I had felt on my first entrance some disap- pointment, from having given credit to the descriptions of some books, in which, perhaps, the exaggeration was rather in the idiomatic use of terms than in intention. A translation of a Persian or a Turkish narrative literally would be, to men accustomed to the use of language in expressing ideas ex- actly, a series of hyperboles ; the Spanish idiom partakes of this orientalism ; and M. Mollien's work proves that the French admits of this species of caricature. Some books that I have read make the streets of Caracas, as well as Bogota, forty feet wide : the widest street in either does not exceed twenty-five feet ; and in Bogota the only street of that breadth is the Calle Real, all the rest are about twenty feet. Bogota, as well as Caracas, is, notwithstanding, sufficiently handsome without any aid of extravagance in drawing.
Like M. Mollien, when I was led to the residence of the executive, I experienced some disappointment, because I had read in some book of the viceroy 's palace ; without this previous impression, the house would have appeared most respectable : but there was more than the misnomer, there had been a dwelling called the palace of the viceroy, but it was on the south side of the square ; the house substituted for it stands on the west side. The original palace was de- stroyed during the revolution, as the city was exposed to assault, taken and retaken six or seven times.
At the first conquest, the Spaniards found in all parts of America spacious and orderly cities and towns already esta- blished, and generally preferred their occupation to the tardy process of founding new cities or towns; the aboriginal people usually selected the positions that were best adapted for ac- commodation, health, and comfort, near pure water, and fertility. This was the case in Mexico and Cuzco, but the
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chief place of these regions lay farther east of the banks of the Funza.
The city of Bogota is of Spanish foundation, and derives its name from a native village, which still exists about ten miles to the west of the present capital. The first Spanish invaders were received in a friendly manner by the natives, and established themselves at this village, which from the neighbourhood of an extensive marsh, which still remains, but appears to have been then a lake, it was found unhealthy for European constitutions. Ximenes de Quesada, who is denominated the conqueror of this country, sought a position more salubrious, and selected a spacious sloping plain at the foot of the mountains of Albaracin, one of the lowest and the most eastern of the ridges of the Paramos of Chingasa. The choice made was judicious ; a constant and ample stream of limpid water flows from the crevice that intersects the ridge to its base. This city was founded in 1538, and the great plaza, which is about a mile east from the steep side of the mountain, is in north latitude 4° 36' 30", and west of Green- wich 78° 30', and 8702 or 8706 feet above the level of the ocean, for it has been so ascertained by actual measurements. It was said to have been laid out by the founder into twelve manzanas, or blocks, of about three hundred feet on every face, for dwelling houses ; with streets crossing north and south, east and west, the broadest of which, the Calle Real, is no more than twenty-five feet broad, and the other streets generally twenty feet, some narrower. Those manzanas, however, were extended, as the population augmented, to twenty -five north and south, and thirteen east and west ; and, as I was told, and which is very probable, that before the revolution, the manzanas extended to 295. It would be a useless labour to attempt any statistical enquiries, as they could not be ascertained with exactness at this period; a great part of the city was abandoned during the revolution, much more desolated by the Spaniards, and repeated pro-
mi
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scriptions, barbarous massacres, and executions, expelled numbers of the survivors ; and much still lies in ruins. The inhabitants were computed in 1823, as fluctuating between and 38000 ; and the activity that was already perceived in the suburbs countenances the returning growth of the popu- lation. To the rear of the northern end of the city, above the crevice formed in the ridge, presides on the crests of the steep summits a striking evidence of the extravagance and aspiring power of the church. On the steep verge of the northern peak of this crevice is a church called N. Senora de Mont- serrat; and separated by the chasm on the opposite peak, ano- ther named N. Senora de Guadalupe. Strange caprice which established houses for purposes of religious worship on steeps so inaccessible to human feet, and to which the ascent must be at the same time circuitous, tedious, and dangerous. Their aspect from the plain and the city at their feet, is that of overhanging castles, such as in the days of feudality were selected by lordly chieftains to deter rather than to invite ap- proach or charitable communion. There was something of this lordly spirit in the selection of those sites ; they were beacons which told the surrounding vassals the power which predominated, and the discipline of penance in religious ser- vice had here a ground to put the pious to his travail, and teach obedience. These churches have no permanent resi- dents, but some poor sacristans, whose disciplinary habits have been formed to these bleak and chilly solitudes. On certain festivals religious celebrations take place at one or the other, to which some few whose zeal is ardent repair, to wash away their sins, work out, if not their spiritual salvation, at least impose upon the world their temporal beatification, to secure credit with the world they belong to. It is only in the ex- travagance of the positions selected for these " sacred dramas," and those " studied acts," that they differ from " performers" of other countries, where there is more and growing hypo- crisy than in Colombia, where it is really on the decline ; for,
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by the best accounts, those ambitious rivals of Babylonian eminence, which were in the foretime sometimes crowded, now seldom collect half a score for a congregation. I notice these matters the more particularly, because there prevails much misapprehension in other countries concerning church affairs in Colombia, where, among those classes which have had the benefit of a good or a moderate education, there is not half so much superstition and much less hypocrisy, than in countries more reformed, and who claim to be the most religious people in the world.
There is an access to each of those tabernacles, by steep and winding ways, over paths precarious and toilsome — in visiting the country seat of the Liberator, at the foot of the steep, I had sufficient experience to satisfy what little curi- osity the novelty of those places had stirred within me ; and some of my acquaintances, who had taken the pains, satisfied me that the object was not sufficient to compensate the toil. From the crevice which cuts the mountain across from top to bottom, and leaving the gaping chasm with the black shelving sides standing awfully apart, beneath those beacons of a darker age, an ample and never-failing stream issues to the westward. Its current is nt first a single volume, and, from the aspect of the rocks which occupy the space through which it formerly flowed single and powerful, it is evident, that it formed a torrent of great power. By whose sagacity and good sense this rich fountain was disarmed of its vio- lence, and diverted into separate and widely diffused cur- rents, I could not learn, as happens often to the benefactors of the human species ; by drawing off a part into a separate channel, and leading it along the side of the mountain south- ward, while the other half flowed in its accustomed chan- nel, it pays tribute to the reservoir, constructed in such a position as to supply the numerous public fountains, which ornament and supply with limpid water the whole city, and cleanse by never-ceasing rivulets the whole of the numerous
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streets, which incline from the upper side of the city to the plain, and discharge their currents into the Funza. The two streams, which cross the city at about the centre of its two parts, are denominated rivers ; the Rio San Francisco is the northernmost, and occupies the ravine passed at the en- trance of the city from the east ; the southern stream is de- nominated Rio San Augustirty from the two principal monas- teries of that order near which it flows. There are some handsome stone bridges over this stream also ; there are five, in all, over the two streams, and of excellent structure. These rivers divide the city into three sections. The ra- vines, through which they pass, have not obtained any care or embellishment from taste or art ; and as the torrent, when its force was embodied in one volume, made terrible ravage on the friable clay soil through which it cut its bed, there possibly may be occasional floods, which would render em- bellishment and labour waste.
Very near the issue of the waters from the gorge of the mountains on the north side of the stream, the President Bolivar has a very tastily constructed pavilion, with sufficient accommodations for his suite, and a handsome rivulet, which has been drawn aside from the current, supplies the house with water for domestic uses ; entering the rear of the apartments at the north end, it furnishes basons and the reservoirs of a very commodious bathing-house. The pavilion has a saloon, an audience room, a parlour, a spacious dining-hall, and a retiring parlour ; a chapel occupies the north wing, with an altar ; and several suites of rooms are all under one roof. The garden which surrounds it is not large, but sufficient for the pleasures of a single retired family, and is supplied with all the curious and beautiful shrubs and plants to which the temperature is not adverse. The place, though over- looking the city, is solitary, but it is kept in good repair ; it would however have fewer visiters if it belonged to a less respected personage. The European usage of paying to see the show affords the garden- keeper a small sum.
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Art and wisdom has not halted at the division and distri- bution of the great current. About half a mile lower down, but above the summit of the cathedral, there is constructed a very fine reservoir of excellent masonry, and covered in, which receives the pure water of the mountain flood. From this reservoir, the fountains which ornament and conduce to the salubriousness of the city are supplied. The fountains like those of Caracas are in no bad taste, and, what of all is best, they are a benefit to the population generally, and ac- commodate those who are the least able to supply them- selves, as well as those who are opulent. I am not aware that there is any reservoir on the south quarter, but I could perceive in my walks, that no street of the city having an eastern and western direction, is without its ample rill of clear water perpetually flowing over the well-paved channels prepared to convey it. I have read in some traveller's re- marks, that a travelling wit once observed of Bogota, that it would be a dirty place were it not for the waters that con- stantly wash its streets, and the gallinazos that devour the oftal ; this, like many other witticisms, is unjust as it is unreflecting. I do not know what Bogota might have been without this mountain stream, or without the gallinazos; but I have not seen a really dirty street in any city of Co- lombia that I have visited ; but the poor wit in this case proved more than he intended, because his sarcasm amounts to an acknowledgment of the actual cleanliness of Bogota : nevertheless, there are some customs among the poorer clas- ses that are neither cleanly nor delicate to the eyes of persons bred where customs are different, and, as these mark a defect of civilization, and a deficiency of the common arts of social life, so far as they go, should not be overlooked ; no where are the manners of the well-bred people more amiable and de- corous. The poor Indians, only just rescued by the repub- lic from the same condition as the cattle in a hato, and re- stored to the social state of free human beings, cannot be ex-
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to have acquired those ideas of delicacy which arc the sequence and the proofs of refinement. Our residence is in the Plaza San Francisco, which is an open grass plot, and versed diagonally, going to and coming from the bridge of
t. Francis at its south-west angle ; the poor Indian women in their blue cloaks and petticoats, if impelled by natural ne- cessity, without looking round, or any apparent conscious- ness of observing eyes, will not hesitate to squat on the grass for a moment, and, looking behind, pass along as innocent of offence against decorum, as the babe in its mother's lap. This undoubtedly is a matter which a more improved police will rectify in time, and I heard it was so intended ; but I have no doubt that some kinds of travellers, who, like the wit upon the gallinazos, would set it down as the evidence of national barbarism, would not hesitate to step up to a wall or into a cor- ner, if called upon in the open street by a similar necessity, and perform a similar act, without thinking it indecorous. But I must say this of Bogota, and indeed Colombia generally, that I never saw a man in Colombia imitate this practice of well-bred men, in our professedly more polished societies, where every corner, especially near our public courts, is perpetually perfumed, I was going to say, with ammonia or spirits of hartshorn.
The other practice I refer to is not a mere moral affair ; it is the singular devices to which the absence of the useful arts reduce men, and by which the operations of the scaven- ger are conducted at Bogota ; it is a proof, nevertheless, that there is a strong disposition to preserve the streets from im- purity, though the means are almost ridiculous. From the balcony of my residence, beneath which a constant current washed the channeled pavement, at some distance above, I perceived six or seven men, with short brooms, without handles, squatting on their hams and clearing the gutter from an unusual quantity of vegetable substance that had accumu- lated at different points, and by arresting the currrent formed
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pools, that if suffered to remain must become offensive to the senses ; they brushed this filth upon the higher pave- ment, beginning at the lower extremity, and, when the channel became clear and the pavement uncovered, they proceeded in the process by which the filth was to be removed : — there was no mule at hand ; there was no cart, or wheel- barrow — for wheel carriages make no part of the public accommodation or economy in any part of the coun- try or town ; there was not a hand-barrow, not a trough, or box, or coffer ; there was not even a shovel, nor a ca- labash, nor a tortoise shell in the hands of the scavenger ; what was to be done? The filth was not such as the gallinazo would or could carry away — yet the filth was ab- solutely to be removed, and it was thus accomplished. The cow-hide, that serves for ten thousand uses — that serves for window blinds and doors, for the seats and backs of settees and chairs ; which is better than a hempen sacking-bottom for a bedstead ; — with it the rafters of the rancho are made fast to the transverse beams ; the doors of separated rooms, and even the front doors, are frames covered with cow-hide ; it forms the lasso by which the wild horse and bull are brought under subjection ; and the harness of the numberless mules which carry all the world of commerce ; — the enumeration of the uses would be endless : — the scavenger carries a bag sat- chel shaped, made of a single cow-hide doubled on itself, and sewed at the sides ; the open end is laid upon the pavement, and the filth swept into it with the short broom ; a strap of cow-hide made fast at the sides, serves to purse up the aper- ture, and to suspend the bag over the shoulder, and thus it is the filth is removed. This fact argues, what is necessarily true, the wretched state in which the policy of Spain placed the countries formerly subjected to it. Were such an usage to prevail twenty years hence, it would be a reproach to the republic. But I have been describing customs, and the su- burbs, before I have said much that is necessary about the
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city itself. I made no notes of the names of the streets, be- cause in every other city they have been changed ; Bogota itself has been disarrayed of its sanctification by Congress, formerly called Santa Fe de Bogota, or Bogota of the holy faith. It is the custom of republics, I believe, to become laconic or economical of words, and as names are mere terms of discrimination, intended to convey an idea of identity of place, the Colombians have thought, that, as there were more than fifty places of the name of Santa Fe, which, though in- tended as an adjunct, was often confounded with the true name, they have lopped off the adjunct, and he who hears Bogota is sure that it is not Santa Fe de Antioquia, nor any other of the Santa Fes.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Plaza Mayor— commanding position of the Cathedral— the Government- house— the market day— multiplicity of products— foreign manufactures — Calle Real — bookselling — shops—jewellers — shoemakers — tailors— tin-plate workers — milliners — blacksmiths.
OF the four plazas, or open public squares of Bogota, the Plaza Mayor requires the most notice. They have fountains, which constantly flow with pure water, of excel- lent architecture, such as I noticed at Caracas ; and, in com- mon with all the streets running from east to west, command a complete view of the splendid and expansive landscape in the whole range of the circle from south by west to north and north-east, the mountain forming the back ground. The Great Plaza is distinguished in various modes for its sump-
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tuous cathedral, with its lofty elliptical dome, rising in graceful proportions above the eastern end of the church, lighting the great altar beneath and the choir : its two beau- tiful cupolas are elevated above the facade, on the west- ern end, and the facade itself, presenting an object, which, though it may not be in conformity with the exact propor- tions of the European schools of architecture, the tout en- semble affords to the eye which is not too fastidious, cold, and critical, a high gratification. The dome seen from the west, with its two cupolas, at once suggests the resemblance to the bold and commanding preeminence of St. Peter's at Rome, and St. Paul's at London ; and, although neither so ample nor so elevated, it derives, from the high position on which it stands, an aspect not less imposing and interesting ; and, like those great temples, deriving an additional advan- tage from contrast with the surrounding steeples, and domes, and cupolas, which, though numerous and high, appear di minished to inferiority from its commanding elevation. I the next chapter, I shall offer some further particulars in con- nexion with a sketch of the ecclesiastical affairs.
The cathedral stands on the east face of the plaza, and, with another religious structure, occupies about three-fifths of the whole front ; the residue of that face of the square, on the south end, is composed of dwellings with covered verandahs or galleries, and a corridor on the street.
Directly opposite the cathedral, and on the north end of the west face of the plaza, stands the palace, so called, of the executive : M. Mollien, of whom some notice was taken at Serinza and Santa Rosa, sneers at the apparent contradic- tion of a palace and a republican government, betraying his disregard of the original derivation of this title to the present structure, and its history ; it being only occupied for the pub- lic accommodation in consequence of the destruction by the Spaniards of that building, which was, at the commence-
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ment of the revolution, the palace of the viceroy, and stood on the south side of the plaza, where a temporary barrack for infantry has been since erected : M. Mollien also might have learned, in the course of the studies which he under- went to qualify him for his secret mission, that in the Cas- tilian language, which is prone to orientalism, a hut of four bamboos, or of four pita walls with one apartment only, may, without violence to the idiom, be denominated a pa- lace — which, after all, signifies no more than the word place. This building, though it possesses no external decoration, nor pretension to architectural order, is a spacious and com- modious establishment. It is two stories high, and affords, besides numerous apartments for the vice-president and his suite, ample accommodation for all the great departments of the executive administration, without crowding or interfering one with the other.
The entrance — and, as is universal, the only entrance — is on the face of the Great Plaza, which opens by a pair of ample folding gates to a spacious hall, paved, and through which a broad entrance leads to the patios in the continuation of the buildings west. On the left of the entrance there is a handsome room appropriated for the use of the officer of the day, whose duty places him there. In the continuation of the entrance, beyond that room, a broad staircase of two flights leads to the upper apartments ; and further on, very good rooms are occupied by the detachment of the dragoons of the guards, who do duty on foot ; two of whom, with their sabres, perform the service of centinels, and, with a civility that is not common to centinels and guards in other countries, render to strangers the service of guides, and, as I constantly found them, always ready to afford directions to those who visit and inquire for the different public offices. This hall exhibits, besides the obliging dragoons on duty, the arms of the guard, their carabines in fine order, suspend- ed on racks, and the sabres and accoutrements neat and me-
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thodically disposed. On the right of the entrance a stone staircase, of a few steps, leads to a passage northward, and opens upon a patio well paved, and an ample corridor, cover- with the strong matting fabricated by the Indians, which leads to the apartments appropriated in the north-east angle, to the department of foreign affairs. The offices of the secretary of the interior, the treasury, the war, and the navy departments, are on the upper floor, as well as the audience hall, council chamber, and a vast number of apartments in the occupation of the executive, both for public uses and his domestic ac- commodations.
But it is as the centre of all popular festivities, and, above all, as the centre of traffic, as a great market, that the plaza mayor presents the most interesting position in Bogota. The ordinary market day is Friday, and, though it has this stated day for the immense concourse from the surrounding country, this place, for three or four hours every morning of the week, exhibits an abundant market for articles of sub- sistence, in the greatest variety, and at the most moderate prices.
This spacious square is paved in the usual excellent style throughout, and the method of paving in compartments, by lines of stones on the edge, and the compartment filled with pavement of round stones, though it was not intended for the purpose, becomes of some use in the apportionment of space to the dealers in various commodities ; there are neither tables, chairs, stools, counters, or chests visible in this square ; all commodities are displayed on the naked pavement, or, where the articles require it, on coarse cloths spread upon the space regulated. Here are seen the manufactured products of all parts of the globe, Japan and China, India, Persia, France, England, Germany, Italy, and Holland ; and, though last, not least, the United States, or their favourite America del Norte. On different platforms,
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apportioned out by proper officers, or clerks of the market, or deputies of the alcaldes, are seen piles of every kind of cotton, woollen, silk, and linen manufactures ; calicoes of India and England, the silks of Asia, Italy, and France ; the coarse linen fabrics of Russia, Saxony, Silesia, Swabia, and Holland ; the finer linens of England, Ireland, France, and Holland ; the broad coarse stripes and checks of Ger- many, and their English successful imitations. I recognized, with some surprise and pleasure, in more than one of these collections, the familiar Wilmington cotton stripe, and alongside of it an English imitation, which I found, to my no less surprise, the chapman knew ; and he showed me a remnant of an imitation chambray, of a thread about the texture of nankeen, which he said was much sought on ac- count of its durability and suitableness. Lanes, if I may so call them, were kept open between the cloths of each chap- man, so that the purchasers travelled as if upon the lines of a chequerboard. There stood an ample series of piles of coarse, and next to it of fine woollen broad- cloths — of York- shire and of Rouen, and some too of the Philadelphia and Baltimore looms. Blankets and stripes for romeros ; hats, round and military, of wool, fur, and beaver, as well as straw, chip, and cuquisias, or the agave fibre ; and for both sexes.
On other compartments of the plaza, fruit and vegetable productions, of every description, were placed in piles on the pavement or in capacious or small baskets — potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, apios, yuccas, cheremoyas, pine apples, melons, paw-paws, soursops, alligator pears, medlars, guavas, cauliflowers, artichokes, aracatchas, &c. ; baskets and sacks of crimson, yellow, mottled, and snow-white maize ; rice in sacks and baskets ; wheat, beans, barley, pease, vetches, &c. ; ginger, cellery, cinnamon, capsicums of numerous kinds and sizes ; cabbages, lettuce, and bouquettes of pinks, roses, lilies, and many flowers peculiar to the country.
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On other spaces, turkeys, pheasants, ducks of different kinds, partridges, quails, guinea-fowls, doves, various kinds of pigeon, and numerous birds of variegated plumage, and singing birds in wicker cages ; among the birds the mocking bird, heard in all parts of the wooded country and plains, is also brought to market for domestic curiosity, as well as parrots and paroquets of various tints and tongues, and monkeys of different species.
In other spaces are seen the barks of Loxa, Neyva, and Quito ; the balsams, dye-woods, turmeric, indigo, cochineal, and a paste for dyeing, made of the opuntia or prickly pear, cassia or native cinnamon, pimento, and other aromatics.
Sugar, cacao, coffee, cotton, in small and in large parcels ; and chocolate prepared in round balls, sold by the basket, or in any larger or smaller quantity.
Coarse clothing, hats, saddlery, coarse cutlery, and simi- lar articles, are to be found constantly for sale on the market day at the stated hours ; and mules, asses, and horses, as well as cattle of different kinds, are here bargained for, from a single animal to a thousand.
The only manual arts which I saw in practice at Bogota, were principally that of the tailor, next the shoemaker ; I saw one blacksmith's shop, it was that of an Englishman ; there are several tinplate workers, but their skill is confined to pint pots, tin cups, graters, and lanterns, and now and then a porringer, ladle, or cullender ; so that the want of roads is not to be deplored by the retailers of Yankee notions of tin ware, the demand being limited to articles so few.
These and every merchantable thing are to be found in this market, but every day these are to be found in the shops which occupy the north face of the plaza, where also wines, oils, liquors, and foreign products are always to be found. But it is in the Calle Real that the richest and finest commo- dities are exposed for sale in spacious shops, which occupy the ground-floor of all the houses on both sides of that busy
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itreet. Here the finest jewellery, cutlery, millinery, and Nothing for both sexes, are collected, and from thence dis- persed over all the countries, west, south, and east, for some hundreds of miles, and beyond Quito. Native crystals, the topaz of various hues from Brazil, the emeralds of the coun- try in deeper or paler tints, wrought and rude; the diamonds, and rubies, and amethysts of Asia, glitter alongside the ar- tificial gems of Paris ; and the fine wrought gold filagree of the native workmen which rivals that of the eastern Archipe- lago. This street contains the only bookseller's shop I had an opportunity of seeing in Colombia ; the books were prin- cipally French, a few English, many recent productions of the Spanish press, which were issued in great profusion during the existence of even that partial and kind of expedient for government under the Cortes, which, in recognizing the most mean and perfidious of men as monarch, lost the Cortes the confidence and the respect of all virtuous and generous minds. In noticing the bookseller, whose business did not seem to be either brisk or profitable, I am led to speak of the li- brary. In noticing the former monastery of the Jesuits, now a seminary of education upon the old system, I observed it stood on the south-east angle of the manzana, cut by the in- tersection of the streets which are continuous of the east and south faces of the great plaza, the Calle Real being the north- ern continuation of the east face, and the Jesuit's college that which continues on the same line south. The old monas- tery of San Bartholome stands further south on the north side of this street. The transactions of which I had charge carried me for some weeks to this library, where the board of liquidation held its sittings, and whose deliberate mode of business enabled me to travel through the heaps of books which lay on the floor, and a vast number which occupied the ample shelves. I felt some dissatisfaction at the manner in which these books were treated, and the negligence and disorder of the mode in which their arrangement was not car-
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ried on, and the more as I found among this rich collection many valuable, I may say invaluable works; and although there is a great mass of scholastic, and monastic, and dogmatic rubbish, it is there that the materials could be found to fur- nish an history of the countries that had been possessed by Spain. This library is founded on the collection left to his country by the celebrated Mutis, a native of Bogota, to which has been added by the public providence all the libra- ries that belonged to confiscated estates, ecclesiastical and private.
The observatory, which was erected under the auspices of Mutis and others, remained ; its instruments and apparatus were there, but no professor ; at my departure I understood some men of science had arrived, and this class of institu- tions was about to be restored.
The spectacle of this market in the plaza mayor, not only on Friday but every day, is very striking to the eye of a stran- ger. Travellers too generally look to other objects, physical and metaphysical ; it was viewed by me as an example of the natural state of the country ; its riches for external commerce and its abundance ; the manners of the people under the new institutions ; their good humour ; their cordial deport- ment towards each other ; their aptitude for labour in the enormous burdens carried by men and women into and out of the plaza ; the promptness of their bargains ; the avidity displayed for articles of use and ornament ; the very remark- able activity and industry of the aborigines who visited the market with a diversity of commodities, the products of their own industry, all of which presented to me a scene of man- ners and opulence in the industrious classes, much beyond my warmest anticipations. I could not but deplore the utter absence of roads adapted to wheel- carriages, and the trans- port of the products of the soil, the want of which alone pre- vents the cultivation of immense tracts in the finest climates and the richest soil in the universe ; and I regret to say that
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importance, though much spoken of, is not duly ap- >reciated, either as a source of national opulence, augmented population, or, what they very much require, sources of effective permanent revenue.
Having spoken of this central mart of the capital, before I leave it, some further notice of the cathedral may be given in this place. At a distance, especially on the road return- ing from the south-west, the city and its lofty elliptic dome present some resemblance of the city of Florence in Etruria ; I have before noticed its resemblance, connected with its two cupolas, seen from the west, to St. Peter's and St. Paul's. In one of those cupolas there is a very fine clock, and kept in the best order, which, besides striking the hours on a bell of a fine deep tone, strikes the quarter hours on a tenor. Bells of a good tone are rare, though there is no church with- out bells of some kind, but they are miserable utensils, af- fording no more musical sounds than the brass candlesticks when the country housewives are collecting a swarm of bees.
The cathedral of Bogota has been much admired for its fine facade, and not without good reason, though M. Mollien reprobates it, while he applauds the interior, which belongs to no order of architecture whatever. Captain Cochrane, with a different temper, lavishes encomiums on both with a hasty indiscretion : the truth lies between. The first im- pression made by this structure is that of pleasure, for the facade at twice the distance of its elevation is in harmony with its diameter ; and it is only on a closer approach, that the entablature appears too much depressed for the length of the shaft of the pilasters which sustain the cornice. The base moulding of the shaft is not the cincture bead and to- rus of the Doric, but such as we sometimes see on the Co- rinthian, Ionic, and even the Tuscan ; a double moulding, as the workman would describe it, but in more technical phrase the upper member of the base, or astrigal, or small torus, with a scotia below, and beneath, placed upon the
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plinth, the larger torus. The excellence and boldness of the chisseled work, as it appeared to me, though it is disco- loured by the atmosphere, was a species of freestone much resembling that of which the capitol at Washington and the houses of Bath in England are generally constructed. The pedestal has no skirting, and seemed rather low for the shaft, which perhaps may have been the effect of the platform raised in front.
This structure has another peculiarity, that of being erect- ed by a native and self educated artist, who had never pass- ed beyond the precincts of his native province : as the effect is striking, and it is the fastidiousness of criticism that would discover faults, and such have been said to be found in some of the most celebrated structures of antiquity, it is entitled to admiration. The interior, to which access is obtained by a fine pair of lofty gates at the west end, has been described as built in the Corinthian order ; it had been better not to have said so. The church is separated into two aisles and the nave, the sides half the width of the centre. On entering, the altar and the church altogether is concealed by the west end of an elevated choir, which occupies above the floor two fifths of the nave. It is not so gloomy as the choir at Caracas, but it has all the inconvenience and cumbrous ap- pearance ; and excludes the auditory from any participation in the psalmody. The choir passed on either side, displays some massy white pillars, upon the summit of which are capitals rudely imitating the acanthus, but all over-gilt — the shafts are too stunted, and the gilding outre. There is nothing of the carver's skill, nothing of that " virginial delica- cy" which Scamozzi considers essential — no lightness, nor that sudden unpressed rest of the acanthus, beneath its tile or abacus, without which the plain Doric or the rustic pillar would be more suitable. The church is every where well lighted from above, and, after advancing as far as the east end of the choir, the great altar appears in a recess equal to the
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jreadth of the nave, and elevated, exclusive of the steps of the altar at the extreme, one or two steps above the floor of the church. There are two side altars beside the great altar appropriately placed in the east ; and some paintings of sa- cred subjects very well disposed around these altars.
In the two aisles, on the north and south sides, there are several, perhaps twelve or fourteen, lesser altars, or little chapels ; around which there are lesser paintings, and I re- marked that those of every separate altar were in a style of colouring and shade peculiar and different from each other ; some were very fine — but many were sad daubs.
Passing along to the east by the south aisle, a very hand- some and ample door stood open, and revealed at a glimpse an interior chapel of a light grey marble, of beautiful and admirably executed architecture, in which the very athletic columns displayed the Ionic capital. The shafts were unusually swelled, and less elevated for their diameter than the Ionic proportions ; so that I should have been apt to say, that the shaft was really Doric ; nor has the archi- tect introduced any of the usual ornaments of the Ionic on the frieze. These remarks are made, and, though not im- portant, may remain in preference to a more studied or con- cise general description. The impression made by the view was delightful, there was a harmony in the breadth and ele- vation which seemed to reduce the space. It occurred Jo me that the architect, in this structure, had accommodated the elevation and diameter of the column, to the fulness and athletic forms of the lovely females of the country. If the architect never thought of this analogy, it is not my fault; it would be a handsome apology for him, and it enables me to hint at the characteristic roundness and beauty of the lovely Senoritas of Bogota. As the other churches are not interest- ing structures, I shall pass them over in a summary way ; indeed I visited but few of them.
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The Franciscans appear not to be such jolty fellows as the Dominicans. Their monastery in the square of San Francisco, where I resided, is ample. The church ranges on the west side of the square, so that the altar is at the north end ; the access is by spacious gates on the south and east sides. The choir, very judiciously, is placed in a gallery at the south end, so that the space in the nave below is open to the congregation ; the more necessary, as there are no aisles : it is, like several others, a long spacious single hall, much disfigured with senseless gilding on the walls and ceiling.
Withio the church, on the west side, a gate opens upon the first cloister or square of two stories, with ample corri- dors on all sides above and below. The walls of the lower corridor are covered with large pictures, wars of the con- quest and pious subjects, which were in a style that did not induce any enquiries on my part : a surly superior of the order manifested " the malignity of a monk" by the con- tortions of his face, his scowling eye, and tremulous lip, on seeing strangers, spectators. I said to myself, as Sterne said to an animal more useful and innocent, " go, poor devil, I never quarrel with any of your family." I therefore mounted the stairs along with General Devereux, and we passed along the second gallery, and saw the third corridor. I was intro- duced here to one of the monks, and was not a little sur- prised, to be accosted in the English language, ornamented with a very genteel brogue. I had some interviews after- wards with this Irish friar ; but it would, perhaps, not be treating him fairly to relate his lamentations over the decay and impending ruin of his order. I shall simply state, that the law which transferred the inmates of a monastery, when reduced to a given number, would, he said, before long, trans- fer that beautiful and comfortable and rich monastery to the republic ; not that he was unfriendly to liberty, but before the revolution their monasteries were full, and now they are almost empty : that, as the natives had no chance in their
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own country for preferment, in former times, the young men then generally entered into 'orders, and the beautiful senoritas took orders too ; but now there are so many offices under this new government, besides the army and the navy, and a thousand other things, that the young men have forsaken church to follow ambition ; and the young girls having free will of their own — God help them ! — they prefer get- ting married to devoting their immortal souls to pious re- tirement ; that there were but a few in that monastery likely to live very long — and then this beautiful convent goes. I have, as far as possible, used his own ideas, though I have not succeeded in the simplicity and spirit of his expres- sions.
There is another church of the Recollets of St. Diego, se- parated only by the upright wall from that of St. Francis, and one of the Holy Cross. There is a small tiled hut, in the north-west angle of the same square, dedicated to St. Hu- mildas, said to have been the first church constructed in that region, and, on the ceremonial days, it is never omitted in the processions or visitations. Some strangers pointed out to me a sort of gate-way, which crossed the street in the continuance from south to north of the line of the ' square. A convent of nuns occupied formerly, or may at this moment for what I know, the corner house to which the north side of the arch was attached. The gate- way had no gates below, but over the arch there was, and is, a passage between the nunnery and the church ; I accounted for this by the vow of retirement, and the obligation of frequent confession ; that the nuns might pass to mass or to confession unseen by the world they had abandoned ; or, if sick, they could have spiritual comfort, without exciting any curiosity from the idle people who walked below, and minded every body's business but their own ; but those strangers put a different construction on this gate- way passage — and what could I do in attempting to prove a negative. My sentiments, I con-
484 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
fess, were very much shaken by an incident that took place on Good Friday, which I may relate (if I do not forget it) in another place.
The festivals of the Catholic countries are so numerous, that they are adapted rather for a tropical climate than for the temperate regions, which require more labour and the comforts of domestic firesides. Indeed, fertile as Colombia is, and rich in ample and triple harvests in the same year, and off the same ground, the religious festivals, if enforced as most of the regular orders of monks and some of the seculars would enforce them, must interfere seriously with the prosperity of a society which had reached a state of civilization and taste for the useful arts. The general, or predominant character of the festivals after the service or ceremonial, is that of relaxation and the enjoyment of inno- cent pleasures. In Lent, commencing with Ash- Wednesday, society assumes a sombre aspect — the privations and absti- nence enjoined for this austere and gloomy season, are some- what softened by the clerical contrivance of exaction in the issuing indulgences for the use of flesh meat ; which have been further reduced by the necessity which the priesthood found of refraining from the severity of the church discipline since the revolution. Passion week, in the intention of its religious services, is a series of commemorations allegorically or dramatically displayed; and circumstantially represent the passion or sufferings of Christ, from the event in the garden of Gethsemane ; the denial by Peter ; the arrest and betrayal by Judas ; the appearance before Pilate ; the scourg- ing, carrying of the cross, crucifixion, taking down from the cross, and transference to the sepulchre, and the resurrection on Easter-day : all these events, and others, being represent- cd by some act or device of the mass, make a very solemn impression, even without the pomp and circumstance which ha\e been made to give it a deeper impression on the senses. Yet it is only on a comparatively few that the serious part
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of the ceremonial operates ; the pageantry has been carried to so great an excess here, that the spectacle arrests the imagi- nation of the ignorant, while upon the intelligent the moral force of the ceremonial is diminished or lost; and even the ceremonial of Good-Friday, in which all the inci- dents of the Passion are brought into view together, in the forms of images and paintings, excites more curiosity to see the show, than recollection or devotion towards the sacri- fice of the Atonement. Hence even this solemnity, in the excess of detailed ceremonial, mostly inspires a sensual in- stead of a moral regard, especially among those whose minds are least prone to abstractions or capable of making them. The ceremonial of the Passion Week at Bogota, very much outshows that at Goa, which I had supposed surpassed all others. Palm Sunday was a very gay day. The Monday succeeding was marked by a procession from the northern- most church, or Augustine's priory, to each in succession in the progress to the cathedral. A figure in wax, or com- position, whom I presume to have been the patron saint of that church, was carried on a platform or litter, beneath a canopy ; the platform sustained on the shoulders of men, who assumed a particular garb. The effigy of the saint was nearly as large as life, and painted in much the same style as the statuary in gypsum, usually hawked about the streets of our cities. The figures on the succeeding days, however, were many of them executed with tolerable skill in anatomy, and some taste in the drapery. These pro- cessions continued daily from the several churches ; and visits, it seems, were returned ; I confess that I did not feel so much curiosity as to inquire why or wherefore those visitations were made, and I could not account for them by the book.
All business, public and private, seemed to be suspended during jhis week of processions. Good-Friday, however,
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concentrated the whole. It would be impossible in a small volume to give the details; what is here is but an imperfect sketch ; for the various churches and chapels had their pe- culiar effigies — and the morning was passed in visiting with one set of effigies those of another church. About three o'clock the general procession from all the churches to the cathedral, began to flow in that direction. A military guard led the van, and, in succession, about fifty platforms or lit- ters passed. It would be vain and useless to particularize all. I shall notice a few of the most conspicuous. The monastic orders, in their robes of service or surplices, with stoles, appeared with the emblematic figures of their church- es— the civil authorities, alcaldes, and other officers, and the national functionaries — strangers who were specially in- vited to the function — and private citizens, bearing wax- tapers ; after several of the emblematic saints had passed, various scenes of the passion were exhibited in statuary ; the carrying of the cross very handsomely executed as to art ; the whipping at the pillar not so well executed; but, after this platform, or litter, came some Dominican friars, and pe- nitents in black, excepting two very brawny friars, whose bodies were naked to the waist, and who held cats of nine- tails in their hands, with which every now and then they sa- luted their naked shoulders ; I was assured that the cats were dipt in a red-lead liquid, but I did not see it, though the exhibition of the naked shoulders and the harmless cats were too much for my taste in religious exercises. On other litters, the nailing on the cross, the elevation of the cross — and the two thieves — the taking down : — after the platform, on which was depicted the crucifixion, came ano- ther, bearing the Virgin Mother, attired in imperial style ; two or three other litters followed, and the procession closed with a body of the regular infantry, handsomely equipped, and exemplarily diligent to order and pace — while their fine
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band of musical instruments were performing the Marseillois Hymn in excellent style.
Those platforms or litters were carried by men dressed in a gray monkish garb, their faces very generally masked, some with iudicrous conical caps of eighteen inches height, and a
Jck crape over the face with three holes. Each wore san* s of better than the common wear, and each carried a staff of about four feet six inches long, with an iron crutch on the end, and, when the procession halted, the platforms rested on those crutches. I did not enter the cathedral, owing to the great pressure; but the service is established in the ritual, and unless it was the music, nothing was to be added to the observations already made.
The private service had continued during the previous night, and it was four o'clock in the evening before the whole was terminated. About six o'clock I was sitting in the gallery of my residence, which was on the north face of the Plaza of St. Francis, the street which formed that side of the square extended east and west ; the west descent was crossed by the archway between the nunnery and the church before noticed ; looking along the street under that arch I observed an unusual bustle, and a detachment of the guard turned out in front of their barracks on the opposite or south face of the plaza, which a civil officer conducted to the place where the disorder appeared ; I followed to see the result, and had just arrived in front when two friars were brought out, and conducted under charge of the guard. I was so close as to see the features of these two persons, in- deed so close that in a few days afterwards, upon visiting the monastery to which they belonged, they descried me, and one said to the other, in my hearing, " he was there — he saw us," and in very high glee appeared to narrate the affair of their arrest on Good Friday ; — I should not have thought the incident worth a remark, for the house they were taken out of was a brothel
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The ecclesiastical affairs of Colombia have been much de- ranged by the revolution, and will require some time for re- gulation. The disaffection of some of the superior clergy, as the archbishop of Caracas, the vacancy of that of Bogota, the bishoprics of Cuenca and Guayana, and the death of others, the vacancies of which it has been deemed proper not to fill until it shall be ascertained whether the policy of the court of Rome will bend to events, or render it expedient for South America generally to establish an American pa- triarchate, entirely independent of the pontifical interference.
Under the colonial state the ecclesiastical jurisdiction did not correspond with the governmental. Panama, Quito, Cu- enca, and Maynas, within the now Colombian territory, were, under Spain, suffragans of Lima, in Peru. This incompa- tibility has been already remedied ; but it is contemplated to constitute a third archbishopric in Quito, and to arrange the hierarchy, so that a more compact and consistent superinten- dency may prevail, as was the original purpose of creating bishops and archbishops, whose titles imply no more than that of surveyors, inspectors, or stewards.
The archbishopric of Bogota, which was constituted in 1561, had for suffragans Cartagena, Santa Marta, Popayan, and Merida. The cathedral of Bogota had in its establish- ment, prior to the revolution, sixteen prebendaries, and three parishes, but whether the prebends were appropriated provi- sions for the titularies, or salaried officers derived from the general revenues of the diocese, I could not learn. The parishes were,
1. N. S. de las Nueves. 2. Santa Barbara. 3. San Vic- torino.
There were two convents of the order of St. Dominic, one called of Recolleccion ; the other N. S. de las Aguas.
There were three convents of St. Francis : — 1. That in the Plaza on the river of the same name. 2. That of Vera Cruz. 3. The Recollets of St. Diego.
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£
There were two convents of St. Augustine, one of which is at the entrance of the city on the north side from Tunja, which is called a hermitage, I presume from the austerity of their vows, and is dedicated to N. S. de Egypto, occupied by the monks of La Merced. The other is that whimsically aced on the summit of a steep peak in the rear of the city, dedicated to N. S. de Monserrat, only occasionally used by poor innocent fanatics.
A convent of La Compania Chiquita, for novices.
A convent of St. Juan de Dios, to which is annexed the charge of the hospital of San Pedro, whose benevolence is truly Christian, and admirable for its good works towards the wretched, and all gratis.
Four monasteries for nuns — 1. Concepcion ; 2. Santa Clara ; 3. Barefoot Carmelites ; 4. Santa Ines de Monte Policiano.
There are many chapels, such as those of Segrarias, N. S. of Belen* the convent of N. S. de las Aguas, Las Cruces, and San Felipe.
Annexed to the ecclesiastical establishments, were former- ly three colleges : — -1. Rosario, founded in 1652, with four fellowships, and privileges, such as belonged to Salamanca in Spain ; 2. St. Thomas, with an university founded in 1621, and a library established in 1772 ; 3. St. Bartholo- mew, which was occupied, in 1823, by the national library be- fore noticed ; it consists of the library of the celebrated Mutis, and a number of others, which devolved to the public by con- fiscation. I spent several days among those books. There is a useless abundance of that species of learning, which has been exploded in the best seminaries of Europe ; but there was a great number of precious books, appertaining to va- ious departments of American history. The case of the esuits on their expulsion from Paraguay, I found there developed in several volumes pro and con. This library, if it be faithfully preserved, and the most meritorious works
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of modern times, in French, Italian, English, and German, added, will be precious.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Visit to the cataract of Taquendama— the continuation of the plain— illusive ap- pearances.— Suacha village.— Franciscan Monastery— Fra. Jerome— hospitable reception— sup and sleep there— the convent and church. — The Funza river. — Nitre works— farm of Canaos— varying- landscapes— enter the forest— go astray into the shaft of a coal-pit — hear the cataract— feel the moisture of its vapours — steep precipitous winding descent — reach the head of the cataract — imperfect description — no guide — Humboldt.
THE cataract of Taquendama excites the curiosity of all visitors to Bogota ; Colonel Todd made up a party, in which we were comprehended. Besides Colonel Todd and his family, Mr. R. Adams, Senor Rovero, a young gentleman whose hospitality and disposition to render services to strangers, gives his name a deeper hold of the memory, several officers were of the party, altogether about ten in number, besides domestics. Colonel Todd had provided some refreshments in reserve, which those who visit the ca- taract should do ; and Senor 'Rovero had also made some provision, without either knowing what the other had done. The road, to within a few miles of the cataract, is very fine. We left the city about nine in the morning, passing south and crossing the branch of the mountain stream called Rio St. Augustin ; and, leaving the suburb, took a south-west direction till we reached the skirt of the lower mountain that protrudes from the Sierra Albaracin to the westward, when, winding around its base, the plain opened to the }eft or south-east, and to the right or south-west. The ap-
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FAILILS OIF TAQTTEKDAMA
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pearance of this plain, and its resemblance of a still sea, and islands, and promontories, harbours, bays, and bluffs, like those seen on the coast of the ocean, are very striking. There
as no other variety but the sluggish serpentine movement of the Funza, till, at the end of nine miles, we reached the village of Suacha. This village was an early settlement of Franciscan order, and it has a church and a very com- modious convent. The population around is by no means such as would seem to be competent to sustain a church and its monastery ; though its selection indicates a considerable native population at the period of foundation, which have re- moved to positions more retired, or are blended with the nu- merous classes of industrious, hard-working, hardy people.
As our party was literally a party of pleasure, we laughed nearly the whole way, and it was too late to see the cataract when we reached the village ; seeing no sigtis of an inn, we rode up to the gate of the Franciscan convent, which was instantly opened to us by a brother, whom we found to be a native Indian, attached to the convent, and in its costume ; a full round-faced jolly friar, of much civility but few words. Our horses were taken care of, and, after being seated some time in a room adjacent to the patio, the guardian or principal of the convent, Fra. Jerome, and who is also the guardian of the Franciscans in that province, waited on us and invited us to a handsome parlour. His deportment was that of a gentleman conversant with society ; he was not more than thirty- five to forty years of age, without any appearance of austerity or re- serve ; he was sociable, intelligent, and liberal, and his coun- tenance brightened by a smile of which he did not seem to be conscious. When we had taken our seats, on some of the best chairs and couches I had seen in Colombia, some excellent Spanish wine, fruit, sweet pastry, and cakes, were introduced, and we spent the time in very agreeable conversation. The portrait of the guardian was suspended on the wall, and the
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likeness good; I inquired where it was executed; he told me that it was the work of a self-taught native, and had been presented to him by his parishioners as a testimony of their good wishes, and added gaily, " now we are a republic, these little testimonies of popular favour are of much more value than they would have been in former times."
When night came on the apartment was quickly well lighted, and about 7 o'clock we were invited to the refectory. Fussing through a spacious corridor, we entered the refec- tory, where we found several ample tables, sufficient for two hundred guests, one of which was laid out with viands adapted to our taste. Roast fowls, well- corned pork, vege- tables of different kinds, and good bread ; and chocolate of the best confection. The guardian took the head of the table, and his coadjutor the foot. What rendered this occasion remarkable, was, that it was the time of Lent, when animal food is prohibited to the faithful ; yet he sat and attended to our wants, he and his coadjutor partaking only of a light pa- nada or gruel. I had much acquaintance with Franciscans in my early years, and this conduct of Fra. Jerome afforded me so much more pleasure and surprise, as it was a proof, both in his easy deportment and gratuitous kindness, of the liberality of the guardian. We feasted, without scruple, upon the good things, and, at his invitation, moistened our meal with potations of good wine. Their beverage the water of the pure fountain. After the repast we returned to the parlour, where, after about an hour we had a refresco of cho- colate, and continued in conversation till about nine o'clock ; when the generous priest completed his hospitable cares. A bed for each individual, with neat bedding, and a separate apartment, had been prepared ; and he conducted each to that which was, by his own arrangement, intended for us. He had been even so attentive, while he assigned a neat apartment to my daughter, he placed me in the chamber next to her. It is not necessary to say how agreeable our
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entertainment was. A message arrived in the night from Bogota, and he set out immediately, not affording us the;
pportunity of expressing our thanks. When we arose with e dawn our horses were ready, and some fine chocolate, with fresh baked cakes, were placed before us, under the di- rection of the jolly Indian friar.
The village of Suacha is composed of houses erected with-
ut regard to regularity. The site is a projecting bank or slope from the mountain, six or eight feet above the plain. The church forms the south side of the quadrangle or patio, its west end on the road. A pair of ample gates opens on the north end. The front and depth being about one hundred and twenty feet ; the porch or entrance, and the patio, hand- somely paved. Adjacent to the north side of the quadrangle there was a handsome shrubbery or small garden, ornament- ed with many curious and beautiful shrubs, and on the east end a fine pottagery. The establishment bore the appearance of a recent restoration from antecedent ruin. About half a mile from the convent south, on a knoll or more elevated bank of earth, was erected a nitre factory, which had been very useful, but seemed to be going to decay, and, as it was early when we passed, no information was obtained concern- ing it. There are many such establishments in various parts of the country, but not well managed.
On leaving Suacha, the descent is considerable and long to the plain, where the Funza makes its involutions so fan- tastically, as to wind round and approach another part of its own channel, forming that figure which in heraldry is de- nominated nebule ; the winding of the current often leaving but forty or fifty feet between the two curves : the breadth opposite the farm of Canaos, about four miles from Suacha, is about one hundred and twenty feet, which is passed upon a bridge, formed of great piles standing in the river about ten feet deep ; beams laid across the river upon those piles ; a bed of faggots laid across the trees, and upon which a bed
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of earth and gravel is well beaten. The farm of Canaos stands on a bank more elevated than Suacha, about thirty feet above the bank of the river, and is supplied with water for that irrigation which produces so much fertility, by means of a horse-mill, constructed on an artificial mound of mason- ry, over which there is an ample roof, but it is open all round. The water is carried, after being raised in spouts, to an elevated position, where a reservoir is constructed, from which the water is skilfully dispersed all round. The ground of this farm gradually rises to light forests more elevated in the rear, and the road to the cataract leaves the house to the left. Cattle of every kind are here abundant, and the track towards the falls lies over low verdant hills, with trees of small stature, and small clumps and thickets dispersed over the un- dulating green hills. The birds, which are neither heard nor seen in the plain, but which throughout the country abound in numbers and variety, and arrest admiration by the beau- tiful tints of their plumage, and the diversity and melody of their song, were now very numerous, and on our way the lark seemed to present itself on the path, rise into the air, and execute his carol, and again descend upon our path. I had found on the green banks along the road the daisy, of the species perennis, so much the theme and ornament of Eng- lish pastoral poetry. But we soon passed that region, and made a long gradual descent, when the plants of the tropics, and their blue, blue and gold, green, black, red, and yel- low plumed birds, displayed much more familiarity, and lit- tle fear at our approach. This mountain we were now de- scending, yields in its forests the celebrated bark, the chinco- na cordifolia, the most esteemed of which is said to be found in Loxa, a province of the republic. The forest trees, as we descended, rose with loftier heads towards the heavens, and assumed a greater bulk as we proceeded, very nearly south. Vegetation became more rich and luxuriant, the air more warm, but not unpleasant nor scorching ; and occa-
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sionally the evidence of more than usual population and hus- bandry were conspicuous. The ranches appeared construct-
, not of timber as where the daisies grew, but of the bam-
o, where the ananas and bananas flourished, and the flowers spread their fragrance around. The cotton trees appeared like apple orchards in full blossom, the sugar-cane and its vigor- •us stalks, the Palmyra palm and its clustered cocoa nuts not in thick clumps and groves, and almost forests, as
Hindustan, but standing at distances like the centinels of ies, compared with the multitudes of trees around. The orange shewed its golden coat, and a bamboo fence marked the cacao plantation, and told why a little rivulet bubbled to the ear, and stole away unseen.
It would not be possible for a stranger, without a guide, to wind his way, after passing the farm-house, on this long plain which formed a shoulder of the mountain. We had, in fact, nearly gone astray after entering the forest beyond the hamlets we had passed. A person at Suacha had volun- teered his services, and professed to be perfectly acquainted with all its labyrinths ; but he proved to be either an idiot or a knave, he knew nothing of the place. Having reached a point in the forest, where riding was no longer practicable, we arranged so that our horses should be placed at the near- est hamlet, and two domestics in charge of the supplies. Some of our friends from Bogota had been repeatedly there, but there were so many intersecting paths, leading in so ma- ny directions ; the forests were so thick and lofty, and the roar of the cataract was heard, but in what direction was not possible to determine, as it changed its tone frequently ; and the atmosphere, which was darkened by the volume of its vapour, was also moist and chilly.
Oar professed guide now undertook to direct us — he appeared to act as if perfectly at home — I imagine I see him, and he was no bad specimen of some of the paisanos ; he had mounted his own mule at Suacha, and he was an object of
496 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
some amusement to the Bogota gentleman — he wore a pair of leather breeches, which were originally good, but which extended to his muscular calf without concealing it. On his head a well made chip-hat, a good platilla shirt, with a broad collar that hung like a cape over his shoulders, and both tails of his shirt appeared to give him great pleasure ; they were ornamented with needle-work of angular shapes and forms in the Indian style of decoration, and, as is the fashion, hung over his leather galligaskins ; a pair of paragattas completed his personal equipment. After a descent of about two miles through the " woods, and wilds, and solitary glooms," we perceived that our guide, notwithstanding his eyes were as black as his hair, and both black as glistening jet, could not see his way — and he very frankly gave it up. Elizabeth and myself descended a path, which appearing to be more beaten than one adjacent, we followed its descent by holding against trees, and reached a small platform much trodden ; a dark cavern was the termination of this path ; it was the opening of a coal pit, and the fragments of a fine fossil coal were at the mouth of the shaft ; we clambered back, de- scended another path, and found another coal- shaft.
Our company, like us, had dispersed in different direc- tions, and it was some time before our sergeant, under the directions of one of our friends, led the way : had there been a path or mark of human foot, we might have found the de- scent less laborious, but this route was unfit even for a mule, and the goat alone could descend it without apprehension. Midway down we found a flat piece of clear ground, and here we directed our provisions to be brought, and a fire lighted against our return : here the roar of the cataract became very loud. After very much fatigue, we gained a sort of bram- ble-covered knoll, from which, we could disern, in the south- east, a very spacious Hacienda, and all around it picturesque and imposing, beyond the Funza and above the falls — of which we had some anecdotes — not worth narrating ; a little
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farther down the Funza, behind a lofty bluff, opened like a lake upon the view. There had been a flood, its waters ap. peared yellow from the earth through which it had stolen along ; here we gained the naked bank beneath the bluff, and the Funza seemed like a yellow ribbon to the north-east, setting into a bason of about half a mile in length, and gi- ving an irregular space of about 500 yards broad. There appears to have been a broader issue to the cataract than at present : considerable quantities of broken stone have been formed into a bank, which is carried several feet into the bason above the margin of the steep ; and a much greater encroach- ment has been made on the debouche on the opposite side ; so that the line across, over which the water throws itself head- long on a flat rock forty feet below its first projection, and of about the same width ; the transverse line may be about twenty-four feet ; though I suspect it was originally as broad as the stupendous and wonderful chasm into which it falls at the second bound. No painting can convey any adequate idea of this extraordinary work of nature ; and, however cir- cumstantial a verbal description may be, the idea of what is there seen, cannot be but imperfectly expressed. I am not at all surprised, that none of the descriptions I had read of this cataract, conveyed to my perceptions any thing like what it really is. It cannot be seen with advantage at one place ; contiguous to the first bound of the river, the bason above, and the roll of the flood over the perpendicular steep upon the vast platform, are all clearly visible ; but the whole volume of the stream tumbling to the deep can only be partially and imperfectly seen there. We took another station on the north side of the chasm, so that the sun's beams, then about eleven o'clock, crossed the line of the cataract obliquely : from this point we could see about a third of the descending vo- lume of water ; but we could not perceive the bottom. While we stood in this position, this sublime object was never perhaps seen to more advantage. The water was discoloured by the
63
498 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
yellow earth over which it flowed ; and when the torrent dashed upon the forty feet platform beneath it, the cloud of vapour, as it rose, illumined by the blaze of an ardent sun, gave an incessant glow of brilliant golden glory. De- scription by no means conveys a sufficient idea of the object : it seemed a halo with a disk of floating transparent gold, of perhaps twenty feet diameter, the exterior vapour exhibiting prismatic shades incessantly changing, renewing in new forms, and on the outer verge condensing in drops, which fell in showers like tears. The mind is beguiled, and time passes unfelt in the intensity of admiration and awful sub- limity of this spectacle, which on every aspect presents new beauties and astonishment. Returning to the verge of the cataract, I was induced to place myself on my breast to look into the chasm, and I succeeded with new emotions of ad- miration. I have not seen Humboldt's larger work, en- titled " Researches concerning the Institutions, &c. with de- scriptions and views of striking scenes in the Cordilleras^' In the 8vo edition in French, and the translation by H. M. Williams, Humboldt's description is imperfect. He very properly contradicts the account of Bouger, which gives the chasm a depth of sixty metres French, but he gives it a depth of 175 metres; which, as the metre is 39.37 inches English, fifty metres would give 196 feet depth, which is more than Mutis and others have given. Those who are reputed to have measured the depth, which is by no means difficult, have differed from three to eight feet ; but the average of the computations gives 164 or 165 feet, which, as far as my eye is competent to judge, I believe to be near the true depth. I leaned over the perpendicular wall — for it is to all appearance a wall of regularly wrought and horizontally laid and ranged grey grit stone, and I could see the foam of the torrent agitate the bason below, where the rocks, rounded on their tops by the beating of the waters, were seen as if
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 499
emerging from the waves of foam, like the play of otters, while the stream of the torrent itself, brilliant in its own ac- tion, appeared reduced to the size of the spout from a fire engine. Elizabeth was so apprehensive of danger when I only placed myself on my breast, with my head only over the side, that she held me by my feet; but Lieutenant Bache stood on the very verge with folded arms, and sur- eyed the abyss below with perfect composure.
But, sublime as these views truly are, with the forests rising on each side from the crevice into lofty sloping hills, perhaps the most extraordinary peculiarities are yet to be no- ticed, I know no mode by which the idea of its character and figure may be conceived, but that of the reader forming to himself the idea of a gap or opening in the face of a moun- tain 200 feet high, and about 60 feet broad, at the foot of which a flood of 10 or 15 yards broad gushes through that gap, at the height of more than 7000 feet above the ocean, rolling over rugged precipices till it unites with the river Tocayma, one of the tributaries of the Magdalena. This is the aspect at the debouch in the valley below. Ascending then to the point from which the Funza thus issues, and entering the crevice from its west or open end, and groping along the rocky and difficult side of this gap ; the overhanging trees no longer cover the space ; but a lane, if I may so call it, of three-fourths of a mile long, formed by two v,ralls perpendicu- lar and parallel, induces the suprised spectator to ask if these walls be not the work of art ? if man with the chissel and the hammer, the trowel, the level, and the plumb line, have not wrought them ? Those walls stand parallel, and distant about 50 feet, and about 170 feet perpendicular height ; as uniformly fair on their faces as the best masonry of the Capitol. Their summits are only the feet of the forests, and the stream that has tumbled as it were from the great storehouse of the heavens, starts from the body of the foam, as if frighted by its own noise.
500 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
But there is still another extraordinary feature of those walls. In looking over the lofty brink from above, I could discern, by a dark light glimmer, that the volume of the water, in its plunge over the mound, on the table of its first bound, left a space arched, or the quarter of an arc beneath ; at the second bound the arching was not so forward ; either the impulse was not so great behind, or its own gravity brought it, after a curve of about a sixth of the circle, headlong down, keeping its volume, but casting out its brilliant spray, and forming, by its action on the air, a never-ceasing shower; the more aeriform vapour rising in clouds, and making a play of sunbeams, with alternately refracted and suppressed prisma- tic lights over the abyss below. The opportunity of seeing behind and beneath the column of the cataract, exposes the structure of the wall over which it pours ; and adds, by the regularity of its form, to the wonders of this place. It is, like the sides, perpendicular, and meets the sides, forming as exact rectangles as any architectural structure. In the drawing that accompanies, prefixed to this chapter, it is attempted to give this distinctness, but unsuccessfully ; the elevation of the side walls, their parallel length of three- fourths of a mile, and the magnitude of the column of the cataract at that dis- tance, could be but imperfectly expressed by the pencil, even on an ample canvass. The reader must, therefore, from the data, figure to himself the actual magnitude and masses, and the facts here given may then enable him to form some conception of this extraordinary work of the Great Ar- chitect of the universe.
501
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Geographical limits of Colombia — its Spanish, provincial, and political sketch of its progressive divisions — its present distribution into twelve int dancies — into provinces — cantons — parishes, &c.
COLOMBIA, as a nation, has become so conspicuous in every public relation, that any approximation towards a more perfect knowledge than has been heretofore possessed, must be useful. The Spanish territorial system was mutable and inconstant ; the policy of its government, both from its laxity and its jealousy, left something undone or imperfectly executed, and endeavoured to conceal whatever it had esta- blished. It is on the sea-line alone, with very few points of exception in the interior, that the limits which separated the viceroy alty of New Granada from Peru, Brazil, and the set- tlements of other nations in Guayana, are accurately laid down. Between the governments of Portugal and Spain there had been an age of negociation and disputation, about the limits of interior regions, which fifty generations of monarchs could not rationally expect to see or hear of being occupied by a civilized population ; wilds, and forests, and fertile plains and valleys, more ample in their extent than European empires — rivers larger than the largest of Europe or Asia — soil and climate susceptible of every species of cultivation and pro- duction, were unquestionably embraced in these disputed regions, but disputed only for the gratification of that avari- cious ambition which covets possession without the capacity for enjoyment.
As the new condition of South America, and its partition into seven republics — and probably three more will arise, and divide Brazil — must continue to be spoken of or de- scribed by reference to the distribution which heretofore pre-
503 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
vailed ; and as the changes which have already taken place, and which must continue to be made, under the representa- tive system, which carries with it into the remotest parts, the necessity of knowledge as to its social circumstances, I pro- pose here to give a brief sketch of the geographical position and bounds of Colombia, and of its political, civil, military, and ecclesiastical relations.
When the revolution, which had been for more than thirty years preparing, had developed itself spontaneously, and about the same period in the same year, in all parts of Spa- nish America, the countries which now constitute the Re- public of Colombia consisted of two distinct governments — the Viceroyalty of New Granada, and Venezuela, or the Captain-generalship of Caracas. Colombia, which redeems the honour that was filched from the great discoverer by Vespucius, by assuming his name, had a peculiar right to render that act of justice. The two points of continental territory first discovered by Columbus, are within its limits. He entered the gulf of Paria by the strait called the Dragon's Mouth, on the first of August, 1498, the most eastern ex- tremity of the republic, and sailed thence along a considerable part of the coast westward. In his fourth voyage, in 1503, he discovered the country from Cape Gracios a Dios to Vera- gua, the most western point on the Atlantic waters. The discovery of those rich countries produced no other acqui- sition to Spain than the renown attached to their reputed riches and their extent. Charles V, reduced to necessity by ambitious wars, consigned to the Welsers, a mercantile house of Augsburg, in payment of a debt, the regions embraced in these first discoveries of Columbus ; and the history which succeeds, under the terrible misrule of those miscreants, pre- sents a melancholy picture of human depravity, when heated by the impulses of avarice, and which was endured until 1550; in all which time the riches of the soil and products of agriculture were disregarded, in the fruitless search of gold. The captain-generalship was then established.
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In 1728, a grant or privilege was given of those regions, for purposes of commerce and agriculture, to a company formed at Guipiscoa in Spain ; but, though there was some approach to the arts of civilized life, this possession by Spain was yet a drain from the resources of Mexico, which defray, ed the expenses of the government of Venezuela. The ac- cession of the celebrated Galvez to the ministry of Spain was productive of great and lucrative changes in the administra- tion of the Indies, as the Spaniards were accustomed to de- nominate their possessions in America. A system which separated the fiscal concerns from the political authority, in imitation of that of France, was introduced in 1777, under the same denomination of intendancies ; which, though it gave a greater security and better knowledge of the revenues, rendered little benefit to the country, and none to the popu- lation, for under this system accumulating abuses and op- pressions, rivalling the most barbarous periods of history, affected the captain. generalship of Caracas, which continued to suffer till the revolution, when a convulsion, less sanguinary and cruel than the cold and silent misrule of Spain, put an end to its domination and its abuses. The country, under various modifications and distributions of local jurisdiction and regulation, comprehended, in 1810, the provinces which will be noticed after giving a similar sketch of the viceroyalty of New Granada.
The countries which subsequently composed this viceroy- alty, were explored soon after the discovery, by Ojeda and Nicuessa, Nunez de Balboa, Benalcazar, ana Quesada, and held under a fluctuating authority. In 1718, New Grenada was constituted a viceroyalty, but in 1724 it was again re- duced to a dependence upon Peru, in which state it conti- nued till 1740, when the viceroyalty was once more established, and comprehending Quito and Guayaquil under its jurisdic- tion. Caracas was founded in 1566 by Losada ; Bogota in 1538, by Quesada. The various political, military, civil,
504* VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
juridical, and ecclesiastical authorities were, at the breaking out of the revolution, as follows : —
ANCIENT SPANISH PROVINCES.
New Grenada. Venezuela,
Antioquia, Caracas,
Cartagena, Cumana,
Choco, Guayana,
Cuenca, Merida,
Casanare, Maracaybo,
Darien, Varinas,
Cunflinamarca, Barcelona,
Guayaquil, Coro,
Mayuasand Quixos, Margarita,
JNeyba, Los Llanos.
Jaen de Brocomoros, Panama, Quito, Popayan, Rio Hacha, Santa Marta, Veragua, Pamplona, Tunja, Socorro, Mariquita.
The political, civil, military, and ecclesiastical establish- ments, were frequently varied ; and hence it is, that no two books, nor the accounts of any two persons, ten years apart, bear any consistent agreement. The following are the ar- rangements of authority in 1810:
New Grenada. Venezuela.
AUDIEXCIAS, C Bogota Caraccas. or High Courts £ Quito.
{Bogota, Guayra,
Cartagena, Porto Cabello,
Boccachica, Barcelona,
Porto Bello, Coro. Chagres.
INTENDAXCT — (none) Caracas.
ABCHBISHOPRICS — Bogota, Caracas.
f Antioquia, Merida,
1 Cartagena, Maracaybo,
Cuenca, Guayana. BISHOPBICS— s( Maynas, I Panama, I Popayan, \.Quito.
MINTS— C Bogota, Caracas, (for a local coarse cur-
£ Popayan, rency).
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JVew Grenada. Cartagena, Chagres, Porto Bello, Santa Marta, Rio Hacha,
Venezuela. Barcelona, Cumana, Guayra,
Angostura of Guayana, Margarita, Maracaybo. Puerto Cabello.
By the fundamental law, passed by the constituent con- gress at Cucuta, 18th July, 1821, it is declared that the ter- ritory of Colombia comprehends all that was within the an- cient boundaries of the Captain- generalship of Venezuela and the Viceroyalty of New Granada. The territorial limits are those recognised by the Spanish government. The divergency of the line of coast on the ocean is sufficiently marked ; but the separation from Brazil, the Guayanas, and some parts of the Peruvian boundary, are yet undetermined. It was presumed until 1824, that the north-west boundary of Veragua was the extremity of the Colombian territory ; but a decree of the Spanish monarch, issued at the Escurial in 1803, declared the whole coast of ancient Terra Firma from Cape Gracios a Dies, (which embraces all that coast called by the British the Mosquito Shore,) belongs to the jurisdiction of New Grenada. It is, however, probable, that the Colom- bian government had political motives, very honourable to their sagacity, in asserting this claim, and that, having accom- plished its purpose, the territory north of Veragua will be recognised as part of Guatimala, to which it appertained un- der the aboriginal rule. This claim would, if maintained, bring reproach upon the Colombian republic, besides dis- putes and ill blood, as the looseness of the royal decree would admit of a construction that would cover Costa Rica, if not the principal part of Nicaragua.
Taking the geographical points in positions different from what has been heretofore usual, by a transverse line east and west, commencing at the debouche of the Oronoco, in 9 deg. 20 min. north, and 60 deg. 10 min. west, and carrying it
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506 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
along the plane to the bay of St. Miguel, in the bay of Panama, in 8 deg. 30 min. north, and 78 deg. 10 min. west ; this line of 18 deg. of longitude, may serve as a base of dimen- sions. Drawing another line perpendicular to and crossing this north and south, commencing at Cape Vela, in the Car- ribbean Sea, in 12 deg. 20 min. north, and passing on the plane to St. Nagri, on the Maragnon, in 4 deg. 20 min. south, we have a medium length of the republic, of 16 deg. of latitude : and as, beneath the equator, the degrees of lati- tude and longitude do not materially differ, for a general view we have 1,090,000 square miles of 60 to the degree, which is still considerably under the true amount.
The distribution of provincial jurisdiction has undergone some partial changes since the formation of the constitution of 1821 : Quito was separated at an early stage into two provinces, called Assuay and Quito. Barbacoas, on the Pa- cific, was separated into two provinces, and the department of the Apure was formed of a part of the plains formerly under the jurisdiction of Caracas : the territorial names have also undergone some changes ; the department of which Tunja was the head, has been denominated Boyacca, and that of Maracaybo has taken place of Zulia ; but a more ge- neral and particular distribution was carried into operation in 1823-4, by which the whole territory of the republic is divided into twelve intendancies or departments, and subdi- vided into provinces, cantons, and parishes. The following is the detail now most recent and authentic :
DEPARTMENTS, PROVINCES, &c.
The Senate and Chamber of Representatives of the Colom- bian Republic, assembled in Congress, having considered —
1. That the territory of the republic should have a regu- lar division of the departments and provinces, in regard to extent of territory and population, so as to afford every con- venience for the easy and prompt administration of the go-
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507
II
vernment in all its branches, and so contribute to the public happiness ; in conformity with the 8th, 20th, 26th, 27th, d 29th articles of the constitution, have decreed : Article I. The whole territory of the republic shall be di- vided into twelve departments, and the capitals thereof shall be as follows :
1. Orinoco,
2. Venezuela,
3. Apure,
4. Zulia,
5. Boyacca,
6. Cundinamarca,
7. Magdalena,
8. Cauca,
9. The Isthmus,
10. The Equator,
11. Assuay,
12. Guayaquil,
chief place Cumana. Caracas. Barinas. Maracaybo. Tunja. Bogota. Cartagena, Popayan. Panama. Quito. Cuenca. Guayaquil.
These twelve departments comprehend the following pro- vinces and cantons :
Art. II. Orinoco.
chief place Cumana.
Angostura. Barcelona. Asuncion.
1. Cumana,
2. Guayana,
3. Barcelona,
4. Margarita,
. § 1. The cantons of the province of Cumana and its chief places are :
1. Cumana. 4. Maturin. 7. Rio Caribe.
2. Cumanacoa. 5. Cariaco. 8. Guiria.
3. Aragua Cumanes. 6. Carupano.
§ 2. The cantons of Guayana and its dependancies are :
1. Angostura. 6. Caroni.
2. Rio Negro and its dependancy Atabapo. 7. Upata.
3. Alto Orinoco and its do. Caicara. 8. La Pastora.
4. Caura and its do. Moitaco. 9. La Barceloneta.
5. Guayana Viejo.
§ 3. The cantons of the province of Barcelona and depen- dancies are :
1. Barcelona.
2. Piritu.
3. Filar.
4. Aragua.
5. Pao.
6. San Diego.
4. The cantons of Margarita and dependancies are :
1. La Asuncion. 2. El Norte.
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Art. III. The department of Venezuela comprehends the provinces of
I.Caracas, chief place Caracas.
2. Carabobo, Valencia.
\ 1. The cantons of Caracas are :
1. Caracas. 5. Sabana de Ocumare. 9. San Sebastian,
2. Guayra. 6. La Victoria. 10. Ipire.
3. Caucagua. 7. Maracay. 11. Chaguarama.
4. Rio Chico. 8. Cura. 12. Calabozo.
§ 2. The cantons of Carabobo are :
1. Valencia. 4. San Carlos. 7. Carora.
2. Puerto Cabello. 5. San Felipe. 8. Tucuyo,
3. Nirgua. 6. Barquisimeto. 9. Quibor.
Art. IV. The department of Apure comprehends the pro- vinces :
1. Barinas. 4. Guanarito. 7. Guanare. 10. Pedraza
2. Obispos. 5. Nutrias. 8. Ospinos.
3. Mijagual. 6. San Jaime. 9. Araure.
$ 1. The cantons of Apure are :
1. Achaguas. 3. Mantecal.
2. Ssn Fernando. 4. Guasdualito.
Art. V. The department of Zulia comprehends the pro vinces of
1. Maracaybo, chief place Maracaybo.
2. Coro, Coro.
3. Merida, Merida.
4. Trujillo, Trujillo.
§ 1. The cantons of Maracaybo are :
1. Maracaybo. 3. San Carlos de Zulia. 5. Puerto Alta Gracia,
2. Perija. 4. Gibraltar.
& 2. The cantons of the province of Coro are :
1. Coro. 3. Paraguana, chief place Pueblo Nuevo.
2. San Luis. 4. Casigua. 5. Cumarebo.
§ 3. The cantons of the province of Merida are :
1. Merida. 3. Ejido. 5. La Grita. 7. Tachira,
2. Mucuchies. 4. Bayladores. 6. San Cristoval.
$ 4. The cantons of the province of Trujillo are :
1. Trujillo. 3. Bocono.
2. Escuque. 4. Carache.
Art. VI. Boyacca comprehends the provinces of
1. Tunja, chief place Tunja.
2. Pamplona, Pamplona,
3. Soccoro, Soccoro.
4. Casanare, Pore-
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509
§ 1
The cantons of Tunja are :
1. Tunja. 5. Sogomoso. 9. Suata.
2. Leiva. 6. Tensa y Guatoque. 10. Tumerque,
3. Chinchinquira.
4. Muzo.
7. Cocuy.
8. Santa Rosa.
The cantons of Pamplona are
Pamplona. 4. Salazar.
St. Jose de Cucuta. 5. Concepcion. Rosario de Cucuta. 6. Malaga.
The cantons of Soccoro are :
11. Garagoa.
7. Jiron.
8. Bucaramanga.
9. Pie de Cuesta,
1. Soccoro. 4. Charala.
2. San Gil. 5. Sapatoca.
3. Barichara.
4. Casanare cantons are :
6. Valez.
7. Moniquira.
Antioquia.
Honda.
Neiva.
1. Pore. 3. Chire, at present Tame. 5. Macuco.
2. Arauca. 4. Santiago, at present Taguana. 6. Nunchia.
Art. VII. Cundinamarca comprehends the provinces of
1. Bogota, chief place Bogota.
2. Antioquia,
3. Mariquita,
4. Neiva,
§ 1. The cantons of Bogota are :
1. Bogota. 5. Fusagasuga. 9. Ubate,
2. Funza. 6. Caquesa. 10. Choconta.
3. Meza. 7. San Martin. 11. Guaduas.
4. Tocaima. 8. Zipaquira.
§ 2. The cantons of Antioquia are :
1. Antioquia. 3. Rio Negro. 5. Santa Rosa de Osos,
2. Medellin. 4. Marinilla. 6. Nordesty Remedies,
\ 3. The cantons of Mariquita are :
1. Honda. 3. Ibague.
2. Mariquita. 4. La Palma.
§ 4. The cantons of Neiva are :
1. Neiva.
2. Purification.
3. La Plata.
4. Timana.
Art. VIII. The department of Magdalena contains the provinces of
1. Cartagena, chief place Cartagena.
2. Santa Marta, Santa Marta.
3. Rio Hacha, Rio Hacha.
§ 1. The cantons of Cartagena are :
1. Cartagena. 6. El Carmen. 11. Lorica.
2. Baranquilla. 7. Tclu. 12. Mompox.
3. Soledad. 8. Chii.u. 13. Majagual.
4. Mahates. 9. Magaugue. 14. Simiti.
5. Corosal.
10. San Benito Abad. 15. Islas de St. Andrea.
510 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
$ 2. The cantons of Santa Marta are :
1. Santa Marta. 3. Ocana. 5. TamaUmeque.
2. Valle Dupar. 4. Plato. 6. Valencia de Jesus.
$ 3. The cantons of Rio Hacha are :
1. Rio Hacha. 2. Cesar, chief place Juan de Cesar.
Art. IX. The department of Cauca comprehends the pro- vinces of
1. Popayan, chief place Popayan.
2. Choco, Quibdo.
3. Pasto, Pasto.
4. Buenaventura, at present Iscuande.
§ 1. The cantons of Popayan are :
1. Popayan. 5. Roldanillo. 9. Tulua.
2. Almaquer. 6. Buga. 10. Toro.
3. Caloto. 7. Palmira. 11. Supia.
4. Cali. 8. Cartago.
§ 2. The cantons of Choco are :
1. Atrato y Quibdo. 2. San Juan y Novita.
§ 3. The cantons of Pasto are :
1. Pasto. 2. Tuquerris. 3. Ipiales.
4 4. The cantons of Buenaventura are :
1. Iscuande. 3. Tumaco. 5. Raposo, at present La Cruz.
2. Barbacoas. 4. MicayyGuapi.
Art. X. The department of the Isthmus comprehends the provinces of
I.Panama, chief place Panama.
2. Veragua, Veragua.
§ 1. The cantons of Panama are :
1. Panama, 3. Chorreras. 5. Los Santos.
2. Porto Belo. 4. Nata. 6. Yabisa.
§ 2. The cantons of Veragua are :
1. Santiago de Veragua. 3. Alanje.
2. Meza. 4. Gaimi y Remedios.
Art. XL The department of the Equator contains the pro- vinces of
1. Pinchincha, the capital Quito.
2. Imbabura, Ibarra.
3. Chimborazo, Riobamba.
& 1. The cantons of Pinchincha are :
1. Quito. 3. LaTacunga. 5. Esmeraldas.
2. Machachi. 4. Quijos.
§ 2. The cantons of Imbabara are :
1. Ibarra. 3. Cotacachi.
2. Otabalo. 4. Cayambe.
I
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3. The cantons of Chimborazo are :
1. Riobamba. 3. Guano. 5. Alausi.
2. Ambato. 4. Guaranda. 6. Macas.
Art. XII. The department of Assuay comprehends the provinces of
1. Cucnca, chief place Cuenca.
2. Loja, Loja.
3. Bracamoros y Mainas, Jaen.
1. The cantons of Cuenca are :
1. Cuenca. 3. Gualaseo.
2. Canari. 4. Jiron.
$ 2. The cantons of Loja are :
1. Loja. 3. Carimanga.
2. Zaruma. 4. Catacocha.
$ 3. The cantons of Bracamoros y Mainas are :
1. Jaen. 2. Borja. 3. Joveros.
Art. XIII. The department of Guayaquil contains the provinces of
1. Guayaquil, chief place Guayaquil.
2. Manabi, Puerto Viejo.
§ 1. The cantons of Guayaquil are :
1. Guayaquil. 3. Babahoyo. 5. Punta de Santa Elena.
2. Daule. 4. Baba. 6. Machala.
$ 2. The cantons of Manabi are :
1. Puerto Viejo. 2. Jipijapa. 3. Monte Cristi.
DEPARTMENT LAW.
Art. XIV. Those cantons are noticed as coming within the constitutional provisions of Art. 8, 20, 26, 27, and 29 ; but those which come under the authority of political judges, and the administrators of the public treasury, may be united two or more cantons to form a circuit, under the authority of one political judge.
Art. XV. To each of the cantons designated in this law, not having municipalities, through the loss of population or other causes, the executive power will provisionally unite two or more next adjacent, and make it known to congress in conformity with Art. 155 of the constitution ; but with- out prejudice to those cantons whose territory may be too
012 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
extensive for their population ; two or more political judges shall be established by the executive.
Art. XVI. But the heads of cantons which exist with a municipality, can regulate and act according to this article.
Consequently where there shall be erected and are erected new heads of those cantons, according to the actual exist- ence of parishes ; and the executive power having been augmented with the legal requisites, the books of correspon- dence, title, and papers of the first class, and the seal of the secretary.
Art. XVII. The executive power to fix provisionally the limits of cantons created by this law. Those of the pro- vinces and departments, according to the best judgment possessed. The executive power, nevertheless, shall consult the maps, and provide the best information for congress.
Art. XVIII. The province of Caracas is separated from that of Carabobo, by a line commencing at the eastern ter- mination of the parish of Cuyagua, thence by a direct line from the sea to Punta Cabrera, on the lake of Valencia, and continued by a line thence to the town of Magdalena, west of the Villa de Cura, and by Calabozo to the Apure, com- prehending in this province the cantons which are designa- ted under Article IV.
Art. XIX. The new province of Carabobo, which is com- posed of the territory marked as above, preferring those bounds before actually possessed in relation to other provin- ces, such as Guanare, Ospinos, and Aurare, which apper- tain to Varinas, having for limit the passage of the ri\ter Coxede at Caramacate, of the new province of Carabobo.
Art. XX. The Department of Quito corresponds in its boundaries, which separate it from those of Cuenca and Guayaquil, and on the literal from the port of Atacames to near the embouchure of Esmeraldas, thence to the mouth of Ancon, the meridional limit of the province of Buena- ventura, on the coast of the South Sea.
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Art. XXI. The new province of Manabi, in the depart- ment of Guayaquil, occupies that part of the territory of Esmeraldas of which the coast extends from the Rio Co- lonche to Atacames, inclusive. In the interior, having for limits those which formerly separated this part of Esmeraldas from the province of Quito.
Art. XXII. The department of Cauca is divided from that of the Equator, by the limits which separate the pro- vince of Popayan on the river Carchi, which serves to mark the limits of the province of Pasto.
Art. XXIII. The new departments, which have not sent senators and representatives, will elect them at the approach- ing assemblies of the people ; and the new provinces, in the mean time, may hold their assemblies at the places last occu- pied until the arrangement shall be entirely completed. Dated Bogota, 23d June, 1824.
JOSE MARIA DEL REAL, Pres. of Senate. JOSE RAFAEL MOSQJJERA, V. P. H. of Rep.
ANTONIO JOSE CARD, ~) -»r , ,
JOSE JOACHIM SuAHEZ,SAfoB&'r* *"*
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Meeting of first representative congress— in March, 1823— their mode of pro- ceeding—peculiar forms of communication from the executive— unmean- ing titles and epithets discarded — vice-president's message — report of the minister of foreign relations— interesting as an historical epitome— congress of Panama — its objects— relations with European states — treatment of agents to Spain— congress of Aix-la-Chapelle.
THE first popularly elected congress of Colombia, was to have assembled at Bogota, in January, 1823 ; it had not yet proceeded to business when I arrived, on the 3d of February,
65
514 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
and it was some time in March before there was such a number of each -house as was deemed requisite to proceed with becoming regard to the authority to be exercised in public business. Quito, and Pastes, and Guayaquil, though within the political power and connexion of the republic, had not yet sent representatives. But they were expected, and some arrived before the session had made much pro- gress. My inclinations, and the business in which I was engaged, made me a frequent spectator and auditor of the proceedings; and, although there were some members who had never before seen any other elective body than a cabildo, such was the facility and order of the proceedings from be- ginning to end, that, if I had not been aware that it was a first session of a new national legislature, I should have supposed they had been conversant with the transaction of business in deliberative assemblies, from their earliest years. The forms of proceeding, generally, resembled those of the United States, but with some modes of the French assem- blies, derived, I suppose, from the Spanish cortes, such as the transactions usual to our permanent secretary of Senate and House of Representatives, were performed here by mem- bers of the body, nominated by the presiding officer in each house. The President, elected from their own body by the Senate, was General Urdaneta, and I could not but admire the self-possession, preparedness in the duties, and the promptness with which matters of order were decided. The only circumstances that appeared to me characteristically dif- ferent from deliberations in Congress at Washington, was, that as the speaking members in the United States are more numerous than in the British Parliament, so at Bogota they were more numerous in relation to the number of the cham- ber, than in Washington ; but as, at Washington, speeches were made as if length was to determine the degree of ex- cellence, while at Bogota, with perhaps the language best adapted to eloquence, there was a conciseness and brevity
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 515
which enabled the auditor to retain the subject of discussion without perplexity, or the confusion inevitable where there is an excessive expenditure of words.
As this was an opening of the great legislating power of the republic, it was necessarily to be expected that a state of the nation would be presented by the different functionaries who occupied the departments of the interior, of foreign af- fairs, the treasury, the army, and nav}r. The practice in re- lation to these functionaries differs from that of the United States and of Great Britain. The heads of departments are not members of either house, but when they report to con- gress they attend in person, read their own communications, and have seats, in order to be able to answer any inquiries that may be made at the time of delivery, and do explain and an- swer exceptions in such cases orally. Whether this be the result of a special law or a regulation I do not at present re- collect, but I believe it to be an established form ; and it is unquestionably judicious, the secretaries having there no other privilege than to make explanations.
These communications were delivered, and they were so full and particular, that no labour of private inquiry could bring together so ample a body of authentic matter. On the threshold, however, a question of form arose; it was pro- pounded by the vice-president to this effect : — What shall be the form by which the executive shall, in its communica- tions, address the chambers of congress ? This question in both houses served to mark the measure of their intelligence. I did not hear the debate in the house of representatives, where I understood a member proposed, that the presiding officer should be addressed your majesty ', which produced a great deal of pleasantry ; in the senate there was no doubt on the subject ; it was decided in five minutes, that no title dif- fering from the forms of civility between man and man should be admitted — that no title could be superior to that of a ci- tizen, and it was determined that the presiding officer of
516 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
each house should be addressed without any preposterous honourable or excellency r, but by simple senor, sir, or Mr.
As the communications from the vice-president and heads of departments would of themselves make a respectable vo- lume, and that of the treasury was not presented until after I had left Bogota, I shall give here such an abstract as will an- swer all the purposes of general information, and afford an authentic view of the state of the republic at the commence- ment of 1823.
The vice-president St. Ander's message, was presented the 17th April, 1823 — year 13 of the republic ; that of the secretary of exterior relations, Pedro Gual, the same day ; the report of the minister of the war department, P. Bri- ceno Mendez, on the military establishment, 18th April. Another on the naval department, dated the 13th : both departments being at present distributed into separate bu- reaux, under the same chief. The report of the minister of the interior, Jose Manuel Rostropo, was presented on the 22d of April, and that of the minister of finance, J. M. Cas- tillo, on the 5th of May, 1823.
The executive message, as well as those from the other departments, were all printed previous to delivery, and pre- sented to the members in their seats as soon as they were respectively read. The vice-president denominates the body he addressed, the Second Congress of Colombia, referring to that body which had met at Cucuta, in 1821-2, which framed the present constitution, as the first. The topics discussed were the efforts made to put an end to the contest with Spain, by amicable means, alluding to the mission sent to Madrid, in consequence of the truce and treaty of armistice concluded by president Bolivar with Morillo, near Truxillo, in 1820; in which he states that the agents, Messrs. Ravenga and Zea, were dismissed under disgraceful pretexts ; and that, in de- fiance of the truce, the Spanish fleet was reinforced, while that of the Republic was rendered by good faith inactive :
;
rai
2!
lorn
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 517
that as there was no further hope, no overture would there- after be received, of which the preliminary was not an ex-
icit acknowledgment of the independence of the Republic.
Allusions are made to the Congress to be assembled at Panama to give consistence, solidity, . and a perpetual gua- rantee to the independence of all the states of the new world : notice of the transactions connected with General O'Donohu Iturbide in Mexico ; the magnanimous recognition of Co- ombian independence by the United States of North Ame- rica, and the preseace of a special agent (Colonel Todd) then in Bogota. He expressed the principles of good faith which will be observed towards all nations. That the Portuguese monarch had acknowledged Colombian independence also ; and that Seiior Echeverria had been designated to a diplo-t matic mission to Lisbon, to adjust boundaries ; but that the death of this respectable citizen had prevented it, as well as delayed a mission to which he was destined, to the court of Rome, in relation to ecclesiastical affairs ; but that another should be sent.
That, iu conformity with the fundamental law, three new departments had been annexed according to an organic law of October 2d, 1821, passed at Cucuta, they having been rescued from the power of Spain by the army under the liberator ; and that in these three new departments, as well as the pre-organised seven, the constitution and laws were esta- blished and respected ; the glory of fields of battle, the lights of philosophy, the ministry of the altar, the influence of merit, reputation, and all the virtues uniting in love and devotion to the constitution.
The predatory marauding and plunder of Morales on the coast, is noticed as the last agonies of disappointment and despair ; but that they had been productive of much private injury, and affected the treasury materially, already exhausted by a long exterminating war.
Education, literary institutions, agriculture, commerce,
518 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
are recommended to legislative guardianship ; and the fiscal concerns are specially referred to, and in providing new re- sources he recommends the abrogation of the Mesada eclesi- astica anualidadeS) and the Media anata, to which the clergy were subjected.
He recommends attention to the foreign public debt, the extinction of the principal, and the payment of the interest.
He then congratulates Congress on the comparison of the past with the present ; when Congress sat at Cucuta, in 1821, Carthagena and Cumana, the isthmus of Panama, and Quito, were in the hands of Spanish forces ; Coro was agitated by Spanish emissaries, and Guayaquil threatened with a cruel anarchy; Maracaibo was occupied by a superior force ; Merida and Truxillo menaced ; an insurrection produced by Spanish agents in Santa Marta ; all reversed, and the enemy every where expelled.
He recommended the more perfect organization of the army and militia ; and a provision for the disabled soldiers, the widows and orphans of those who shed their blood for the public liberties ; and provision for the naval force.
The report of P. Gual, minister of foreign affairs, is a brilliant and an able production ; and must suffer by any abridgment; the heads are all that will be attempted. It opens by congratulating Congress, that in the midst of an unexampled war, of twelve years' duration, the rights of neutrals have been protected, and with fewer complaints than could have been expected under all circumstances ; notwith- standing some governments had not pursued the same liberal course. The principles recognised by the treaties of West- phalia and Utrecht, and the treaties that have grown out of more recent events, were in frequent contradiction ; the go- vernment of Colombia had therefore formed a common rule of conduct — that of not granting a privilege to any, which it would not yield to all. The result has been entirely sue- cessful : the heads discussed are, 1. The American States. 2. United States. 3. Europe. 4. Spain.
5
ou
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VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 519
The abdication by Ferdinand VII. in 1808, was the sig- nal of separation between the authority of Spain, and the de-
ndance of South America; from that period soldiers,
ilosophers, legislators, magistrates, and ministers have, with alternate success and defeat, constantly contended for in- dependence ; all have been tried and proved in the school of adversity ; and in despite of inexperience in the art of war,pro- igies of valour and triumph have fulfilled their hopes and ishes. The geographical position of Colombia made it, on the part of Spain, the rendezvous of her troops, destined to re-establish the terrible colonial system. Colombia was the advanced guard of the new world, and in expending her own blood she has saved that of her co-states, and fixed their union in policy and interest for ever.
While the triumphs of Colombia resounded throughout the civilized world, the rest of the family of the same descent were either prostrate or distracted. Mexico by a strange per- version became an empire ; Peru was delivered by the arms of Chili and La Plata, and submitted to a protectorate (under St. Martin) ; Guatimala however declared for a republic ; and Colombia accomplished what the fundamental law had pre- ordained, by carrying the olive with the fasces of victory, to Quito and Guayaquil : and this happy moment was seized to carry into effect a great American federative system, in which the sovereignty, independence, and laws of each state should not only be secured to itself, but guaranteed against the whole world — upon the following terms.
1. The American states to be confederate perpetually, in peace and war, and to guarantee liberty, independence, and the integrity of their several territories.
2. The uti posidetis of 1810, according to the demarca- tion of each viceroyalty under Spain, and of each captain- generalship, to be the boundary of each sovereign state, erect- ed under the constitutions or laws of the new states.
520 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
3. The personal rights of citizens in commerce, naviga- tion, without distinction of persons, to be the same in person, property, trade, foreign and domestic, in every state, as to the state to which they belong, or as belongs to the citizens of the state they reside or travel in.
4. An assembly to be held at Panama of two plenipoten- tiaries from each state, to serve as a point of contact in com- mon dangers, the interpreters of treaties, and arbitrators and mediators, in case of any dispute or difference.
5. This treaty of perpetual alliance and confederacy, not to interfere with the sovereignty of any of the states, in regard to foreign nations.
The usurpation of Iturbide, by disturbing Mexico, post- poned this congress, which was intended to assemble in 1823. It was required of Mr. Santamaria, minister of Co- lombia at Mexico, to recognize the new emperor, though he had no instructions— (which he declined, and was thereupon ordered to depart) — events justified the good sense of San- tamaria.
In the United States, the people from the beginning have been in constant sympathy with South America, and, in 1822, the government formally acknowledged the independence of Colombia ; an effect in a great measure due to the talents, intelligence, and zeal of Senor Manuel Torres, OUT charge des affairs, whose knowledge enabled him to enlighten the government on the interests which should render both na- tions dear to each other. He survived only to the 14th July of that year, to whom, as successor, Jose Maria Salazar has been appointed minister plenipotentiary.
In this state of affairs, Colonel Charles Todd arrived in December 1822, with a special commission communicating the recognition of independence.
In Europe, the court of Lisbon was the first to recog- nize the independent governments of New America, by its agent Juan Manuel Figuereido, in a note dated llth August,
5
VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
1821, to the minister of Chile, and by a communication of Silvestre Pilinero y Fereira, minister of state to the king of brtugal, made it known, by a copy of his instruction, of 16th
pril, 1821. In consequence of which Jose Tiburcio Eche- verria was appointed to proceed to Lisbon, but prevented by his death. The changes in Brazil since that period are no- ticed, and no certain results were known.
As early as 1811, the Grand Chancellor Romanzoff inti- mated to the agent in London, that the emperor of all the Russias had come to the resolution to admit our flag into all his ports on the same footing as other neutrals. France, the Netherlands, and the King of Sweden, have come to the same resolution, and Sweden has a consul general, (Lorich,) now in Bogota, for the purpose of concluding a provisional commercial arrangement, which will be laid before the legis- lature.
In almost all parts of Europe the Colombian flag is re- spected ; the laws for encouraging our marine, passed at Cucuta, have contributed to this effect. An act of naviga- tion is wanting. The friendship of Great Britain is of great importance ; many of her people have crossed the sea to aid in our struggle : the parliament declared its ports would be open to our flag, 27th April, 1822. [Here are some ani- madversions on the transactions of Mr. Zea, a matter of cu- rious history, but too ample for this work.]
Of Spain. — This of all governments appears to be the only one ignorant, that a nation destitute of every thing, with- out manufacturing industry, whose fertile soil is abandoned to sterility, and which knows not the means of improving its own condition, or extricating itself from the state of poverty and debasement, consequent on subjection to an ar- bitrary government for centuries ; who could not see that the extension of the constitutional system of Cadiz to the ancient possessions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, was a perfect illusion.
66
VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The treaties concluded at Truxillo, 26th November, 1820, after so many years of slaughter and devastation, held forth the prospect of a better disposition. On that day General Pablo Morillo presented himself at Santa Ana, invested with full powers ; he greeted the Republic of Colombia and her illustrious president ; and two treaties, one for an armistice of six months, the other for regulating the mode of warfare con- sistent with civilization, were agreed upon and ratified. The formality of this negociation, the decorous and dispassionate language of the Spanish commanders, promised the most happy results ; and Messrs. Jose Rafael Ravenga and Jose Tiburcio Echeverria were dispatched for Madrid, with full powers, dated at Bogota, 24th January, 1821. Two months of the armistice had expired, and full powers were given to procure a prolongation of the armistice, but it was not ob- tained, and the ministers embarked at Laguayra, in the Span- ish frigate Arethusa, 24th March, and landed at Cadiz, 14th May, 1821.
A very different language from that held at Santa Ana as- sailed them at Madrid, from persons known to be connected with the court. A new amnesty had been promulged for those whose triumphant assertion of their independence was the theme of universal admiration. The plenipotentiaries, notwithstanding, reached Madrid 30th May. But not only the ministers were found to be animated by bad faith, but the general on Terra Firma, (who succeeded Morillo) Gene- ral Miguel La Torre, demanded new reinforcements, as is proved by his correspondence with the minister of the Colo- nies in February and March, 1821.
It was not long after the departure of the plenipotentiaries that the perfidy of the Spanish authorities was discovered by the government of Colombia ; but, willing to believe that the court of Madrid would not be influenced by the same passions as its agents, the discovery was permitted to re- main unnoticed, until it was found that nothing was to be
:
II
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 523
hoped from Madrid ; and, in consequence, notice was given, and the hostilities were renewed, 28th April, 1821. Our
inister then in Spain. Their first and last interview did ot take place with Sen or Azara, Secretary of State, till the 5th June, and was a mere dry uninteresting conversation. The plenipotentiaries soon saw that nothing was to be done. If any doubt could have remained, a Report from the minis- ;er of the Colonies, Don Ramon Gil y Cuadra, to the Cortes, of 1st March, 1821, which treated of the Lazarettoes, Schools, the Secretary's department of Spanish America, and other silly details, as if their armies were triumphant, and the country in their complete subjection ; and a report of the committee of the Cortes, on 4th June, equally absurd, left no room for doubts.
A meeting of deputies, on 24th June, affected to discuss the subject thoroughly, but the influence of the ministers prevented them, if really so disposed. A plan of regencies was agitated, which ministers secretly abetted. Messrs. Ravenga and Echeverria, immediately, in pursuit of their duty, transmitted to the minister a copy of the fundamental law. The ordinary Cortes were dissolved 30th June, when the monarch declared, "that the Spaniards of both hemis- pheres might be assured he would maintain the integrity of the monarchy in both hemispheres."
Meantime, calumnious invectives were cast forth on the plenipotentiaries of the republic, who nevertheless remained in Madrid till the 1st September, on which day they received a note, dated 30th August, accusing the republic of the in- fraction of treaties ; their passports accompanied, intimating that they must not delay their departure; and this was also announced in the public papers ; and a popular tumult ha- ving on the 20th August assailed General Morillo, then at Madrid, an attempt was made to implicate them in it. They therefore simply replied to the note, and left Madrid in thir- ty-six hours after receiving it, and having reached Bayonne
5124 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
on the 14th September, they replied by a statement of facts, to the various allegations ; one of which referred to the revolt of the people of Maracaibo, during the armistice. The people there had risen against the oppression they experi- enced ; the military commandant, next adjacent, was called upon by the people, and consented to the act ; President Bolivar, upon hearing of this, ordered the arrest of the officer, (Colonel Heras) and submitted to the Spanish general a re- presentation, and proposed to let the merits of the question be arbitrated by the Spanish brigadier, Ramon Correa ; and in fact it appeared, that hostilities were not renewed until twenty-six days before the cessation of the armistice, when a contingency provided for by the 14th article of the treaty of truce, and the first law of nature, demanded it.
Nothing but the same species of inane measures succeed- ed atJVIadrid. The Cortes, 13th February, 1822, requested the king to authorise persons to present themselves to the new governments in America ; on the 5th March a decree was issued, which the minister of the colonies received on the 31st, and the general of the Expeditionary Army 15th April, 1822, up to the 18th May following, did not re- ceive advice of the appointment of Jose Sartorio, and John Barry, to negociate with the Colombian government. Mean- while, in pursuance of the fourth article of the royal decree of 13th February, 1822, Ferdinand VII. addressed a mani- festo to the courts of Europe, declaring that Spain would consider as an infraction of treaties, the recognition of any of the American states. A copy of this document, authenti- cated by M. Ciemencin, reached the government only after a long lapse of time ; and the intendants of the maritime de- partments received instructions thereupon the 19th May; but no consequence followed. But on the 28th June, the Cortes authorised the king, to proceed on measures to recon- cile the colonies, and to conclude provisional agreements with the American governments, and that commerce should continue uninterrupted. But these measures did not deceive.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 525
In September, and October last, the Spanish commander (Morales) at Maracaibo, issued two extraordinary decrees. By one he annulled the treaty concluded with Morillo, re- gulating the conduct of war upon the principles of civiliza- tion, indicating thereby a renewal of former outrages and massacres. By the other he condemns to confiscation, to hard labour on the public works, and to death, persons sub- jects of neutral powers, found in the provinces he may oc- cupy. It becomes the government to repel such actions with energy. By this conduct of the general, the declara- tions of the royal manifesto receive their true interpretation.
Up to February and June 1822, the Spanish government has attributed the revolution to a capricious love of change, and not from a desire to be happy. America has, during thir- teen years of a war, commenced in the desire to shake off despotism, and to seek happiness in a free government, con- tinued in defence of existence, and threats of extermination ; America has succeeded, and Spain, after all the massacres she has committed, is compelled to drain the cup of bitterness to its dregs. She must endure her vicissitudes — Colombia is disposed to peace and concord with a people who speak the same language.
In the United States, and in all Europe, excepting Spain, the government is satisfied with the neutrality they professed and maintained. Neither have the importunities of the mon- arch of Spain, at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, to engage them to assist in our resubjection, been successful. The executive has founded its foreign policy on three principles : 1. Perpetual alliance and confederation among the powers engaged in the war. 2. Uniformity of conduct towards neu- trals. 3. The application of all the elements of offence and defence against the enemy, until compelled to seek peace.
526 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Report of minister of interior— new order of things— publication of constitu- tion— the laws — executive — departmental administration— provinces— cantons — cabildos — notaries— rights of the aborigines — resguardas abolished — educa- tion of aborigines — police — public health — goitre— vaccination— hospitals—
poor-houses — naturalization — internal commerce — weights and measures
roads— inland navigation— agriculture and arts — monies — public education — administration of justice — tribunals of commerce — liberty of the press— eccle- siastical affairs- bishops — regular clergy — suppressed convents — missions — clerical patriotism.
THE Report of Jose Manuel Restrepo, the Secretary of the Interior, or Home Department, scarcely admits of abridgment, and it presents so clear and comprehensive a view of the inter- nal affairs of the Republic, that no individual enquiries could produce such a variety of important facts. He observes that little more than a year had elapsed since the constitution went into operation, and the charge of the organic laws devolved upon the executive ; the executive had been assiduously en- gaged in fulfilling what the legislature, intended, the prosperity of the people. Habits, usages, and customs, which had be- come inveterate under the colonial state ; abuses grown into custom during thirteen years of disasters and war; the very existence of war ; prejudices fostered from tender years, and, above all, the Gothic spirit and structure of Spanish legisla- tion, which has been overturned, but not obliterated, by the revolution, have interposed obstacles to the efforts of the executive. Many of those evils have, indeed, disappeared, or been modified to a milder character by measures of the ex- ecutive, but others await the prudent hand of the legislator, the operation of time, and the influence of liberty and inde- pendence, to remove them altogether.
Charged by the duty of office, to report the progress made in the home department of the executive, the mode of ad-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 527
ministration, the provisions and decrees, and the defects and impediments which have presented themselves in the pro- gress already made ; there shall be exhibited to congress what relates to the executive, the police, the means taken to promote public prosperity, the administration of justice, and ecclesiastical affairs; and such improvements in each branch as the executive would recommend. Congress will do concerning them what is consonant with justice, policy, and reason, so as to promote the happiness of the people, the sole end of government.
SECTION I. Of the Government. — The publication of the constitution and laws was the first, and an agreeable duty. A decree of 20th September, year 11, (1821,) de- termined the manner and the oath to be administered to public functionaries : and within the two last months of 1821, and the first of 1822, the constitution was received in all the departments and provinces, undisturbed by the pre- sence of the enemy, and sworn to by all persons in the pub- lic service, cabildos, and tribunals ; and their promulgation everywhere received with public rejoicings, and the appro- bation of the people. The municipal body of Caracas, however, alone thought fit to publish a protest against the oath, an act which the government found it to be its duty to censure, and submission followed.
At the moment of promulgating the constitution, the pro- vinces of the important isthmus of Panama shook off the yoke of Spain, by a spontaneous act of the people, and vo- luntarily united themselves to the republic ; and the consti- tution and laws being sent to them as they desired, they were sworn to and promulgated with enthusiasm. The Spanish authorities in the isthmus entered into certain ca- pitulations with the people, which prevented the effusion of blood ; the executive has respected those laudable acts, and the documents will be laid before congress.
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Quito has also given proofs of its attachment to the re- publican constitution ; and the arms of the republic, after many obstinate combats, have compelled the Spanish armies in that department to surrender. The provinces of Loja, Cuenca, and the once populous city of Quito, finding them- selves already free, spontaneously tendered their devotion to the constitution, which unites the ancient Viceroyalty of New Granada, and the Captain- Generalship of Venezuela, under the same national title of Colombia. Some difficulties had arisen at Guayaquil, owing to causes which were soon dis- sipated by the presence of Bolivar. The great majority of the people claimed to be united with Colombia, which being granted, all disturbance ceased, party disappeared, and se- curity and prosperity are established.
The constitution has already reached the remote province of Maynas, on the borders of the Amazon in the south ; and thus one system of institutions and laws, protecting the li- berties and assuring the happiness of the people, pervade the beautiful regions from the mouths of the Orinoco to the northern boundaries of Brazil and Peru. Only two cities, and some small hamlets, now groan under the des- potic rule of the Spanish General Morales, who, it appeared from the foreign journals, was appointed Captain-General of Venezuela, and reinforced with 1500 men from Gallicia, convoyed by a naval force ; whose first enterprise against Maracaibo was successful, giving him the controul o£ the lake ; and enabled him to menace the departments of Car- thagena, Boyacca, Merida, Truxillo, and Venezuela. The power vested by article 128 of the constitution, in cases of invasion, was assumed on the 25th September ; and mea- sures becoming necessary against internal foes, on the 30th September, a decree was issued against conspirators, in or- der to meet the measures of Morales, who never respected any laws ; this was necessary, as some persons in the depart- ment of Zulia had been seduced to raise the cry of insurrec-
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tion, and two excellent officers were assassinated in the com- motion. Santa Martha was agitated by the same means.
me law regulating trials in such cases is necessary, as
inted at by the articles 169 and 170 of the constitution.
Venezuela being the seat of war, the extraordinary autho- rity adapted to such occasions, was assumed in order to the recovery of Maracaibo ; a decree was issued 7th November last, in the departments of Cundinamarca, Boyacca, Magda- lena, Zulia, Venezuela, and Orinoco, as the points from which the enemy might derive supplies. In all other de- partments quiet and security prevails. The administration of every kind has proceeded with order and success. The elections of senators and representatives have been conducted with perfect order in the newly organized departments — and those acts of sovereignty, which in some nations most culti- vated produce tumults and dissentions, have been exercised among us in perfect quiet and concord, proving that the sa- crifices and heroism of thirteen years of war have not been unavailing, and that liberty is duly appreciated for its blessings.
Publication of the Laws. Along with the constitution, all the laws and decrees of the first general congress (Cucuta, 1821-2) have been promulgated, the government having caused them to be printed for circulation ; thus simplifying administration, and diffusing the excellent principles they contain, by placing them within the reach of every citizen.
Executive Departments. Upon the first exercise of the executive authority, secretaries were appointed as its organs. Those of foreign relations, finance, and the home department, single ; the war and naval under one head. A particular regu- lation has been provided for each department, prescribing its duties according to article 137 of the constitution. The law of 8th October, 1821, directed the appointments of a subor- dinate character and their salaries, but the numbers appointed are not yet sufficient for the dispatch of public business, which is for the consideration of Congress.
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Administration of Territorial Departments. Provisional intendants, conformable to the organic law, have been ap- pointed to seven departments. Deputy assessors* have been also appointed according with the eleventh article of the law of 2d October, 1821. Secretaryships of districts have been appointed, and salaries assigned. The selection of secretaries being in the intendants, those departments are completed.
The three new departments of the Isthmus, Quito, and Guayaquil are in progress. The isthmus consists of the pro- vinces of Panama and Veragua ; their population is small, but the isthmus, from its position, must increase rapidly. That of Quito consists of the provinces of Quijos, Pastos, Cuenca, Loja, and Maynas. That of Guayaquil consists of its ancient territory.
Obstacles and doubts arise on the law organizing depart- ments. The intendants and governors being immediate agents of the executive, should not interfere with juridical concerns with which that law invests them, in every litigation concerning justice, police, or finance. It is the opinion of the executive these powers should be withdrawn from inten- dants and governors, and vested in deputy assessors ; powers would be thus better distributed, intendants not obliged to enter into affairs they may not understand, and be thus better enabled to bestow undivided attention on the improvement of the provinces over which they preside, and the military affairs. An obstacle arises out of article 6, in the same law. Causes, in which heretofore an appeal lay to the king, on judi- cial affairs, are now carried to the executive, who having no law authorising him to interfere, provision is required to remedy the evil. It is also necessary that a code of regulations for the direction of intendants should be formed. That of New Spain of 1786, was directed by the law of 1821. But that code was formed for Mexico, and under an absolute mo-
* The assessor is a law officer, whose functions are mixed ; he prosecutes for offences, and acts as deputy to the intendant— at least so is the practice.
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narch, and is utterly irreconcilable with the free institutions of Colombia. The executive, nevertheless, is overwhelmed ith such appeals. The legislature is called upon to provide remedy. In January, 1822, the executive appointed a commission to prepare a project of regulations, which will be laid before Congress.
Political Administration of the Provinces. — When the in- tendants were appointed, the government selected the pro- vincial governors in conformity with the constitution; and deputy assessors for most of them. Margarita and Rio Hacha have none, because the stipend is not such as would induce advocates of suitable qualifications to accept them. The secretaryships of provinces have also been organised, and officers appointed, with their salaries, which will be laid be- fore Congress, according to article 24 of law of 2d October.
The eight provinces of Panama, Veragua, Pastes, Quito, Cuenca, Loja, Maynas, and Guayaquil, are added to the twenty-three of which the Republic was before composed when Congress made the distribution of the territory. Of these, Pastes, belonging to Quito, is now formed into a se- parate department by the liberator president, and the only one created by him. Salaries should be fixed for the governors of Veragua, Pastos, Cuenca, Loja, and Maynas. The others will probably be constituted heads of intendancies.
Administration of the Cantons. To complete the division of the territory conformably with the articles thirty-three and thirty-four of the organic law of the departments, the pro- vinces are divided into cantons, reports having been pre- viously received from the governors. Political judges have also been appointed, thus completing the chain of social order.
The political judges, however, having no salaries assigned them, they should be compensated : in some provinces a small sum from the funds of the municipal bodies has been allowed them ; but these funds are much impaired, and many
532 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
cantons are without any funds ; there remained no resource but the national funds, which have been so applied in the province of Orinoco ; a heavy charge to the public, in the actual state of things, as the number exceeds two hundred : it rests with Congress to correct the inconvenience.
Cabildos of Cantons. — The first general congress, in pre- serving the ancient cabildos, pointed out their functions, But the war absorbed all other considerations ; and few cor- porations have been able to engage in works of utility. That of St. Gil, in the province of Socorro, has distinguished itself in the promotion of schools, in which are taught grammar and philosophy.
The thirty -fourth article authorised the establishment of new corporations, and accordingly the municipalities of To- cayma and La Mesa, in the province of Marequita, and that of Yoisa in Panama, have been created ; but cabildos have been erected also, as new cantons are created.
The condition of our population scattered on the plains, for the most part renders the sitting of corporations difficult. The cabildos have been re-elected in October last, agreeably to the forty-second article, but for uniformity it is determined that the period must commence from January. The bounds of some corporations have been changed, and even of pro- vinces. In Bogota and Marequita/provinces, certain villages, and the same with parishes, have been transferred to a juris- diction more contiguous : particulars will be presented to Congress.
Public Notaries of Cantons. — The places of notaries and registers of mortgages in cantons were saleable offices and transferable under the Spanish rule.* The first general con- gress, article seventy-six, of the law concerning tribunals, de- termined that the sales should cease, and the places be filled by competition, and the candidates undergo an examination by the local courts as to fitness. A special law is necessary
* Gre&t abuses in the office of notary.
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on the subject. Those who purchased, claim indemnity ; but this being a question of law, the executive could not interfere.
Slavery. — The law of 19th July, year 11, gave liberty to children of female slaves, abolished the trade in ne- groes, and the boards of manumission have been in activity throughout the republic. In December of the same year, the period fixed for the liberation of slaves by purchase, it was carried into effect, and the legislature of Colombia received the blessings of thousands restored to the condition of men. In some provinces, fears were entertained that the cessation of slavery would affect agriculture and the working of the mines. It may so happen, but is it not a less evil than that the people should live as if over a volcano, of which no one could anti- cipate the moment of explosion ? It is better that agriculture and mining should incur those temporary evils, for which want and experience will every day discover more safe and permanent remedies, than entail on posterity so great a moral and physical evil.
Rights of the Aborigines. The greater part of the Indians of Colombia have been a degraded class, and are yet par- tially so. The Spanish laws reduced them to perpetual pu- pilage, and it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that they were the slaves of the priests and the magistrates. Both one and the other commanded them to be whipped publicly for the most trivial faults, and even though in years. Thus they lived in a state of debasement and degradation, the energy of their intellectual and physical faculties destroyed. Obliged to cultivate lands in common, they never improved them, and mournfully vegetated in villages, existing in misery, and with difficulty able to pay the sum of from six to nine dollars a year exacted from them as tribute, which all males from 18 to 50 were obliged to pay !
The first general Congress annihilated these cruel oppres- sions, by placing the natives on an equality with all other men ; suppressed the tributes and personal labour wrong- fully exacted, and provided that the resguardas, or common
534 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
lands, should be laid out and conferred on them as fee sim- ple estates within five years. These measures, though they will render them more happy, cannot exalt them to that state which education only can establish ; their posterity, and the youth growing up, will profit by them, and care has been taken that the children find their admission in primary schools, where they learn to read and write, and where the brutal practice of whipping is utterly forbidden.
By a decree of 14th March last, four Indian youths are to be admitted into each of the colleges of Bogota, Caracas, and Quito, and two in each of every other ; and funds have been assigned for their maintenance. Thus by degrees they will become like other men, under the influence of liberty and republican institutions.
Within fifty or sixty years difference of casts and condi- tions of inferiority will wholly disappear.
SECTION II. Of the Police — Public Security. During the fifteen months since the legislature commenced its sit- tings, public order has been well observed, and, notwith- standing the marauding of the Spaniards from Porto Cabello on Venezuela, the population has no where indicated any thing in their favour. A banditti of the partisans of Spain, (Cisneros) a robber, has maintained a place in the forests near Caracas, and another near Calaboso has been totally destroyed. Another party kept the vast deserts of Castigo, after the pacification of the south, but trifling in number. The Spanish Lieutenant-colonel Benito Boves, formed a band of outlaws in Pastos, and excited commotions in that town, and, though treated with generosity by the republican troops, sought to spread civil war and desolation anew. The liberator soon terminated his career, and, on the 24th Ete- cember last, annihilated him and his banditti, s>nce vvhjfch time tranquillity has every where prevailed.
About the same time Santa Martha was disturbed. Some deserters having joined the Indians of the district of Cienega, raised an insurrection, and the republican troops being em-
;:
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ployed on other duties, and absent, the insurgents occupied that place. They soon met the same fate as those of Pastos,
As necessary to tranquillity, the moderation of the repub- c having been abused, the executive, by a circular of 28th June, forbad those who had emigrated from returning before the cabinet of Madrid should have recognised Colombian Independence. It is to be regretted that this measure had been taken the preceding year, and that it did not extend
the expulsion of those, who, living in the midst of us, and enjoying the security they would themselves deny and de- stroy to us, are probably watching for a favourable oppor- tunity to plant a dagger in the bosom of the republic whose protection they enjoy.
Health. Measures should be pursued to repress the annual visits of yellow fever to the seaports ; the establishment of boards of health — quarantines — lazarettoes — draining of stagnant waters.
Leprosy. The disease called St. Lazaro, or Elephantia- sis (leprosy), has spread in some parts of Colombia. The Spanish government established an hospital in Carthagena for the reception of the unhappy people, afflicted with this dis- ease ; but the Spanish general, Morales, distinguished by fe- rocity, in 1815, took the horrid pleasure of setting fire to it, and consuming more that 500 unfortunate persons within its walls. Others, who had not taken refuge there, escaped, and spread themselves and the disease, in different parts of the surrounding country. The hospital was re-established, but the funds were not available. Since the city has been occupied by the republic, it has been sustained by charity.
The province of Soccoro has many persons afflicted with this disease, and a lazaretto was established in 1820, at a place called Coro, where the afflicted of Soccoro, Pamplona, Tunja, Casanare, Bogota, Neyva, and Marequita are provi- ded for. The revenues are inadequate. The providence of the legislator is called upon to use the means employed
536 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
in almost every part of the globe, where it has existed, and has been extirpated.
Goitre. Another disease, which, though not mortal, de- forms a considerable portion of the population, in several provinces, destroys the beauty of the fair sex, enfeebles the senses, and affects the mental faculties ; it makes infancy feeble, and frequently idiots. It prevails principally in the temperate valleys ; although the inhabitants of the frozen summits of mountains are not exempted, any more than the torrid plains of the Magdalena, Meta, and Apure, and other rivers. The goitre, according to concurring observations, rather augments than diminishes, and demands the interpo- sition of the legislative body. Funds should be appropriated for experiments, under skilful medical men. The learned of all countries should be invoked for aid, and liberal re- wards offered for the discovery of effective means of preven- tion and cure.
Vaccination. The government has taken care to have this precious discovery disseminated, with the vaccine matter, throughout the provinces.
Hospitals. The greater part of the civil hospitals are un- der the direction of the regular clergy of San Juan de Dios. The funds are bequests of private persons. War has di- minished the income. The hospitals require a better regu- lation.
Cemeteries. The government has promoted the establish- ment of cemeteries in every parish, with views to public health. The interment of the dead in churches, is an abuse, and must be discontinued.
Poor-houses. In Bogota, Quito, and Caracas, buildings are assigned to receive the mendicant poor, and employ them in some useful industry. The government has also found- ed another at Pamplona. It is true, that some of the econo- mists are opposed to this species of institution, but there are arguments against them, more deserving the regard of a go-
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vernmcnt, in which the people have equal rights, and the opulent are protected by those who are not rich. But in cast-
g a glance over the republic, it is a great pleasure to per-
ive,thatno where within its jurisdiction, is there so many poor, nor poverty so miserable as in ancient nations, consi- dered as having reached the summit of grandeur. No where in Colombia do the poor perish through want, notwithstand-
g a war which for its duration has been the most cruel and isastrous recorded in history. Indeed, the fertility of our temperate climate affords such abundance of the necessaries of life, account for this, and is a happy presage for the future.
SECTION III. Of Naturalization. — The great designs of the first general Congress, in sanctioning the 183d article of the constitution, and the law of 3d September, 1821, begin to operate. Many foreigners have applied for naturalization up to the close of the last year; there were only fourteen na- turalizations, many more had solicited, but doubts had inter- posed as to the law. The government is satisfied there was nothing retrospective, and that those who resided in 1821 are not subject to the fourth article. Congress are called upon to ratify this interpretation.
Another difficulty arose out of section two, of article four of the constitution. As the republic has undergone many political changes in organising departments and provinces, the government could not decide whether it speaks of a law common to all, or commences at the termination of the Span- ish yoke in each place. Colombia requires that the utmost encouragement be given to the naturalization of foreigners, especially those who bring with them capital or useful arts, of which the republic stands in need. Naturalization should, therefore, be rendered easy.
Internal Commerce. — The relief of internal industry from the oppression of the alcavalas has given great activity to
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internal trade ; and the entire expulsion of the enemy must be followed by still greater augmentation.
The observance of the Spanish laws was provisionally en- joined, and it was unavoidable ; but wherever inconsistent with our free institutions, and the entrance of foreigners un- acquainted with them, produces great inconvenience. The laws thus in force rendered it out of the power of the execu- tive to dispense with those which obliged foreigners to con- sign their merchandise to native agents, as was the law under Spain. The provisional decree, issued 27th February, 1822, on this subject, will be laid before Congress. A clear intel- ligible law is required, placing strangers on the same terms as we are placed in foreign nations. The decree has prevented disputes, and encourages national prosperity.
Weights and Measures. The executive has experienced some difficulty in the construction of standards of weights aiu« measures, as decreed by the first general Congress, to be sent to the departments ; particularly as to the measures of capacity called almudes, the cube-root of which was surd, and not satisfactorily reducible to the precision of mathema- tics. It would have been more advantageous to reform the law of llth December, 1821, and adopt the metrical system of France: thdr metre is scarcely two-tenths longer than the Spanish yard, and could be introduced with facility.
Difficulties arose as to who should be the depositaries charged with the custody of the measures called almacenes. Some corporations continued to exact the ancient duties, which was put an end to as soon as known ; Congress will be applied to further on this subject.
Roads. — Colombia, divided by lofty ranges of the Andes and their magnificent limbs, almost all roads lead through mountainous regions, and oppose difficulties to opening and repairing them. There is not a single road for wheel car- riages-in the vast territory of the republic. All are bridle roads, and bad at all times, but particularly in the rainy sea-
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son. The government is aware that without good roads in- dustry, particularly agriculture, cannot be prosperous ; but
ce will enable the government to attend to this great bu-
ess of public providence.
Nevertheless the liberator, our president, has caused a road to be opened from Quito to Esmeraldas on the Pacific, and
€nted some immunities to promote the increase of com- rce there. A road has been made in Antioquia from :delin to the river Nare, the inhabitants having generously borne the expenses by voluntary subscription. Some useful bridges have been finished ; one over the river St. Gil has been constructed by the patriotic exertions of the municipality of St. Gil. That at Capitanejo, over the Chichamoca, has been completed out of the public funds ; tolls have been suggested as a fund to construct and keep bridges in repair ; but this being the province of the legislature, no steps have been taken. In two cases of bridges, however, the same toll is paid that was demanded for crossing in a canoe before.
The subject of roads demands the most serious considera- tion. Colombia wants roads. We should follow the exam- ple of the United States, where roads have been constructed at the most extraordinary expense, over which carriages tra- vel with perfect convenience in one day, distances which occupied four days or a week before.
Inland navigation. — Colombia possesses in great rivers an immense inland navigation. The majestic Orinoco and its countless tributaries ; the Catabamba, Zulia, and others that unite in the beautiful lake of Maracaibo ; the Magdalena j the Atrato, Cruces, and numerous others on the Pacific side ; the Patia, Esmeraldas, Santiago, St. Juan, and the Guayaquil. But the navigation is still rude. Champans and Bogas ascend those streams in the same manner, arid navigated by Indians in the same way, as at the conquest, after the dominion of three centuries ; so little have the Spaniards taught us in that long period. Thus the navigation from the mouth of the Orinoco to the head of the Meta, within three days' journey
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of Bogota, is an enterprise requiring more time than is ne- cessary to double Cape Horn from Europe. For this reason, the expenses of transport are so enormous, that few articles will bear the charge of carrying from our ports to an interior market. It is impossible that internal agriculture, industry, or commerce, can prosper until changes are made to facilitate communication and transport, not merely of foreign goods we require, but of our own products, upon which public prosperity so much depends.
With steamboats many of our rivers may be navigated at less than one-fourth of the present cost. Different individuals have proposed to establish steamboats on the Magdalena, upon condition of an exclusive privilege. This being the province of Congress to act upon, the executive declined to make any such grant. Until steamboats do enter, it would be impor- tant that Congress should pass a law regulating the bogas (meaning the boatmen, the boat or canoe is also called boga).
Canals. — The opening of an important canal between the San Pablo in Choco and the Atrato, which fall into the Ca- ribbean sea, with the St. Juan, which falls into the Pacific. A foreigner has proposed to open it for an exclusive privi- lege, and calculates the expense at only $200,000, though some think erroneously: it will be laid before Congress; but the moment does not appear favourable.
Agriculture and Arts — have received very little encourage- ment : the war contributions, the recruiting of the army, want of funds, are the causes. Peace will afford more means. The establishment of central schools of agriculture at Quito, Bogota, and Caracas, might diffuse information all around, on subjects so interesting, but of which the paternal care of Spain has left the people of Colombia almost ignorant.
Mines. — Mining in Antioquia, Choco, Popayan, and parts of Neyva and Pamplona, is pursued at the washings, and in the two first provinces the product has been considerable. The war has affected all the other provinces.
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SECTION IV. Public Education* — Primary schools were directed to be established in every parish, by the law of 2d
ugust, 1821, and it has been carried into effect wherever
cticablc. The want of teachers and of elementary books, are serious difficulties ; and show how the colonial system has generated ignorance. Model schools were directed to be formed in principal places ; some teachers have proceeded to different places ; and in January, 1822, a regulation was is- sued prescribing the order in which mutual instruction should be conducted and extended. The system has been received with pleasure, and the people now perceive that they have a government of their own, even where the distance from the capital is 2000 leagues. For three hundred years the Span- iards did not endow a single school. A commission has been formed to make enquiries, and to prepare a report on the Lancasterian school system, which will be laid before Congress ; the schools yet have languished through want of funds, and those directed to be established in convents of nuns particularly.
Colleges — according to the law of 28th July, 1821, are to be founded in every province of Colombia ; already the colleges of Boyacca in Tunja ; San Simon in Ibague ; Antioquia in Medelin ; and the academy of San Gil are established ; and another is to be placed at Caly in Popayan. The Liberator has also founded a college in Loja. The ancient colleges have been encouraged as far as possible ; two at Quito, one in Popayan, two in Bogota, two in Caracas, and one in Merida exist. That in Bogota is flourishing. The government has not yet been able to collect the data requisite for the reform of those ancient colleges, which they require, being all Gothic in their foundations and forms.
The study of medicine and surgery is essential ; more va- liant soldiers perished in the field through that want than by any other cause. Two foreigners have presented themselves with complete apparatus for teaching anatomy, and propose
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commencing a course of lectures ; they have been accepted, and they have commenced in this capital.
Universities* There are at Quito, Bogota, Caracas, and at Merida, for some of the sciences ; that of Bogota, is un- der the direction of the Dominican order. They all require reform.
The government has added to the ancient library of Bo- gota, that of the celebrated Dr. Mutis, and the books which have been sequestrated. The books are placed in the halls of St. Bartholemew, and the former building has been sold for the advantage of the library.
SECTION V. High court of justice. This court was in- stalled immediately on the establishment of the constitution. Two of the officers named for that court, have declined pro- visionally ; it remains with congress to provide.
Superior courts of districts* Those courts of the centre, and north, were installed at the same time, but not in Quito, as the war had not yet ceased its effects ; but as soon as it was free, the courts were established ; no provision existing for Panama, they have been therefore united with the courts of the central departments. In the organic law, the fiscal agents were not noticed. The executive, therefore, consider- ed them as suppressed.
Inferior courts. These are in full exercise of their duties. The only doubt which has arisen, is whether the officers of the fraternity admitted by Spanish law, ought to subsist. But as there are two alcaldes in each canton, \h^ fraternity is considered as suppressed.
Tribunals of commerce. They were suppressed by the law of October, and transactions before submitted to them, were referred to the ordinary tribunals.
The liberty of the press. The law relating to it, has been fulfilled ; the operations of the government are freely anim- adverted upon, and the great interests of the nation dis- cussed. Newspapers are increasing, but it is to be regret-
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ted, that the printing establishments are very limited, and not as numerous as is desirable. Some excesses have oc- curred, and they appear unavoidable where the press is free. The law of the press has introduced trial by jury ; in prac- tice, Art. 48. appeared defective, two votes of the same opinion being sufficient for an acquittal, and six for con- demnation. Perhaps in such cases, an even majority should condemn or acquit. In case this idea should not be acteded to, the rule of English juries, that of unanimity, should be es- tablished, and then the institution would be complete.
Administration of Justice. Nothing can be more imper- fect than the existing jurisprudence of Colombia ; it is a gothic edifice, half in ruins, heterogeneous and discor- dant. The laws of the Partidas made in the time of the Moors ; the Recopilacion Castellana ; and Autos Acorda- dos ; the laws of the Indies ; the ordinances of Bilboa, and the Intendants ; the contradictory decrees of the arbitrary monarchs of Spain ; the Republican constitution, and the laws of the first general Congress — these are the Codes which rule Colombia ; a vast chaos, the last almost entirely abolishing all the rest. Here civil causes are continued for years, and the ruin of families follows ; no greater misfortune could befal a good citizen, than to be involved in a litigation.
The civil and criminal code, therefore, call for the cor- rection of Congress, so that justice may be speedy, easy, and certain ; without which our liberties must cease, that pre- cious possession acquired by the blood and the sacrifices of the people for thirteen years of war. The government had formed a commission in January, 1822, with a view to lay the basis of a code.
SECTION VI. Ecclesiastical affairs. The superior hier- archy of Colombia commences with the archbishops, of which there are two, Bogota and Caracas. Bogota is va- cant. The incumbent of Caracas was sent to Europe by Morillo, and has been since appointed to a see in Spain,
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Documents relative to this prelate will be laid before Con- gress in order to a decision upon the revenues of that see. The bishoprics of Quito, Cuenca, Maynas, and Panama, under Spanish rule, were suffragans of the archbishopric of Lima ; the appeals from acts of the bishops, Sec. would of course be decided by the metropolitan. Colombia and Pe- ru are now separate and independent states ; and cases are now brought before authority within the Republic, and it is contemplated to constitute by law, Quito into an arch- bishopric ; a respect due to that populous and patriotic city.
Bishops. There are ten in Colombia : Quito, Cuenca, May- nas, Popayan, Panama, Carthagena, Santa Marta, Merida, Antioquia, Guayana, of which Maynas, Cuenca, Santa Marta, Antioquia, and Guayana are vacant. The bishops of Cartha- gena and Quito are alive, but being arowed enemies of inde- pendence, have abandoned their diocesses and gone to Spain. The bishop of Popayan, Salvator Ximenes, has rendered meritorious service, particularly in the capitulation of Berru- ecos, which put an end to the war in the south ; he declares himself a Colombian, and is restored.
The difficulty with respect to bishops of Colombia being suffragans of Lima, occurred in the opposite relation, in va- rious districts of the province of Loja^ and the territory of St. Jean de Brocamoros, which, though belonging to Co- lombia, were subject to the Peruvian bishop of Truxillo. Insubordination of this kind must not be permitted in future.
Vacancies. Parishes, canonries, bishoprics, and archbish- oprics are vacant. The parishes have been ordered to be filled up, by a decree of 4th January, 1822, and the ordina- ries have every where fulfilled their duty, notwithstanding some qualms of the prudent vicar-general of Carthagena. The government by this decree has endeavoured to preserve unhurt the rights that belong to the civil power, and those necessary to maintain the civil subordination of the clergy, conformably with the resolution of Congress, of 14th Octo- ber, 1821. Thus no person can obtain an ecclesiastical
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benefice without a previous license from the executive of the republic or its authority.
The vacancies in chapters have been filled up so far as is necessary to divine service in the cathedrals. The arch- bishoprics and bishoprics will remain vacant until the nego- ciation of the concordat at Rome is terminated. Expe- rience has proved that it is necessary to the tranquillity and
od government of the republic, that the right of patro-
ge should be in the executive, in the same way as exer- cised by the king of Spain. During the war this right has not been enforced, but the government will for ever main- tain it.
Regular Clergy. The regular orders in Colombia are di- vided into three provinces, Venezuela, Bogota, and Quito; some others are independent. The head or common centre of those regulars was the vicar-general of each, resident at Madrid, who was subordinate to a generalissimo residing at Rome. The vicar-generals issued orders to their provinces, which were obeyed by the provincials or superiors. But since Colombia is independent, it is necessary the regular orders should be so too. No subordination to, nor commu- nications with, superiors residing in a hostile state, like Spain, can be, on any account, allowed. Congress will therefore have to determine, by law, the regular clergy independent of all foreign interference.
Suppressed Convents. Such convents of regulars as had not at least eight priests, were directed to be suppressed, by the first general Congress, and their edifices, properties, and revenues appropriated to the support of public education. This has been fulfilled in all the provinces exempted from war in the last year. As far as information has yet been re- ceived, thirty-nine convents have been so suppressed, and converted into seminaries of education. Doubts and con- siderations concerning some others, have induced government to let them exist, subject to the pleasure of Congress.
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The government entertaining doubts as to the intention of the law of 28th July, 1821, which authorised those measures concerning the ornaments and sacred vessels of the churches, suggest the propriety of distributing them in the poor parish churches, where they cannot be applied to the uses of the colleges.
Missions. Various uncivilized tribes dwell as well in La Goajira, as on the banks of the Meta, Orinoco, and Amazon, and other rivers that water the vast plains of the eastern part of the republic ; some of them have received ideas of religion, and they open a fine field for the regular clergy.
Patriotism of the Clergy. They have every where, secu- lar and regular, rendered important services to the cause of independence. One or two fanatics only, sought to preach and effect a coalition between religion and despotism. But they have disappointed themselves : some individuals have much distinguished themselves, and the government would exercise the right of patronage in the favour of such men, if the state of ecclesiastical relations would admit.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Financial report — incohate state of the revenue system — effect of suppres- sions— fiscal year to begin with July — customs — tithes — tobacco — spirits — mint — post-office — salt-works — stamps — alcavala — direct taxation.
Report of the war department — state of the army as to discipline during the war — the zeal of the chiefs supplied the absence of system — strength of the
army — organization — guard — administrative branches clothing and pay —
arms — militia fortresses — artillery — quarters — arsenals — invalids — military
instruction — operations of the army — campaigns in Peru.
Naval report — commodore Brion — naval depots — naval expenditures.
THE report of the Minister of Finance, Jose Maria Cas- tillo, was not presented till the 5th of May. The introduction, amounting to about a third of the report, is rhetorical ; ac- counting for what has not been done, by showing how much was to be done, and how much too short the space since the
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establishment of the constitution was, to carry into execution so many new measures as had been required by the first Ge- neral Congress. It would be desirable to give it at large, but its bulk does not admit of it ; the ideas of a fiscal kind are ch as have been prevalent in Europe for the last half cen- tury, or what in common discourse is called political econo- my; in which the fancies of Rousseau, the illusions of the French economists, or school of Quesnay, and the perplexity and contradictions of the English school of Smith, and of Say, who may be called the Economistics, are the sources of scien- tific absurdity. A few sentiments and maxims may be quoted, as they afford matter to appreciate the state of the financial administration, and the ideas that prevail on the subject in the new republic. He says — " The administra- tion of the national finances are the most essential, because with revenues every thing may be done, and without them nothing : upon them depends the ease or oppression of the people ; the fortunate or unfortunate termination of under, takings ; the greatness or ruin of nations : the execution of new laws on this branch of government is the most diffi- cult and tedious work that can present itself to a government. Theoretical principles direct the legislator, the executive should put the deductions from these principles in opera- tion ; but he has to struggle against inveterate habits of the multitude, the prejudices of a great majority, the interests of considerable number, the partialities, caprices, sloth, want of zeal, or want of understanding. The difficulties become frightful when to these are added the impediments of a pro- tracted war, which has impoverished the country, diminish- ed its population, drained off its capital, reduced to inaction the citizens underarms ; the increased expenditure of war," &c. " With all these impediments it was impossible in eighteen months to give full effect to the laws. The consti- tuent congress fixed its eyes on the only end of government
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— the happiness of the people, holding in view the enlight- ened principle , that every tax is an evil!!! &fc." Such was the design when congress passed the decree relieving the productions for food and the arts from the alcabala ; the re- duction of that tax to two and a half per cent, on foreign productions and real property ; the extinction of the dread- ful monopoly of spirits ; the abolition of the oppressive tri- bute paid by the aborigines, the imposition of which was the greatest crime of the Spaniards, because it was an attempt, and a successful one, to oppose the magnificent works of nature, by impoverishing a country the richest of the earth, and where the Almighty had poured forth blessings in pro- fusion. It would have been criminal to continue them. This people are now relieved, who had been sunk in misery and degradation. Colombians are no longer watched by the Sb'irri, who collected the alcabala ; nothing is now to ar- rest the fruits of labour in its progress towards a market ; those legions of custom-house officers, supported on the impoverishment of industry, have disappeared, who plun- dered the poor and were the instruments of the frauds of opulence, and that multitude of administrators who absorbed four-fifths of what they received from the payers of taxes. The people do not suffer the grief now of seeing one-tenth of what was wrung from them enter the public coffers, and the other nine-tenths enrich the tax-gatherers : they may now cultivate sugar-cane without being limited to a small quantity, or consuming by fire what they may have cultiva- ted beyond the space prescribed.
The suppression of imposts left a void, which was felt the more because expenses were increasing in proportion as the territory became free, and the fortresses, armies, and fleets augmented. A new system became necessary, founded on congenial laws. The departments were organized, and the system of controul established, under the law of 6th Octo-
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ber, 1821. The administration of the departments, pro- vinces, chief towns of cantons, custom-houses, mints, fac- tories of tobacco, &c. were organized. It could not be ex- pected that all could be perfected at once ; experience has discovered defects ; congress will be called on to provide remedies in a manner consistent with our institutions. The statements required from the distant points, requisite to fur- nish congress with authentic information, have been but par- tially received ; even from Venezuela few returns have been received, less from Guayaquil and Quito, and fewer still from Panama. The incidents of war and a total change of circumstances, account for these impediments ; and the fiscal year closing with the beginning of January, distance retards the collection of the data from remote stations. It is pro- posed to fix the fiscal year from the first of July.
Notwithstanding, posterity will be astonished at what has been accomplished — while numerous armies, always in ac- tivity, were engaged in Venezuela, Zulia, Magdalena, Boy- acca, Cuenca, Quito, and Guayaquil ; garrisons in the for- tresses, a force in the isthmus, a naval force created, em-' ployed, and always in activity, and the general administra- tion well supported. Such is the spectacle Colombia pre- sents, with a very limited revenue, and very small loans, the only ordinary resource that was available. It may hereafter seem fabulous that a powerful enemy has been defeated, and this great republic constituted, with nothing to rely on but an ordinary revenue not exceeding five millions of dollars, and loans not exceeding a million. The world will admire the economy of this republic, but the savings made by sa- crifices have a limit ; other means must be provided by the wisdom of congress. The history of our financial laws will impress the necessity.
Customs. The laws concerning customs have been strict- ly executed, and the reduction of the impost has been found
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salutary. The law which imposes a duty on exports is an obstacle to public prosperity, and I can aver it diminishes the impost duties ; it has been executed every where, with the exception of a temporary exemption of coffee, to meet an exigency in Venezuela, to provide resources for the army, at a critical moment. In another memoir, I will lay before Congress my ideas on the justice and necessity of freeing all productions of the country from every export duty, in- cluding coined gold ; and that it will not be necessary to con- tinue that monstrous duty upon presumed export, invented by the distrustful rapacity of Spain. The law endeavoured to triumph over the bad faith of traders, and that the duty on imported merchandize should be collected upon the sum it was presumed would be taken out of the country. But unreasonable exaction produced retaliating fraud— False po- licy, with bad faith, contended against interests more powerful than law, not sanctioned by reason or justice. Money was withdrawn clandestinely, and merchandize were smuggled in. By this mistaken policy, duties on import and export were lost. The laws that regulate the tariffs still partake too much of the Spanish errors. The duties on tonnage re- quire modification, so that, our own tonnage may be en- couraged.
Tithes. This is a most important aid to the public trea- sury. By this fund, the support of the ministers of religion is secured, and the nation participates in the product. It is necessary, however, to equalize them in direction, collection, administration, and distribution, taking as models the forms of the archiepiscopal administration, by which will be realized the paradox of an increase of revenue, without oppression but rather ease to the people.
Tobacco* The law of 27th September" directed the con- tinuance of the monopoly of tobacco. Impulse has been accordingly given to new factories, and new ones establish- ed at St. Gil, and in Casinare.
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Spirits. The law of 4th October, abolished the monopoly of spirits, the salutary effects of which are not yet sufficient- ly known. The entire prohibition of foreign spirits is ne- cessary.
The Mint. The two mints existing (in Bogota and Popa- yan) have been destitute of resources. That of Popayan has been, some time past, effectively employed. The occupa- tion of this capital by the enemy, and their ferocious ani- mosity,-not content with letting the mint stand unproduc- tive, they plundered and destroyed the machinery. Both mints are, however, constructed upon the Gothic plan of past ages, and require to be replaced by more perfect, mo- dern engines, and improved implements.
During the year, the coining of gold money, with the in- signia of the republic, has commenced, according to the law of 29th September. Opposition has been attempted to the new coinage, the effect of disaffection to the government, operating upon ignorance ; but the new doubloons, of the same intrinsic purity and weight as the best coin of former times, have been exported, and make their way by their own value into circulation, where Spanish gold formerly was carried.
The working of platina has been unsuccessful, from the want of the requisite skill, of acids, and the necessary appa- ratus. The object will not be neglected.
Copper money has also suffered impediments. A great quantity was collected in the capital, and more ordered, but the mechanics threw obstacles in the way, on the score of expense, and it was suspended. The utility of a copper coin is unquestionable, the facility it affords in the exchange for small articles is obvious. The quartillos and half quartillos of the real, are in some places a good silver coin, in others imaginary, and there are no districts more needy than those where they are unknown as a silver coin. It has not been practicable to prosecute the silver coinage, on account of the
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loss that must be incurred. It is therefore postponed to a pe- riod of more prosperity.
Post -Office. The post has for it natural object facility of com. mi mention and correspondence, and is indispensable to public prosperity ; its object is not by its own produce to be- come a matter of revenue, but if there be a surplus over its expenses, it appertains to the public treasury. The govern- ment has endeavoured to give it more simplicity, but experi- ence proves that it requires a total amelioration : a weekly post should arrive and depart from this capital for each of the three grand territorial divisions, and the charges should be in the ratio of the average weight and distance, making al- lowance between land and water carriage ; good roads and navigation inland, are inseparable from this branch of public economy.
Salt- Works. The management and administration of the salt-works are matters of much obscurity. Nothing has yet appeared in the financial department in relation to them. The government has directed information to be provided in the most circumstantial form ; in the mean time the rich salt mine of Zipaquira requires attention. An improvement in the economy and method of management would afford a pro- digious return. The method now pursued, the furnaces and boilers, and manipulation generally, are all rude and wasteful as they are imperfect ; and fifty thousand dollars, judiciously employed, might double the product. Pure salt is conducive to public health.
Stamps. The law of 6th October made an alteration in the system of stamps, by increasing the price of some and sub dividing them into classes, and suppressing others. Judgments were directed to be engrossed on the same pa- per with the pleadings. The Spanish laws are yet provi- sionally in force — it requires revision still.
Alcavalas. The law of 3d October suppressed alcavalas on the sales of articles of food and the arts. The alcavala had
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its origin in barbarous principles and times, and was always vexatious, — immoral, — unproductive, — and unjust — not to be collected without difficulty and delay — vexatious searches and trouble to the contributors. The tax-gatherers added to its enormity grievous exactions, and were equally implaca- ble enemies to the poor, and abject serviles to the rich ; it led to concealments, perjuries, and taught men to enrich mselves without labour at the expense of the public. It s unproductive, because exacted from the wretched alone, the least able to pay, while those who were able to pay eluded it by a trifling bribe ; it caused the enhancement of the prices of commodities, and thus paralyzed trade, and more than one- tenth of it never entered the public treasury.
The Direct Tax. This law in its principle fixed the hopes of the country. Indirect taxes have the character of hidden infirmities, of deception, and fraudulent concealment from those who are taxed without seeing the hand that enacts it, and are baleful to morals and to liberty. Direct taxes are honest and open ; they preserve a due proportion with incomes and profits ; there is no vexation nor exaction in the levying ; the expense of collecting is small and determi- nate. The law levying a tax upon income is still defective ; it wants clearness, comprehensiveness, and discrimination. Different causes have yet made it unproductive ; disaffected persons have inveighed against it ; the intendants and go- vernors, and political judges, have been careless, or connived at the defrauding of the public. The want of returns of property with descriptions, and the scarcity of money, have combined with the rest to render the product small, and the vexatious conduct of some tax -collectors have been seized upon to oppose the tax as a bad one. If the indirect taxes were sufficient for the expenditure, the direct might be alto- gether suppressed as unnecessary ; but if these be not suffi- cient, and it be inconceivable how a nation could exist vvith-
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out revenue, all that can be done, is so to improve and amend the law as to render abuses impracticable.
The foregoing statements display the state of the financial affairs; the estimates of the five departments show the amount necessary to the expenditure.
Two memorials will be laid before congress, one respect, ing the laws on imports and taxes, which will not propose any new tax ; another on the system of administration, di- rected to the perfecting of the system, and increasing the amount by a more effective regulation. The great mystery consists in opening sources of public prosperity ; this belongs to congress. Every people that has established its indepen- dence by arms and victory, have passed through disasters like Colombia ; our present duties are confined to imitating their noble example ; and Colombia possesses advantages such as no nation ever before possessed.
All nations negociate loans when necessary, and the re- public must do so likewise ; and a loan has been proposed through the department of foreign affairs. It is not to us so serious an affair as to other countries. It is disagreeable to me that this statement cannot be presented with information more detailed, but the defects are not to be ascribed to want of zeal, application, or labour.
Report of the Minister of War, P. Briceno Mendez. Placed at the head of the departments of war and navy, it is my duty to report on the condition of our military institu- tions ; may I be permitted to express with all the warmth of my feelings, how much I participate in the general joy. The Colombian army feels itself recompensed for its unsurpassed exertions, for the precious blood shed in thirteen years of battles, in seeing the beneficent authority of the laws esta- blished in tranquillity and freedom. Those soldiers who knew how to exalt themselves above every want, privation, and danger, are ready, whenever their country calls, to be- come again the models of every heroic virtue, to be the first
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to repel tyranny, and to support the national liberty and in- dependence.
It would be superfluous to recommend to Congress atten- tion to the services of the army. To liberate the republic from its oppressors, to preserve union and tranquillity within, has been their happy fortune. Congress will contemplate that neither a prepared organization, nor the force, nor the
eans which could be provided for the army, corresponded \vith the effects they have produced, the enterprizes they have undertaken, or the triumphs they have achieved. In that irresistible hurricane into which we were impelled during a long and disastrous contest, the establishment of any in- variable system was not practicable. Whatever has been done was for the moment, the work of circumstances, be- cause where war and battles were incessant, changing every day the aspect of affairs ; and, added to all, the inevitable confusion incident to a change from one system of govern- ment to another wholly different, and the union of districts before independent of each other, with laws unlike each other, what has been accomplished is surprising.
The legislative bodies would not risk a change in the military institutions during the war, and the regulations in force under Spain were adopted, though the old code has become obsolete, both in the forms of discipline and princi- ples of tactics, owing to the progress of the science, arising out of the French Revolution.
The generous zeal of the chiefs made up for the want of system ; corps were instructed according to the experience of the officer placed in command ; the levies made upon emergency did not allow of selection, recruits were taken without distinction of age or condition ; the married and even those who had numerous families filled the ranks ; a change from peace and abundance to a life of military hard- ships and privations, and the dangers arising from change of climate ; an inevitable necessity, the choice between eter-
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nal slavery and freedom, demanded the conscription. It is not therefore extraordinary that great armies should have been swallowed up without augmenting the effective force ; desertions, diseases, and battle, dissolve the best armies. Convinced of these, and other circumstances, an attempt was made last year to produce a better system ; but the state of the treasury did not sustain the effort ; and a reduction of numbers became the substitute. But the vices and abuses that remain, derived from the Spanish system, also lead to disorganization, and, in truth, it would be preferable to pro- ceed without any military administration, than that the pre- sent should remain. Much of the evils have arisen from er- roneous ideas of economy ; which, by diminishing the num- ber of the necessary officers, several functions were bestowed on the few retained, by which means nothing was well done, and the saving of a few hundred dollars pay wasted many thousands, and many lives. At length no officers could be found to entangle themselves in responsibilities which they could not fulfil ; a whole corps have been so placed that it was not possible to discover to whom pay was due, or to whom it had been advanced.
After this lamentable exposition it may be consoling to learn that, in the present year, some order has been introduced, and, although the army has not received, for years, nearly half its pay ; in some departments not one third ; in others not one fourth ; but now all the corps are clothed, and the magazines contain equipments for a greater number; and pay has been advanced in a greater proportion. I am not yet furnished with all the returns necessary to a complete de- tail ; it must be the work of time and system.
Strength of the Army. When Congress closed its ses- sion, in 1821, the public force consisted of 22,975 men. The garrisons necessary to be guarded, and the predatory expeditions of the enemy, caused it to be augmented to 32,566 men ; of the following classes :
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Infantry . . 25,750 men Cavalry . . 4,296 Artillery . . 2,520—32,566.
All this force was enlisted without limitation. There arc few in service of those enlisted in 1817, 1818, and 1819; the greater portion are of 1820. No bounty or addition to pay are known in our service. The cavalry, hitherto mounted by the voluntary contributions of the citizens, for temporary service, require to be entirely remounted ; a thou- sand abuses arise out of the want of an anticipated provision ; the soldier losing his horse in service, contemplates the duty to his country only— disregarding private property, seizes a horse against the will of the owner ; the officer, who has not the means to provide, actuated by public zeal, connives at such means, because they afford strength to his corps, or prevent its dissolution.
In the artillery force are comprehended four hundred arti- sans employed in the military arsenals ; the remainder can- not be dispensed with in the service of garrisons. So long as the war exists, the immense line of our coasts, and the desperation of our enemies, require that the present force be maintained; the number is short of one per cent, of our po- pulation.
Organization. No provision was made by congress in 1821, when the civil departments were instituted, for the mi- litary organization. The pre-existing territorial division into intendancies, pointed out a corresponding order of military districts. This incident has been conducive to that order which has so admirably prevailed throughout the republic, though there is still ample room for improvement. At the head of each division or department there is a general com- mandant with his staff, reduced indeed to the lowest possi- ble standard : one chief of the staff, two aids, and two clerks,
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which, with the local commandants in the provinces and for- tresses, constitute the force of each military department.
The infantry is organized in battalions, with the exception of the corps forming the government guard, to be subse- quently noticed ; it consists of twenty-five battalions of the line, and five of light troops. Some are differently organ- ized, having only five or six companies, but are ordered to to be organized into battalions of eight, which is now the composition of the greater number.
Each battalion consists of one company of grenadiers, one of light infantry, six of fusileers; each company consists of one hundred effectives, and four commissioned officers; the light companies each one commissioned officer more. The se- parate battalions had a heavy staff proportioned to their for- mer composition ; the new organization, by augmenting the battalions to an uniform number of companies, reduces the number of officers. But the extent of our country, the de- solation of the war, and our peculiar mode of warfare, are opposed to the formation of very numerous corps.
The battalion staff consists of the commandant taken from the colonels or lieutenant-colonels, a major, two adjutants, one ensign, one surgeon, one chaplain, an armourer, drum- major, and seven pioneers.
The cavalry organization is more defective ; it consists of twenty -four squadrons, some of which are detached, others in regiments, besides the six squadrons of the guard, which form a brigade. The same irregularity ^prevails in the cavalry squadrons as in the infantry battalions, some being composed of three troops, according to the older ^Prussian system, others according to the preferable and more modern, of two troops to the squadron. Each troop of the former consists of fifty men, and three commissioned officers ; the latter of eighty men, and four officers. Of the twenty -four squadrons, there are eighteen of the line, lancers, or dragoons, the other six are light hussars. The staff of each was as incompatible as
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that of the infantry ; for every hundred and fifty or hun- dred and sixty men had eight or nine officers. There is a lieutenant- colonel commandant, two adjutants, a cornet, sur- geon, chaplain, armourer, saddler, farrier, and trumpeter, with the title of major in their respective ranks. The greater number of corps are destitute of the workmen.
The artillery is but of recent institution. The rapidity of our marches ; the carnage in our battles, principally decided by close combat ; the want of roads capable of admitting the transport of carriages, have made us indifferent to this terri- ble species of arms, so perfect and decisive in modern war- fare ; since the occupation of our fortresses it has become necessary. Besides the 2120 men of which it consists, there are four hundred artisans in the arsenals. The corps is com- posed of twenty-four companies, of one hundred men, and five officers each. When there are four companies in a de- tachment, they form a brigade, and have a lieutenant-colonel commandant, and two adjutants; when the number is more than one and less than four, they are denominated demi- bri- gades, and the senior captain commands, having an adjutant attached. The separate companies remain without a staff.
This organization requires further improvement.
There does not exist a single squadron of flying artillery, although, if a glance be cast on the immense plains of the re- public, no country could be better adapted for such a force. The same may be said of engineers of works, and topogra- phy, and of sappers, of which there are only two or three in the service, and without employment in the line or any special duty.
The Government Guard. This corps is comprised in the strength of the army : it is treated separately on account of its peculiar organization. It consists of ten battalions of infantry, and six regiments of cavalry, of the same composition as the rest of the army. The difference consisting in this, that the infantry forms a division under the command of a general
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of division, subdivided into two brigades, with a brigadier or colonel to each. The cavalry forms another brigade com- manded also by a brigadier. The two branches have a com- mandant general, with the staff such as appertains to a corps of the army.
The guard, created by the Liberator President, when he filled the station of commander in chief in Venezuela, has been since augmented by the addition of corps, that have distinguished themselves by their discipline, example, or in- trepidity. They enjoy no other privilege or distinction, than being the oldest in the army, furnishing the guard of honour to the government, and being the first on all occa- sions to march and meet the enemy. This institution has produced a noble and salutary emulation. Two battalions and a squadron were incorporated with it last year on ac- count of brilliant services.
Administration. It does not merit the name, and I have said so, and shown the cause of its bad condition. It must be newly organized, without which it will not be practicable to account for the funds appropriated for its service. The go- vernment has been under the necessity of calling upon trea- surers of departments, to take charge of the military disburse- ments, and exercise the functions of commissaries or audi- tors, by inspecting the propriety and authority for the is- sues. One inconvenience I notice, and shall pass over others, and then tire congress no longer. Money having become the general recompense, and the only means of providing for wants and comforts, has also become the foundation of all enterprises. The military chief should, therefore, be exactly acquainted with his means and resources beforehand. If he cannot contract for means or direct expenditures that are indispensable, he is liable to be frustrated at every move- ment. Without unity of action he must be compelled to reveal the secret of his combinations, and military operations must fail. While any other authority has a right to inter-
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fere in his dispositions, time is wasted in painful altercations, responsibility is divided and diminished, and if unfortunately jealousy or enmity, want of confidence, or rivalry exist, the most innocent actions become subjects of accusation or im- putation, and the passions of individuals prevail against the interest of the country ; for such is the frailty of human na- ture, in all ages and countries.
Clothing and Pay. Notwithstanding the absence of sys- tem, the army has been clothed, though not uniformly. The regulation of these branches is demanded by necessity. The strict regulation of uniforms is also indispensable, to avoid the capricious luxury of vanity, and the inequality of corps. The mode for verifying accounts calls also for a law.
Arms. The formation of a depot of arms, besides supply- ing the army, has been the care of government. Experi- ence, purchased very dearly, has taught the prudence of this. All the troops of the line are well armed ; the light infantry and artillery are armed with carabines ; the cavalry of the line with the lance, that formidable weapon, which has been the instrument of safety and salvation to the republic ; the light cavalry bear carabines, and sabres, or lances. The arsenals contain 20,000 spare stands of musquets, of which many require repair. There are sufficient to defend the republic. The variety of calibres is an inconvenience, being of the manufacture of France, Germany, Spain, England, and the United States. Those of English fabric amount to 30,000 ; and out of 28,000 purchased last year 17,000 are English. 12,000 more contracted for, may be hourly expected.
The carabines are mostly formed of old muskets, the weight of which renders them not so effective or convenient for service. The accoutrements of all corps are in good order, and our workshops are employed upon them. The cavalry accoutrements are not so good, but the workshops will supply the deficiency by better articles.
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Militia. However numerous the regular army may be, it cannot be omnipresent. A militia, well organized, has this character of ubiquity. It preserves the medium be- tween military and civil life, and, in the very bosom of their families, they make excellent soldiers, and develope their ta- lents. It is the best army of reserve, and the most solid foundation of public liberty and security. Two mistakes should be avoided in its formation, though concealed under a supposed good. First> giving it too great an extension, which renders it useless. Second, the false prudence which would mislead the militia man, that the parade and exercise is a mere form — that he will never be called upon to perform the duties of a soldier, — when the very foundation of all re- publics is, that every man should be prepared to defend his country and liberties, and that he must be infamous who would withhold himself. The laws, and practices, have contributed to the inefficiency ; for, although all men owe a duty, it is not that all will be at once called upon to perform it ; instead of selecting a class by age, the laws have followed the ge- neral principle by comprehending the whole population at once. The constitution itself, by withdrawing the militia from military subordination, has injured what it endeavour- ed to perfect. The want of a regulation confirmed the in- sufficiency. A special report will make its condition known.
There are but thirteen battalions of militia infantry in the republic, organized like the army, of which ten were formed this year in the departments of Magdalena, Panama, and Quito, for which the government is indebted to the commandant general. Forty thousand men might be form- ed out of the fifty thousand that exist in detached compa- nies, a greater force than could be required to repel any in- vasion.
There are twenty squadrons of irregular cavalry ; out of these twelve regiments might be formed, making 8590 men.
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There are only seven companies of one hundred men each, of militia artillery. But none of the militia are armed.
Fortresses. There are some which should be demolished ; others, neglected during the war, require substantial repairs to prevent their entire ruin. Some should be erected also in fit positions ; but these are the work of future seasons.
Parks of Artillery. — These have been vastly augmented during the war, but do not yet suffice for the defence of our frontier. Gunpowder, lead, balls, and muskets, cannot be dispensed with. The quantity required of each must be the subject of deliberation.
Barracks and Cantonments. — The forces maintained be- fore the revolution by Spain, had only for object to maintain tranquillity ; one or two battalions in some principal point or garrison were the strongest force kept together. Quarters for the troops were calculated accordingly. The citizens have supplied the deficiency cheerfully during the war; rent has been sometimes paid, but very seldom has it been re- quired. Our soldiers hitherto have slept on the earth ; quarters should be provided, and our soldiers will not in future give so much trouble in the hospitals. The Spaniards, who were intolerable tyrants, by quartering officers on the people, excit- ed execration ; and there should be provision to guard against incurring the same reproach. It is necessary to discipline that officers should quarter where their troops are quartered.
Manufactories. — There are two for gunpowder, one in Quito, the other near this capital in a bad condition. Data are wanting to ascertain the expenses. That near this capital has but one mill of four mallets, which grind 330 quintals a year. Cost $24,937 : four reals is more than powder could be procured from abroad for. The saltpetre works of the republic have been given upon contract to persons who prepare the nitre, and sell it to government. This arrangement has con- siderably reduced the price of powder, which cost fifty per cent, more than at present, when nitre was prepared at public expense.
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Invalids and Retired Soldiers. — Establishments should be formed for them in each department. The government has no other law than its gratitude to regulate its conduct towards those martyrs of liberty. The moment which almost com- pleted the triumph of our arms permitted some relief to be offered to them, and it was as much as could be given. Six- teen chiefs and sixty -four officers retired last year, some on half pay, others on the third or fourth of the pay of their last rank. Some have also retired without demanding any re- muneration.
Military Instruction. — The first care of Spanish domina- tion was to keep at a distance from our country every thing that could enlighten or enable us to feel our own strength, and this malignity was carried to that extreme which caused us to be unacquainted with the most necessary arts of life. Thence it was, that on proclaiming our emancipation we had no chiefs or officers to lead us, and if experience and genius have provided some, after so many disasters, it only proves the dispositions and capacities of our youth. Congress, in providing the means of public information, overlooked the army, the foundation upon which it has been raised. Phi- losophy is not the director of the world ; unmixed good is a chimera ; true wisdom is found in distinguishing that obscure line which separates it from relative good. If a nation of philosophers were possible, their laws would be fit only for themselves; they would have good fathers of families and vir- tuous magistrates ; but they would be the prey and the sport of their neighbours. Unarmed virtue must yield to force, military skill, and the custom of conquering and slaying.
Colombia above all nations requires military education. Our position, central on the globe, makes us the neighbours of all maritime nations, and gives us for rivals the most pow- erful states of this continent ; we should, therefore, be pre- pared. The seas which separate us from the old world are no longer a barrier, since navies serve as an immeasurable bridge.
an
:
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Besides the want of military colleges capable of forming officers and engineers, we have no uniform system of instruc- tion and tactics, in any branch of the army ; but it is chiefly remarkable in the infantry and cavalry. A system is neces- sary, were it only to root out the prejudices of different sys- tems, and the caprices of chiefs, producing a want of unity, and leaving to the generals a double difficulty of combining
rps differently instructed. A commission of general officers as formed in January last year. Their proceedings shall be laid before Congress.
Fulfilment of the Laws. — The whole army have sworn to the constitution as required by the decree of 20th September 1821, and with just rejoicings, and a copy is ordered to be kept in the major's office of every corps. The mode of pay- ment prescribed by the decree of 7th December was carried into effect.
The Armies and their Operations. — At the close of the last legislature, six corps were engaged in operations. The first, under J. F. Bermudez, besieged Cumana, which resisted our attacks at different periods for eight years ; the second, under Jose A. Paez, blockaded Porto Cabello, where the wreck of the Spanish army took shelter after the battle of Ca- rabobo ; the third concentrated at Santa Marta, under Mar. Montilla, intended for the Isthmus ; the fourth besieging Cartagena from 1820 ; the other two covering Guayaquil and Popayan against the enemy's force, then occupying Quito. These were under the Liberator president, for whom the libe- ration of the south was reserved. The heights of Juanambu and Guaitara, and the deleterious deserts of Patia, had opposed a barrier to our arms, which some thought insuperable ; to these natural impediments, others were added : the division of Guayaquil, attacked at the end of the year 1821, obtained a brilliant victory, and Gen. Sucre was animated to prosecute operations ; this army experienced a reverse ; the division was nearly destroyed, and that of Popayan, which moved to
566 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
reinforce it, met a similar fate from the climate of Patia, These adverse circumstances were aggravated by the en- trance of the Spanish general Murjeon into Quito, bringing arms and munitions of war, of which the enemy stood in need, with veteran troops and experienced officers ; and still more, the naval force, which conveyed them, interrupted the communication between Choco and Guayaquil, separating also the corps in Popayan.
It was necessary to create and organize the army anew, relaxed by disaster and suffering. A genius of constancy and resource only, could meet these events undismayed ; without a fleet, without ships to deceive the enemy's squad- ron, troops were transported by Panama and Buenaventura to Guayaquil. Instead of a superannuated general, the new Spanish chief was distinguished by activity, valour, and talent, and clothed with unlimited powers. The Spanish force now so augmented, that, instead of one army, they presented three ; and to complete all, Popayan became unhealthy. The army, inactive, was eaten up by disease ; the Spaniards strengthening themselves daily ; to open the campaign under such circumstances would seem to compromise every thing.
The Liberator President determined and succeeded in re- inforcing Guayaquil with troops from Colombia, and a column from Peru, which had joined General Sucre from Cuenca ; at the same time the division from Popayan, strongly reinforced by corps sent by the government, and part of the veteran troops from Santa Martha, were put in motion.
The enemy, though so strong, would not encounter either of the corps, and concentrated his army on the shelving rocks of Pastos, and the elevated sierra of Quito, in order to secure the adherence of the people in Pastos and Patia ; and under an expectation of weakening our force by obliging us to march through an insalubrious desert. One aifair at Riobamba, two battles at Bombona and Pinchincha, de- molished all the sanguine hopes of the Spanish chief. Led
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by the Liberator and General Sucre, wherever our arms ap- peared they triumphed, and the enemy required a capitula- tion, delivering up his arms. The south of the republic thus liberated, a spontaneous declaration of gratitude was followed by a proclamation of incorporation.
This severe but brilliant campaign being closed, our neigh- bours of Peru, menaced by a Spanish army, called for our aid. Three battalions marched for Peru, and were united with another already on service there. A treaty was pro- posed, to place our troops on the basis of those of Peru ; but the government recently installed there hesitated, and our three battalions returned to Guayaquil, where they went into good quarters.
The battles of Bombona and Pinchincha gave peace to the south ; but the capitulations of Quito and Berruecos were a short time disturbed by a Spanish chief in Pastes, who escaped from the depot of prisoners at Quito. After three engagements they were chastised. An insurrection in Coro was soon suppressed, and an amnesty published. But the troops who accomplished it were destined to share in a glorious achievement at Carabobo, where the Spaniards lost their army and their arrogance.
The report continues the history down to its date, but the events in Venezuela being better known than those west of the Andes, they have not the same interest.
The Report on Naval Affairs was presented by the head the War Department. The Secretary acknowledges his in- sufficiency of knowledge on naval affairs, not having be- longed to the navy, and having had no leisure to cultivate it. The geographical position of Colombia, the number of its excellent ports, the abundance and richness of its produc- tions, decide for a naval force. A thousand leagues of coast ppen an easy access, and could not be covered by a large regular army.
568 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The services of a generous foreigner, (commodore Brion,) who, led by the love of liberty, devoted his fortune and his life to the service of the republic, induced the government, in 1816, to create the office of admiral, who exercised the control, command, and administration of the navy ; but va- rious causes rendered it ultimately inefficient. The Con- gress, by the law of 4th October, perceived the cause, and, in part, removed it. The office of admiral was suppressed. Without the friendship of any maritime power, without ar- senals, gunners, ship-builders, or competent officers or sea- men, and even without pecuniary means to build or buy them, the battle of Carabobo had changed the character of the war, and demanded a naval force. The efforts made un- der the law of 4th October produced what we desired. Our fleet increased, from the five left by the late admiral was augmented to nineteen, six corvettes, seven brigs, and six schooners. Among the former is the Spanish corvette Ma- ria Francisca^ captured by a ship of the republic.
Our vessels of war are commanded and manned chiefly by foreigners. Under the monopoly of Spain, sailors could not be formed. The law of 27th September admitted foreign seamen, who came generously to offer their services, bringing with them an important science, and an example for our population. We have a navy, we must have arsenals and magazines to repair and replace vessels. Carthagena pre- sents a fine station for a dock-yard, and one of its castles is assigned for an arsenal. The expenses for naval affairs for the current year are 4,770,845 dollars.
These reports combine the best and most authentic state of the republic at the beginning of 1823. But Colombia, like the United States after its revolution, will require a new history every four or five years.
569
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Departure from Bogota — Quindiu — Facitativa — sleep on the domestic altar- knavery of muleteers — Rio Dulce — uncivil ecclesiastics— escape a troublesome traveller — stupendous steeps — Guadas — Colonel Acosta — enviably happy — Jlcratcha, species of pheasant — the Bodega of Honda — Honda — la manana- champans — and bogas — hints to travellers.
MY friend Mr. John Gethen, of Philadelphia, and my. self, agreed to proceed down the Magdalena together, an at 8 o'clock, the 27th April, 1823, we left Bogota. We were attended by my invaluable guide Sergeant Proctor, and a valet, from the island of St. Bartholomew's. In dis- posing of my mules, the sergeant had reserved the use them to carry me and my young fellow-travellers to Honda. The sergeant had already escorted them, and now kindl] undertook the same good offices for me, and would have fol- lowed me over the world if I were in the mood. Mr. G. had not been treated honestly in the mules furnished ; as hij experience had not prepared him for such sorry mules were brought, and when we had no alternative. The day was however delicious, though it was somewhat tedious, my mules were eager to push on in their accustomed gail But we had not completed more than one half of the day'f march, when we were compelled to halt at a rancho, an< transfer my baggage to one of Mr. G.'s mules, and hire or extra in place of that broken down. This was the more to be complained of, because the road over which we had so fa travelled was equal to any in the world.
Upon descending from the city to the great road, towards the Magdalena, the country presented a beautiful verdant carpet. The road was constructed with great skill, and well- directed labour ; it rauld not be less than one hundred feet wide for several miles, and each side occupied by long ranges
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570 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
of thatched and tiled houses, the habitations"©! muleteers and husbandmen : there are spacious ditches on each side of this road, and, after advancing something north of west, a fine pavement of about twenty feet broad occupies the midway, with convenient foot-paths on either side.
The Funza intersects this road, a lake which appears to have been formerly more ample, but is now gradually be- coming a swamp, of which the white heron and the grey heron betray the shallowness, by constantly traversing the bed of water in all directions, and the growth of rushes indicate the swamp. A small rivulet, which (I only suspect) flows from a source further west, nearer to Facitativa, proceeds in a south-east current, and unites with the Funza. These waters form streams so considerable, that five stone bridges of ex- cellent architecture cross them at different parts of this road. One of those bridges of three arches is handsome, and all of them of the best workmanship.
On some of those bridges are the wrecks of armorial insig- nia, which were originally in relief, rather ancient in style. I understood some of them designated the arms of some vice- roy, but those who were asked usually told some story of viceregal outrage, and evaded telling the name. The bridges were however good, with handsome wing walls and battlements, and reduced the distance perhaps to one-third that must be travelled over were there no bridges. After passing those bridges, that part of the plain which is crossed to visit Ta- quendama opens on the view south, and its perpetual vapour is seen rising above its forest-clad hills.
Immediately after crossing, a village is seen ; it is the ori- ginal Bogota ; there the Spaniards first established them- selves; the present city being founded only after some experience of unhealthiness on the borders of this swamp. Appearances indicate that this pool will disappear altogether, but the village is populous, and the cultivation all around is ample. The green side banks and the^astures on each side
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 571
of this road were mottled with mushrooms, of the best edi- ble kind, (agaricus campestris,) of which we picked and saved a small basket for a travelling don bouche.
The plain of Bogota is seen in its greatest length from the central bridge, and flocks and herds are visible on the plain, which are not distinguishable from the city. The great mountain which forms the west side of the valley or plain, is now found to stand on its own foundations, insulated and se- parated all round from any other ; it may be forty miles long, and the plain of Bogota fifteen to twenty broad, and the plain is of the same apparent level along both its sides and extre- mities ; it is the mountain ridge of Zipaquira, celebrated for rocks of salt. The plain which extends from the west face of this ridge of Zipaquira is very spacious; and I have seen in no part of Colombia so many detached and ample farms, such farm-yards with grain handsomely stacked, abundance of cattle, sheep, mules, and horses. On a spacious field on the left of the route, being the gradual slope of the mountain that is crossed to reach Facitativa, I saw a very fine flock, of perhaps sixty, of the brown species of llamas, which so much resemble the camel ; there were many young with them, and they retired from us as we approached, with the first gaze, so remarkable in deer, and a similar flight, turning round to gaze and fly again.
These animals have been denominated capra puda, or wild goat. I cannot help feeling a repugnance to this forced analogy ; they have nothing that resembles the goat in its main characteristics of feet and horns. These brown lla- mas do not materially differ in stature or figure from the white llamas, of which we saw a beautiful pair domesticated at Sativa. These were the property of an opulent planter, whose hacienda was pointed out to us, but too much con- cealed to show more than a glimpse among its flourishing forests.
In the west and north-west, two mountains appear of re-
572 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
markable appearance ; they are called El Mesa and El Mesa Grande — the Table and the Greater Table, their names in- dicating the long transverse level line of their summits ; such as an Egyptian pyramid would appear if a third of its sum- mit was cut horizontally off; their sides not so much in- clined as the pyramid, and their upper line loftier than the summits of the rounded mountains all round. Looking from the same point to the south-west, the hoary Quindiu presents its lofty frustum of a cone, its flat level summit, and its cap of eternal snow, showing its rotundity, finely contrasted by the darkness of its steep sides below the limit of congelation, but so lofty and so sublime, that the three great chains of the Andes appear diminished into huts at its feet. Quindiu is in the central chain, and both the kindred ridges are to be seen in the prospect, drawn into apparent neighbourhood, though immensely separated. It was five o'clock when we crossed the Nocaymac and reached Facitativa.
The alcalde provided a house, but we could not hang up our hammocks. In almost every house there is a sort of table upon which the lares are usually placed, under a veil, which is only removed when prayer is to be performed. This table, a rough bench, or the floor, were to be our sleeping places, so we prevailed upon the Sefiora whose house we occupied, to remove the holy apparatus, which she did with a good grace, and informing me, to my surprise, that my daughter had slept on the same mesa a month be- fore ; but this surprise was removed by the sergeant, whose sympathy of volubility and organ of communicativeness made him a great gossip, and favourite of the Senoras on every route he travelled — we had good chocolate of our own provision, and our cook, George, was a practical hand, so that in the way of food we had French cookery, and no manteca nor garlic, till we reached Cartagena. Provision being to be had, and fine fruit the whole line of the Magda- lena ; only that it is necessary to be prepared with a suffi-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 573
cient knowledge of the language, or a faithful servant who does, (which is a difficulty !) and not to be too eager to pay high prices, which will only induce demands still high- er, nor to appear diffident or devoid of confidence. A fair, firm, and civil deportment, is the most comfortable to a man in every situation ; but without firmness nothing is to be done well with the classes concerned in the affairs of travellers, in South America — alcaldes, muleteers^ pulpureias, posaderos, and bogas — there are large exceptions as to alcaldes, and some as to muleteers, but with this exception they are as great cheats as the horse-jockeys and vermin of the same kind in other parts of the world, and this is speaking too well of them.
On the 28th we could not obtain mules at four o'clock, as we proposed ; at eight o'clock we set off, but the mule upon which my fellow traveller rode was scarcely able to move at the end of four miles ; the only expedient was to send back and hire another mule, and divide the bag- gage of one mule between two ; which was doubling the expense, as there being no remedy against exaction, and the mule owner being paid in advance, the choice of difficulties lay between stopping and going to law with the muleteer, before the alcalde, who, perhaps, was himself the owner of the hired mules, or had a share in the pillage which he was to decide upon — or hiring an additional mule ; the latter was by five hundred per cent, the cheapest, and it was done.
The rain which, though not very heavy, was very effec- tive on the black mould which covered the route we had to pass, over the steep and winding mountains leading through Bergara, Numayna, and Maves, to Villeta. The rains had been more heavy in the region above us, to the west, and as the Rio Dulce was, in the judgment of the sergeant, likely to be too much swelled to be passable, and no accommoda- tions likely to be had on the right side of that river where it was usually forded, we took the route to the south-west.
574 VISIT TO COLOMBIA,
leading towards the ridge separating this valley from the Magdalena : this route was a slough, amidst exuberant, wild vegetation ; but the appearance of a good covered wooden bridge over the Dulce, which sheltered us for a time from the rain, and prepared us Jor a most fatiguing grope of three miles, within sight of the river, till within half a mile of Vil- leta, which we entered at six o'clock. No alcalde was to be found ; and, as usual, like many people in the last extre- mity, we had recourse to the church — but Fra. Jose Torn- bio Garcia, who presented himself in the externals of the order of St. Dominic, had not the same feelings as the worthy Franciscan, of the name of Garcia, whom we had known at Pipa and Tunja. But here was a master- spirit, in a purple jerkin, with gold filagre and chain buttons, whose tonsure was concealed by a purple velvet cap, concerning whom I was almost induced to exclaim, with Scrub, " he looks like a Jesuit." — Garcia in pontificals was certainly not more than twenty-three, and his complacency of expres- sion, when I addressed him, was pleasing, but the gentle, man, in the purple-coloured wig, passed like a cloud over his face, and the youth bowed deferentially to his purple cap — foreclosing our solicitation ; though it was raining drops as round as grapes. " Any port in a storm" — we saw an open shed on the opposite side of the square, and without thanking Fra. Jose Torribio Garcia, or his purple prolocutor, we took cover ; and the neighbours, more hos- pitable than the priest, opened for us a sufficiently spacious house, where we hung up our hammocks, and went through the usual process of banishing discomfort : but though, in the way of cookery, our complaints were averted by the economic pride of our cook of St. Bartholomew's, we had something else to annoy us, besides insects, of which we had heard Villeta was proverbially noisome ; but, excepting the unchristian priests, we found nothing animated in Vil- leta that was troublesome, but a sort of prodigy, an ill-na-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 575
tured Frenchman. This person inhabited the posada in Bogota, where I staid, for about a fortnight ; but his man- ners prevented any conversation beyond monosyllables, while we ate our eggs or sipped our chocolate at the posa- da. He made repeated overtures to accompany us on the route to Honda and Cartagena, which we declined uniform- ly, on the plea of business on the route ; and, when we left the posada, had instructed the posadero to conceal our de- parture, as we did not wish to be annoyed by this eternal babbler, and his companion of the same cast of phiz, but less flippant tongue. I had unavoidably overheard a con- versation between him and his comrade, of a piratical cast, and avoided him. But here he had overtaken us — for, when he found we had set out a day before, he nevertheless determined to keep us company : fortunately, though the people would have given us the house if it were a palace, their good will in providing a chamber large enough for us, but not for more than us, obliged this unpleasant traveller to seek another place, which the civility of the people provi- ded, but with whom he quarrelled before nine at night, and was in consequence taken care of by the alcalde. We heard the noise, and the alcalde applied to us upon some represen- tation of this ruffian-looking fellow, that we were his particu- lar friends — but our merely declaring our total unacquaint- ance answered the purpose we wished, without the least idea of doing more than save ourselves from the imputation of such an acquaintance ; and the alcalde requested me to deli- ver a letter to Colonel Acosta, at Guaduas, for advice how to act, as I afterwards understood to be the object of the letter.
We had determined to be off early, and a thick mist fa- voured our movements ; we were ascending the steep sides of El Sargente by half past five o'clock, and on the very summit I experienced the only actual involuntary fall of the whole journey ; it was in a deep mire, in which my excellent
576 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
mule sunk to the shoulder ; and in truth my first apprehen- sion was for the poor faithful animal, which had carried me so many hundred miles not only with security and ease, but without a moment's dissatisfaction. We succeeded in ex- tricating the mule without injury, and descended through indescribable ravines.
Some idea of the steepness of this descent may be con- ceived from a comparison of the facts. Under the viceroy - alty, a measurement had been made of a great part of the route from Honda to Bogota : the height of Bogota above the sea, was 1365 toises, equal to 8190 feet of Castile; the descent to Villeta, only two days' journey by the road, not more than sixty miles ; that village was only 556 toises, equal to 3936 feet, or a descent of 4154 feet in sixty miles. We reached Guadas at half past four, and addressed ourselves, as all travellers do who pass through that town, to the vene- rated Colonel Acosta, who is at once the military comman- dant, the civil magistrate, the owner of the land on which the town stands, and that adjacent, and who is, by all within his jurisdiction, considered as a father, benefactor, protector, and friend. We had the acquaintance of his family, who were our neighbours and intimates in the Plaza St. Francisco at Bogota, and his brothers and sister had written to him. Though it was not less agreeable, our treatment would have been good, as all strangers of good deportment find in him an active and a generous friend. We had an apartment as- signed to us, water, napkins, and soap, to wash, and fine orgeat, oranges, melons, bananas, and guavas laid before us for a refresco ; and while we were engaged in the chat of the •day, dinner was announced, though our refresco was to me the best of desirable dinners. We, however, did honour to our host, and to his good wine, and the more we knew the more we esteemed the man. Taking it that he is himself content to be retired from the bustle and the books, the am* bition and the vanitv, which makes so much of the world's
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business, no man can be more happy in the capacity to live, and the gratification of dispensing blessings to the neighbour, hood over which he presides ; he is as a providence to the stranger, whose entertainment in Guaduas is as free of charge as the sun's benignant beams.
I could not but admire the tranquil satisfaction and the absence of every line of care from this good man's visage. There were several animals rambling about his hails and his patio, usually wild, but here sporting in heedless confidence. At dinner a pair of birds, of the size of a pheasant, fluttered round the room, and one perched on his chair, and ate rice from his hand : I took a sketch of the bird as it sat on his shoulder : its name was acratscha; the body pheasant- shaped, but with longer limbs and neck, colour chocolate throughout, beak parrot-shaped, but less curved ; a sparkling eye, with a brilliant golden circle around the iris, and a red fleshy mem- brane under the throat, pendant, of a substance like a cock's gills ; crest round and tufted. Its walk was stately, as that of a game cock, the breast full and the neck long but tapering, smallest behind the crest and gills, and gradually swelling to the shoulder or the pinion. We had fine coffee and cho- colate served round in the evening, and numerous visitors, with whom the time did not admit of much conversation, or more than passing acquaintance. We remained till nine o'clock on the 30th, Wednesday, before we could separate from our hospitable friend. We had concluded at Vilieta that nothing could be so bad for the traveller, as the road descending to and approaching that place : the road thence to Guaduas proved we were mistaken; it was tremendous — down — down — down ! rocks, ravines, precipices, steeps, swamps, thus again and again ; free-stone ascents, which appeared to imbibe the moisture of a warm atmosphere, and crumble at the touch ; hills under- worn at the foot, tilted into the ravine, and steep gulleys washed by the mountain floods, leaving the large rocks naked and tottering, over which, and over
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\vhich only, lay the track for man and beast. There was the trial for breast- bands, girths, and cruppers, and there it was that the neck called for discretion, and the mule for commise- ration ; yet the loaded mule got over it better than the man ; unless, indeed, those flying mercuries, the correos> who, with a light pole of ten feet in hand, a bandage of muslin round their loins, and a straw hat, with a belt over the right shoul- der, and a sort of sabretache on the left, spring from rock to rock like kangaroos.
It was cloudy, but there was no rain when we left Gua- duas ; crossed over a broken level, through which some rivu- lets wound their way, and on the uncultured plains found~ groves of the finest guavas^ equal to the best of Bengal ; both red and white, and in perfect ripeness, of which being no one's property we laid in some store, which were not ex- hausted for some days after our arrival at Honda.
This day's journey, bad as the preceding had been, was still worse. We re-ascended some miles of the upland, where, after passing the mountain range of free-stone, a more com- pact grey granite, resembling, but darker, than blue lime- stone, made a pleasant footway over the brink of frightful precipices. We were so much fatigued on this day's jour- ney as to rest four several times before we reached the Bodega on the margin of the Magdalena, which we gained about half a mile higher, but in sight of Honda, which is on the left side, and below its confluence with the river Guali.
Along the margin of the mountains, for the greatest part of the way, the Magdalena was visible like a small yellow rib- bon, or string of vermicelli, winding its way between the verdant slopes ; on either side, vast plains and variegated rolling hills, verdant and varied by picturesque and detached groups of forest. The height forbid every idea of discerning any thing living below ; it was the awful stillness and solitude of a world recently born, and come to maturity, without beings to inhabit it, but prepared and amply sufficient to re-
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579
ceive millions, and repay the lightest labour with hundred fold crops of the richest products of nature. As we approach- ed Honda, the descent from Villeta to that place is 426 toises, equal to 2556 feet of Castile: here the Magdalena ap- peared in its grandeur. The rains in the Upper Andes, near the sources of the Magdalena and the Cauca, commence early in April, and the river rises to a great height after the floods have accumulated and poured into the valleys; the river was now coloured with the yellow soil through which it had pass- ed, and its surface was covered with vast accumulating rafts of drifting timber, which encountered and united, and swept before them headlands and rocks in their course, and often changed the direction of its own current, by the ruin which it had brought down.
We reached the Bodega at half past five ; there was no internal accommodation at the ferry house ; there were neither fruit nor drinkables ; we had the last of our Bogota bread still in good condition. We procured milk, however, and some palm cocoa-nuts, of which I had been many years accus- tomed to make a beverage ; and finding a sort of caravan- serai, or spacious thatched shed of about thirty yards long by twelve wide, provided for storing goods brought hither, we took possession of an angle of this place, and dismissing our hired mules, we went to rest in our hammocks with all the delicious pleasure for which previous privations and fatigue prepare the traveller.
I do not know how other people feel on such occasions, but there were some feelings associated with the parting from those poor abused, but inappreciable animals, the mules, that had conveyed us so faithfully more than 1500 miles — be- sides ministering to our accommodation during our residence at Bogota, that I am not ashamed to say I felt pain at parting with the poor animals, apprehensive that, severe as their tra- vail was with us, they might find less considerate owners.
April 31st, crossed the Magdalena with our baggage,
580 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
under charge of the sergeant and our cook George, who was here joined by an additional baggage, whom he represented as his wife, a native of Mompox, whither she was proceed- ing. The expense of this part of the baggage was nothing, but in the kind of transport which alone can be had on the Magdalena, an additional person in the space to be occupied on the passage is a serious affair. However we were to part with our invaluable and indefatigable sergeant at Honda, and the loss of a servant like George then could not be sup- plied. Vincent had accompanied my family to Carthagena, and I had to compound the good which was to be rendered by George, for the inconvenience of his wife : and so we made up the account.
We had some letters from Bogota to gentlemen at Honda, which were not indeed necessary, as the alcalde, who knew something of us, provided us a house, the whole of the first floor was at our disposal ; it was, in its days of prosperity, a sumptuous abode, and had stood unmoved during the earth- quake, which here, as in Caracas, destroyed no stone build- ing, but those only that were wholly or partly composed of pita , or adhesive earth. The lower floor was ocupied by some remnants of opulent families ; and one side of the patio was fallen in from the decay of the timbers exposed to the weather. A spacious saloon was entered from the usual broad stairs of two flights ; and the whole front of the house had an ample gallery, which overlooked those on the oppo- site side of the street, and the noble current of the Magdalena that washed their outermost walls. The river had but par- tially risen the day of our arrival at the Bodega ; that night it perceptibly rose above six feet in its spacious stream more than a mile wide on the rapid in front of our residence.
Below the city and in sight another narrow rapid descends over a mass of large round stones ; and above the town, the river Guali, (pronounced Walii) a handsome stream of half a mile broad, descends at right angles into the Magdalena.
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It is in the cove, formed at the junction of the two rivers, that the landing from the Bodega takes place — and, from the quality of the ferry boat, a precarious passage.
There were two chambers at the extreme of the great sa- loon, which we occupied, and a spare room on the lobby received our baggage living and inanimate.
We rested on the first of May, and on the second I present- ed my passport in ordinary to the assessor or deputy of the governor, or Juez politico, this being a civil administration, though I found it rather uncivil ; for, notwithstanding my daily applications, through the sergeant, and, after his depar- ture, through my servant, I could obtain neither a boat, an answer, nor my passport, which I imprudently left in his hands ; I at length sent my passport from the minister of the interior, demanding a compliance with its orders ; my ordi- nary passport was returned, and that of the government kept, promising, as had been promised every day preceding, that it would be attended to a la manana : — in the books, manana means to-morrow, or the next day ; but in the vernacular tongue of some persons in office, it may be to-morrow week, or to-morrow month, or twelvemonth — or never, just as it is the whim ; or, as in this case, it was the wantonness of the public agent ; and among those evils entailed by the pre- existing institutions, the usages of which remain, at once from the unsettled state consequent on the revolution, and the utter impracticability of at once reducing all the branches of government to a consistent and regular efficiency.
All the institutions under the Spanish monarchy in Europe and in America were venal ; every thing was purchaseable, and right itself could not be obtained without paying for it. In the lower and remote branches of the administration, it continues in a very great measure so still. The government has laboured to reform and regenerate every thing in accor- dance with its liberal principles ; the main obstacles to suc- cess were, first, the interests of individuals in every district
VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
were to be reconciled, by appointments to public trusts ; then the resources of the government were so limited, that com- pensation could rarely be paid; and it was connived at to compensate service by fees or perquisites ; which, whenever they are permitted to take the place of a regular salary, will always become a pretext for exaction, or, more properly, robbery — the worst species of robbery, committed under the show of institution. Habits, long educated habits, divest fraud of some portion of its immorality, inasmuch as its per- mission or sufferance, or sanction by authority, divests it of the first principle of criminality, that is, intention.
At points such as the entrepot for the whole interior be- tween Quito and Bogota and Honda, the demand for trans- port is unceasing ; the necessities of the case call upon the government to provide by the same means that transport by mules which is provided every where else. Champans and bogas are the sole means of navigation on the Magdalena, and there is a rate not always arbitrary but by custom, which, like the tonnage of ships in naval ports, fluctuates with de- mand. The government has always the preference, but it is often a distributive preference. If public danger requires all the transport, it must go. If only a partial space be required, the owner of the champan or boga takes in his cargo at the price he chooses to fix, and for whole cargoes ; and they are not deficient on the Magdalena of that art by which prices are enhanced through reports of dangers and hazards, which, though the exaction of price can neither aggravate nor alle- viate, still operates without the forms of a charter, to produce all the benefits of a policy of insurance without a premium.
The owner of a champan has an interest in standing well, or having a perfect understanding, or a joint interest with a Juez politico, or the alcalde. If a government order comes for transport, and the officer obeys the order, he will not pay more than the government rate, and the owner cannot benefit by exacting from the necessities of the traveller a heavier
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 583
sum. If the officer grants what the government bids him absolutely grant, he gets nothing more ; but if he disregards or evades the order, and postpones from day to day the promise, he makes every day the exigencies and the impatience of the traveller, shut up in such a comfortless place as Honda, and eager to prosecute his journey, motives for submitting to the exactions, and thus^pays tribute to the public officer for his perfidy, and enables him to share with the owner of the cham- pan in one half of his exaction.
The champan, derives its name from a very large tree of South America, named Champacada. They are built in all the great inland rivers in much the same rude manner ; of massive timbers, principally of this species of cedar, the grain of which resembles the teak of India, is equally sus- ceptible of being worked by a sharp tool, as the teak or the mahogany ; and, like them, resists the decomposition or rot by water, and the attack of the worm, so as to endure time out of human recollection, when not destroyed by violence of any kind. They are built from 50 to 150 feet in length, and from four to twenty. six feet broad, both ends sharply curving to a timber head. The main timber of the bottom, which is always flat, is proportionably thick, and is usually one tree, from stem to stern ; when the champan is not very large, the whole often consists of only three trees, or the sides form- ed of one tree, attached by futtocks athwart what may be con- sidered as the bows and beam timbers, according to size, but the whole vessel is so solid and so buoyant, that it floats without any warping, like one solid mass of timber ; indeed the sides are seldom less than eight inches thick, and the champan usually floats with four or five feet above water un- laden, and seldom draws more than three or four feet with the heaviest loads.
The lesser vessels, which are only log canoes of a larger size, scooped out and fashioned by rude labour, are composed of a single tree, from fifty to sixty or eighty feet in length.
584 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
The cargoes of merchandize are stowed in the centre of all the boats ; lined with mats, and covered ; if there be separate cargoes, coarser mats or partitions separate them ; or if the commodities are cacao, coffee, cotton, tobacco, maize, hides, &c. they are separated. The habitable places for passengers are either behind or before the cargoes, or in ship phrase " fore and aft." The bow and stern are open, and the rest of the champan or boga is covered with a roof form- ed by stout saplins or wattles affixed within, on each side gun- wall and brought over so as to form an arch ; these saplins are necessarily stout, because it is upon their upper surface the bogas, or water men, stand when poling the vessel against the stream ; when descending it is their place of rest and repose, without hand-rail or rope to guard them from fal- ling over. The boga, canoe y or piragua^ all mean the same thing, and boga signifies the boat as well as the boatman.
Champans are manned according to their size ; and some will carry down a hundred and fifty loads of two hundred and fifty pounds each, for which the freight to Mompox on- ly is usually four dollars down, but has been enhanced to eight dollars ; the same weight up from eight to eleven, and from thence to fourteen dollars, was demanded when we were at Mompox ; owing to a report, which was impossible in itself, that Morales was at that time at the cienega of Santa Marta, on his way up the Magdalena. The owners of cham- pans knew very well that this report was false, and probably made it for the purpose — it encreased their freight twenty- five percent.
There is an artifice often played off on strangers ; after agreeing for the boat with the owner, and paying in advance, a new agreement is required for the bogas or watermen — at so much per day — and then another is required for their subsistence, and as the passage up the Magdalena, from Ba- ranquilla, or from the Cienega of St. Marta, takes not less than two months ; and from the knavery of the patrons and
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 585
the desertion, frauds, and vices of the bogas, through the want of police on the rivers, Honda is often not gained be- fore ten or twelve weeks. The expense, the irksomeness of life, the wretchedness of those who cannot subsist on coarse viands, and many of the vexations that arise among a people so hardy, rude, and uncontrollable, should be prepared against with a resignation to suffer what is not avoidable, but with a firmness and equanimity always to resist what is improper or insolent in the Patron or his bogas ; and never to be without the evidence of preparedness, in the hand or belt, to repel or to punish any threatened outrage or wrong. The visible preparedness is always a salutary rule — he who travels with a good sword, and a pair of double barrelled pistols, which he takes care to discharge and reload occasionally, may pass up the Magdalena without having any evidence to suspect that the bogas are not as amiable as the Hindoo dan- dies ; whom in fact, in their amphibiousness, their gaiety, and proneness to singing and rowing by a cadence, they very much resemble.
Floating in a boga of sixty feet down the Magdalena, the Patron and his crew singing and responding, and the whited tints of the foliage in clustered groups, with the gleam of the moonbeam playing on the water, gave me for a few moments a kind of persuasion that carried me back thirty years, and placed me in a budjerow, floating down the not more beautiful or splendid Ganges. The passage down from Honda to the debouch of the Magdalena, in large cham- pans, is twenty days ; it might be accomplished in one half the time. It is an error of M. Mollien, and others, that the bogas of the Magdalena are of African race ; there are no doubt some few of them. The people who occupy the sides of great rivers and sea coasts, in every country, are of darker complexion than those further inland. This is true to my personal knowledge of the Colombian coast and rivers, but it is also true of the coast of Malabar, Coromandel, and the
74
586 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
\
whole coast from thence by the outlets of the Ganges, to Chittigong, Aracan, Assam, Pegu, and Malacca ; on all these coasts, the complexion of the inhabitants, near the sea coast, is much darker than the same race of people thirty miles inland, and much more fair as they depart from the lines of rivers and the sea. Thus it is that the Lascars who pass from India, by their colour lead to the notion that the Asiatics of India, the Burman empire, and the Malays, are all black. The boatmen or bogas of the Magdalena are darker in colour than those who live twenty miles from the Magda- lena. They are, for the most part, an unmixed native race ; but there are some few mixtures among them. I met and con- versed with some ; and the patron of the boat which carried us from Mompox to Barancas, who was himself what in the United States is called a half breed, or descendant from an Indian and Spanish stock, said there were few of the woolly- headed race on the river, but he pointed to one who was in the boga, and whose history I had from himself in the course of the night — which I shall subsequently notice.
CHAPTER XXXVIIL
Rapids of Magdalena — General Cordova — the passport — the embarcadero, 8tc. — Rio Perico — Guarico — Rio Negro — point for a road to Bogota — Buenavista — Rio Claro — Laguna de Palaguas — El Tigre — Nare — Garrupata — Multasputas — San Pablo — Badillas — splendidly rich and wide-spread country — traditions of river revolutions — union of the Cauca — Ocana — Morales — high flood — Re- gidor — Temalameque another Balbec — Rio Caesar — Penon and Banco — Mompox — a very important commercial position — hospitality — prosperity — industry — Senor Villele — Senor Guerra — recent European publications — leave Mompox in a boga — gold trade — reserve on the extent of it.
THE rapids of the Magdalena are spoken of by travellers, and, in some itineraries which I had procured, I found seven rapids set down, some of which are stated to be dangerous ;
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 587
I saw no rapid but two, one at Honda, which no boat can pass up or down in its present state ; a rapid two miles below, and a rapid in which I saw no danger where the bogas were experienced.
After ten days' detention at Honda, by the neglect or wantonness of the officer whose duty it was to accelerate my departure according to the orders of his superiors, I found General Cordova, with whom I had been intimate at Bogota, had arrived at Honda, and waited on him ; he intro- duced me to the governor at once, who had been constantly represented absent by the assessor ; he promised me he would serve me a la manana — and he did so a la manana, that is, never. I determined to demand my passport, which I could not obtain till the next day ; meanwhile I had been applied to by an intermediary of the assessor, and owner of one of the boats, and we bargained for forty dollars to Mompox — my passport not appearing, I presented myself at the governor's house, hung up my hat, took a seat, and signified my intention to wait there until it was re- turned ; I had carried my writing utensils and some paper, and began to write in the saloon a letter to the minister of the interior — I had been thus occupied, when a little squinting civilian about five feet two approached, with a thousand pa- labras, and presented my passport deluged in claret. As my own Spanish was not so idiomatical as that of my ser- vant, who had lived ten years in the country, and whom I kept with me to avoid misrepresentation, I made use of him to ex- press as strong as possible the sense I felt of his unbecoming conduct to me, and his disregard of the orders of his govern- ment. With perfect composure he bent one of his eyes on me, while the other kept George in view, and informed me that — George spoke bad Spanish — I was glad to find it ; and mustered enough of my best Spanish to tell him that the words George spoke were mine, and faithfully translated ; and that I should report his conduct to his superiors at Bogota.
588 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
Whereupon I took French leave ; an officer followed me re- questing me to return, and that it would be obliging — I be- lieve that I left an impression as unfavourable as to my ob- stinacy, as 1 had given a previous example of ten days' pa- tience. General Cordova called on me, offering passage in his boat as far as Nare, where he proposed to land, and that I might take it the rest of the way to Mompox ; but hearing that I had engaged a part of a boat, he sent me his compli- ments, wishing me a pleasant voyage, and sailed at five o'clock in the morning.
We moved at half- past eleven, on the 10th of May, ha- ving our baggage transported on mules to the embarcadero, about a mile and half below the town, and at the foot of the second rapid. The itineraries which I possess disagree in relation to distances in the navigation, and it must be obvious that where the flow of the stream is unequal, as it must be \vhere the channel is spacious or contracted, the time of pass- ing is not a proper medium for determining distance. The itineraries will be given in the appendix, with the measures as estimated by the writers, but for the accuracy of which I do pretend to decide, any more than for the measures of land. The only scientific measurement, that I saw in Colombia, was that of the pillars erected at every half league from Bo- gota to Facitativa, and these were measured geometrically, and combined with the measurement of elevation- above the sea.
We embarked, on a champan of middle size, perhaps eighty feet long, and about six broad ; the cargo occupied the centre space so as to allow about six feet for shade, and sleep- ing ; the roof would not admit of standing upright, and our trunks were stowed under us, so that, though we could nei- ther stand nor sit up, we could lie clown. But here were my friend G. and myself^incommoded with the baggage bound for Mompox, of which we now began to discover the inconve- nience. George himself found no difficulty, "such fellows would find Rome any where ;" he dressed our food and dis-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 589
appeared till another meal became necessary, and left it wholly to our politeness how to treat his baggage ; however, she aided in rendering our meals more comfortable, and be- sides dressing our chocolate, and making some excellent chicken soup, for which George, an old traveller, had pro- vided the best ingredients, we became reconciled to our con- dition and moved on.
In the road to the embarcadero we passed the dry beds of two mountain streams, which sometimes render the road im- passable. The Guali, a beautiful stream, before noticed, is above the rapid, and rises in the paramo de Ruis, immedi- ately at the north-west side of Quindiu. Very little expense and labour would open a navigation between the handsome town of Mariquita on the Guali, and the rio Perico, which is about a mile below Honda, and which is passed by a bridge, the principle of its construction is that of the resist- ance of two inclined planes. The earthquake had disturbed one of the stone butments of this bridge, the planes being well wrought timber, and it now stands with another inclination, so that one side of the planes is about eighteen inches higher than the other, and no pains have been taken to repair or restore it, which might be done in three hours by two good workmen, and half a dozen labourers.
Just contiguous to the embarcadero is the Guarino, a much larger stream when full than the Guali, and has its rise in the same paramo north of Quindiu.
The course now downwards is described as containing not less than seven dangerous passes, but I apprehend this must relate to the ascent, as the current is strong for more than twelve miles ; the course of the stream is due north ; at Le- dios it turns abruptly to a point south of east, and at the end of three miles vermiculates to the north-west by Conero, a village on the left bank, and thence north to Guarumo, twenty- seven miles on the right bank of the rio Pontona del Guerramo, falling in on the left side of the Magdalena, with
590 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
a delta which conceals the stream when opposite to it. At the lower end of a lofty bank, on the left side, is a small vil- lage named Zeno, from which the main river has an eastern inclination of about eleven miles, when the rio Negro, a beautiful and navigable river, falls on the right side into the Magdalena : here is the proper point to commence a carriage road to Bogota, which is perfectly practicable at a moderate cost.
This river Negro is not to be confounded with several others of the same name which descend from the Cordilleras into this vast valley ; the river Manda is its most southern branch, another nearer to Calambala, on the Manda ; after a separate course of twelve to fifteen miles, they unite with the Mamuy and the Dulce, above Villetta, and it receives the Sobia, Veragua, Pen on, and numerous smaller streams from the eastern ridges, taking a north-west course from the neighbourhood of Penon ; after more than twenty miles gen- tle passage to the north-west, it receives the river of Guaduas at twenty miles from that town, and flowing along to the north, in keeping a parallel course thence with the Magda- lena, from its junction with the Guaduas; at the end of se- venty miles it joins the great river. I had occasion to inves- tigate the practicability of a carriage road between Bogota and Honda, at the request of some friends there, and took for my rule of judgment, besides personal information, the con- stant characteristic of the mountains detached from the main chain, and the rise in a series of levels above the base ; the whole is cast into groupes, between which rivers every where find a passage to rivers still greater. From Bogota to rio Ne- gro there is a succession and continuity of flowing waters without any such impediments as would prevent a carriage road the whole route along their banks, and upon which wagons would not find a better road than lay between Bed- ford and Pittsburg thirty years ago, with no other materials than have made the Pittsburg road passable. The navigation
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up this river Negro, one of which or the other should obtain discriminative names from the government, is good ; a nar- row, not a very elevated mountain, separates the head wa- ters of the river Carari, from the line of the river Negro.
On the left bank, directly fronting the descent of the Ne- gro, stands Buenavista, on the angle formed by the rio de la Miel, which descends from the paramos on the west side; and the alluvion of the two rivers have formed a spacious bank opposite Curmanera on the right side, but which the rio Claro, and it is a beautiful stream, constantly washes away.
The Magdalena, from the rio Claro, pursues a course slightly to the east of north more than fifty miles, but its course is broken into currents by several sand islands be- tween this place and the debouches of the rio Cocorna, which flows from the west, and the Laguna de Palaguas on the right side, below which the river doubles the breadth of its channel, and a long island divides it into two, the right of which is named Braso del Tigre, the other, more spacious, is yet more embarrassing, and though chosen on the ascent, the Tigre is best adapted for descending. We passed through this channel, and reached Nare that evening.
Nare stands on a rank flat on the left bank, and the wa- ters of the rio Samana, which receives that of Guatape in its course, united with the rio Negro de Nare, wash the north- era face of this platform of Nare, as they flow from west to east, and here join the Magdalena : these rivers afford com- munications for a great part of the populous province of An- tioquia. The fisheries here are abundant, and supply the surrounding country, and the place is a great entrepot. We obtained sufficiently commodious quarters, and hung up our hammocks. We passed the strait, or Estrecho'de Carrares, being twelve leagues west from the navigable waters of Cas- tare, inland, on the right side of the river. The navigation was difficult and tedious this day, or the bogas had some ob- ject in view in stopping short of the usual post at the points
592 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
of Garrapata, or San Bartolome ; they suddenly changed their course about six o'clock, and ran into a cove where no dwelling was visible — they called the place Multasputas, and as we had no power to prevail on them to proceed, we hung up our hammocks in some ranchos which were concealed by thickets of bamboo, and where we spent an unpleasant night, from the din of noise, yelling, and coarse revelry. We pas- sed two lakes on the right, between which lay the road by Arocha to the Bodegas de Carrare, Piemarde Oro, Pe- non of Magdalena, and the rio Vieja, or Old River, on the right; and early on the morning of the 13th, we passed be- tween a number of beautiful islands, the river Carrare enter- ing the Magdalena from the south-east, fifteen miles below which, on the same side, the river Opon enters the Magda- lena, having a large lake at its debouche.
The Magdalena here bends to the west of north, thirty miles to St. Pablo, which we reached the same night, after passing Brusas, Bernusa, Barsanca, and Zonilla, on the left bank, along an angostura, or strait, called Channay, the island of Baldonado on our right, and on the left bank St. Pablo, a miserable place, which we reached when it was too dark to see, and left it before light enough returned. The river here is of great width, and separating into channels, forming numerous islands, covered with luxuriant vegetation. We passed Pita, a town on the right, Caretai and Paturjas on the left ; the arm of the river which flows between an island and the right bank obtains the name of rio Chingale, as an arm on the opposite side, ten miles lower down, has the name of rio Barranquilla. The town of Rosario is on the right bank opposite Barranquilla, and on the right bank ten miles lower, opposite the isla de Limon, is the handsome town of Badillos, where we stopped an hour, and obtained vegetables, and fruit, and milk, for which payment was re- fused, with an ingenuous earnestness that seemed to derive pleasure from bestowing. The Magdalena here divides into
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three branches, and the adjacent country thence to the Cau- ca; Simitu being but twelve miles west, and Nichi twenty- eight further west, where the rio Nichi unites with the Cau- ca ; the sources of the Nichi, which rise in the mountains of Simitara, and which are barely discernible from the Magda- lena, is covered with the abundance of the richest climates, and a numerous population, counting within a circle the radii of which are ten miles, the towns of Cordero, Penanes, Na- ransal, San Pedro, Gumea, Santa Ysabel, Margania, En- camana, Saiiillo, and Sate, with Vera Cruz on the Cauca, being only sixteen miles west.
The Magdalena, like the Ganges and other great rivers, has frequently abandoned its old channels and formed new ; the old logos, who arc often found good natured and com- municative, are as fond as men more civilized of displaying their knowledge ; and like the man to whom Robinson Cru- soe was the encyclopedia of historical adventufe, the honest Boga finds, in the caprices and changes of the Magdalena, themes sufficient to exercise his memory, and display the su- periority of his knowledge over the race less curious or in- terested, who tug at the same paddle, or shove the champan by a pole like his own. The abandoned channels are fre- quently wholly closed after a length of time, others retain a shallow depth of water by the settlement of the deposited earth, or the transposition of whole rafts of floating trees, which by decay give way to succeeding floods, and thus restore the old channels, abandoning the more recent, to be again renewed and abandoned. In some places lagunes are formed by these accidents of flood ; and islands are detached by the waters forcing the rich loose soil. This point at Badillos, though the place is not itself otherwise of much importance, is that at which the waters of the Magdalena and the Cauca have created a sort of inland archipelago ; the two rivers cast abroad so many limbs which interlock, in a course of 140 miles from north to south, by 60 east and
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594 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
west. But the richness of the valleys on the right bank is equally remarkable and important, and, like the Sunderbunds of the Ganges, afford commercial navigation by the waters which descend from the Sierra of Ocana, here only twenty miles by the road, from the Bodega that leads to the Magda- lena. Its ordinary channel of descent, is that by which we passed, that of Morales, the western branch ; the central, or Cano de Gualinasillo, is a narrow passage navigable by small vessels, and by large at high water, from the island of Morales : the town is on the west side of the island about half way the descent. The right branch is by far the most ample, and is called, from its proximity, Braso de Ocana.
The town of Cascajal is situated on the uppermost of the lakes, about six miles from the Braso de Ocana, and two roads ascend the mountain region from this place, by the south and north sides of the Sierra de Ocana, and unite on that beautiful table land. The lake, La Pnerta, or the national port of Ocana, is but ten miles lower than Cascajal ; but the town at that port, which has suffered by the war, must soon rise under the influence of the wealthy regions which sur- round it, and the facilities which it presents for intercourse, by a short and less tedious transit with the valleys of Tunja, Pamplona, Merida, and Maracaybo, and the ample and safe navigation from thence to the sea by the Magdalena. This place was contemplated to become the site of a central ci- ty for the residence of the national government ; the temper- ature, salubrity, the abundance of every natural production in its vicinity, point it out as a suitable scite for the capital of a commercial country ; and Ocana must become the centre of a great population, as soon as it shall be well known. Such is the imperfection of Alcedo's work, that Ocana with all its advantages is not even noticed.
We reached Morales and halted there an hour. The bank at low water stands about fourteen feet above the sur- face of the stream ; we stept on shore from the gunnel of the
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ehampan, so high was the flood at this time ; we had seen the river rise seven feet in an hour at Honda, and in four hours fall to its previous level. The flood now trickled over the platform, and menaced to wash the church floor, which ap- peared to stand much in need of it. The population and the luxuriance of the vegetation, cacao, coffee, cotton, tobac- co, oranges, the delicious sweet bananas, and hedges of odo- riferous shrubs perfuming the air, while the people exhibit- ed almost nudity ; they were natives with little admixture, and, from the intensity of their dark complexion, must have been the descendants of the primitive inhabitants of the river side. They were kind and civil, shewed ease and confidence, without forwardness or fear, and if gaiety and abundance be tests of contentment and happiness, rich gar- ments appeared not to be requisite to assure at least what- ever of felicity may belong to limited knowledge. We paid, but they received with reluctance ; and though all we pro-- cured did not amount to three reals, or thirty-seven and half cents, they insisted on adding to our sweet plantains, several bunches which they saw we liked, and a small rush basket of other fruit.
We slept at Regidor on the left bank, and while the bogas dressed some fish, we had a regale of palm cocoa-nuts, and some chicha, which had a vinous smack resembling fresh cider. A small town, St. Andres, stands on the opposite side of the river ; we here found some stately trees covered with the bottle-shaped calabash, growing apparently wild, and nobody's property, they were so much more than enough for every body. A few miles below, on the right bank, the town of St. Basil occupies a point formed by the junction of the river Agualibres with the Magdalena ; ten miles lower, the site of the once opulent city of Temalameque, on the an- gle formed by the passage of the river of that name into the Magdalena, presents itself in the solitude of magnificent ruin ; this place was formerly of some considerable import-
596 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
ance, with a subordinate provincial jurisdiction, a place of great wealth ; its buildings, of stone, were blown up by the Spaniards.
The Magdalena, from the open union of the several streams above Regidor, flows thence by Tamalameque, about nine miles, inclining west of north, when it winds off abruptly to the west for eleven miles, where an ancient channel of the river flows to the south-west by Penon on the right bank of the strait, and by Loba on the right bank of the old chan- nel : the Cienega of Sapatosa is the first of a chain, itself about eight miles diameter ; a gut of a mile and a half pro- ceeding north-west unites it with the Cienega Pancaychi, and another strait or canal of six miles leads to the Cienega Adentro, which is about eighteen miles long, and there re- ceives the great river Ceasar, and other tributary rivers from the north-west. Tamalamequillo, I suspect created out of the fugitives from the desolated city, is a snug little town on the lower debouche of Sapatosa, presents itself with a neat ap- pearance opposite the more ample and flourishing towns of Penon, and Banco, so named, probably from the elevated bank of ground upon which it stands ; it is a kind of custom- house, which overhauled us by a peragua with two men, one of whom appeared to think himself of some importance, though he was very civil. The river, from below Banco, continues in a broad and splendid sheet of water, like a sea of quicksilver, or like a China painting bright and deep tint- ed on the borders, glassy and burnished on the smooth sur- face of the scarcely moving mirror : the direction of the stream to the south-west is more than fifty miles ; some Islands appear, and one particularly, opposite Guamal, twenty miles below Penon, on the right bank, is about seven miles in length, and covered with luxuriant forests, as are indeed nearly all the banks of the river, on both sides, from Honda downward, where the hand of man has not yet opened their ^bosoms to the sun and cultivation. Chillon, Fernando, Mar-
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garita, and Merchique, are small towns successively on the left bank, at seventeen, twelve, nine, and six miles above Mompox, which we reached at half past five on the evening of the 15th.
Mompox in fact stands on an island of forty-eight miles in length, and averaging twelve miles in breadth. The water which bounds its south-west side, and which runs parallel with the main stream, issues into the Cauca, eighteen miles below Mompox, but a multitude of streams, and numerous prosperous towns, enrich and enliven the interior. Mompox, though my previously acquired information as to its import- ance was considerable, very much exceeded my expecta- tions ; I had expected to find a town inferior to Honda ; I found a city larger than San Carlos, Truxillo, or Pamplona; its streets better paved, and with good tiled footways every where, and broader than those of any I had seen in Colom- bia. The bank on which Mompox stands is steep, and fronted on the river by a stone wall of good masonry, with semi-embrasures and a parapet. The space between the parapet and the houses, also of stone, but in some places only from eight to ten feet.
We had letters, but proposed seeking a house to lodge ; a gentleman of the place, Mr. Villel, seeing strangers, accost- ed us, and invited us to his house, to which he conducted us instantly, and his servants soon had our baggage in a few mo- ments placed in our chamber. Refreshments of the best kind were presented, and some excellent claret, of the flavour and exhilaration of which none can so well estimate as those who who have travelled in a boga or a champan for a week. It was too late, and we were too much strangers, to look out that evening for the prosecution of our journey. Our ad- venture on the champan had closed here, and here, on land- ing, we saw for the first time our shipmates on the cham- pan, who, having the forecastle, and we the after cabin, were as effectually separated as if we were at the arctic and antarc-
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tic regions, though only about fifty feet asunder ; and we were not a little surprized and pleased at the discovery now made for the first time, that the troublesome traveller who broke down so many mules to overtake us at Viletta, had been our fellow passenger, though we learned afterwards at Carthagena, that he had quarrelled with the eight or nine persons with whom he was accommodated in the fore births.
Our hospitable host had ordered chocolate, good cakes, and some wine, and spent an hour with us, while our ham- mocks were preparing, and we were changing our linen, the first time since we left Honda. Means to bathe our feet were provided without asking, and obliging domestics per- formed the office with as much care as if it had been their daily habit to serve us for years. We spent a short time in the delightful air of the night, and retired about eleven to a luxurious repose.
As my experience at Honda with the squinting civilian, had taught me not to depend too much upon official civility eve ry where, I waited on the civil governor personally, and exhibiting my best passport, requested to be provided with a good boga for Barancas. Senor Guerra, the civil magistrate, was a contrast to the Honda mag?iificOy and besides he had an acquaintance with the world, of which he had seen some; he invited me to refresh and to dine ; I declined with can- dour, that I had a friend with me, and could net separate ; u but your friend must come also, said he, and do not go so soon." I felt obliged, and told him so, and having some wine I drank with him, and waited a little while till be made in- quiries how he could serve me ; on his return he smilingly said, " you must not take la manana in its common practical use," but he would see and assure me of a boga on the morn- ing. He presented me some London papers, only six weeks old, and the first numbers of a Spanish periodical work, pub- lished in London, in March, after perusing which I took my leave. Meanwhile our good host had, as I requested, bar-
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gained for a boga, for the exclusive use of myself and friend, which he obtained. I was apprehensive, that if a champan or boga was provided by the public authorities, that we should perhaps be alongside that quarrelsome flibustier, for such in fact he was ; for the same reason we determined to embark that night, and in fact had our baggage on board, and were afloat at ten on the night of the 16th of May. We had but just got under cover and afloat when a smart rain commenced, but the current required as yet no additional force ; we floated at the rate of about five miles an hour, and in the morning found the sweep of the flood arrested by the vast volume of the Cauca, which here appeared a stagnant pool, covered with eddies and floating vegetation, rising as it were above the now limpid Magdalena.
Habit, from a peculiarity of disposition perhaps, or the early transitions I had made to different parts of the world, had enabled me not only to sleep at any hour of day or night, but to awake at any hour predetermined, and I only men- tion it, because I am perfectly satisfied that this habit may be acquired by any young man who has constancy enough to determine, and do as he determines. My friend G. was ex- actly of the same cast, so that watching was not difficult nor in- convenient. As soon as we had got into this " dead sea," and the boga lost its motion, I discovered that the patron, and his two assistant bogas in the forecastle, had instinctively com- mitted themselves and us to the caprice of the waters ; it was necessary to use some " ship logic" to arouse them to duty ; the patron put the best face on it, laughed at his own somno- lency, complimented us on our watchfulness, and told us a story ; till, finding that the nipping air of the morning was acting upon our eyelids, he set up a song to the Virgin, with a good nasal twang, and followed it by a patriotic canta, of which Eo-lee-v^r was the fond theme. The name is pro- nounced in this way : the sounds Bol-m~var, are not heard,
600 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
the bo is full, and the emphasis is on i as ee in lee, and in the last syllable the a is but barely aspirated.
Whoever will consult a good map, on a scale not less than five miles to an inch, may form some idea of the fortunate position of the city of Mompox. For two centuries this place has been the centre of the gold trade, for all the valley b which unite their waters and their communications with the Cauca and Magdalena. It was originally an Indian settle- ment. In 1540, Jerome de Cruz made it an establishment or entrepot between the upper and lower waters, and in about seventy years afterwards, in the close of the reign of Philip II, when a new ministry and a new system had given some momentary energy to the Spanish dependencies, Mompox be- came at once the channel of regular and rich commerce in the precious metals ; but as the principal outlet for an export more rich, which has never wholly ceased since, it has fluctuated with policy, war, and revolution. No place in Colombia, in the circuit which I made, exhibits so much prosperity and contentedness ; the only unhappiness I saw there was the result of excessive wealth, which almost every where too often makes man, who is not blessed by a generous heart, either a misanthrope or a sot.
A stranger who passes the rectangled streets of Mompox at the dawn, hears the clink of the anvil on every side; every house he looks into has the forge and the crucible, the vice and the hammer, busy ; it is indeed a gentler sound than that of the coppersmith, but it seems as if all the goldsmiths of the earth had assembled at Mompox to work for a wager. At noon this click clack is suspended ; the climate invites to rest, and they have made such good use of the balsamic air of the morning, that they have done enough ; they know how to live, they have the bath, and their style of living is better as to gusto than any native modes I had seen ; but between three and four the hammer is again at work, till the sun descends, as if to bid them dress in their best and go to the dance, where
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their feet and the fiddler's elbows rival the activity of the hammers in the morning. One would suppose there could not be gold enough in the universe to employ so many ham- mers. I learned a point of discretion on this subject; being curious about facts, and of course, where every body was hammering at gold, I happened to ask a shrewd goldsmith, — who was polite, inquisitive, and pleased himself as ready to please, — what the quantity of gold might be that was annually wrought at Mompox ? its purity from either river or side of the valley? and what proportion of coined silver was an equiva- lent for gold ? The sensible artisan smiled significantly, and I soon perceived I was inquiring into secrets not to be invaded. "These are facts, Seiior," said he, " which nobody in Mom- pox knows !" I did not at once, from the double exigency of translating the words and combining them into sense, take the hint ; he relieved me ; " Come," said he, " Stnor, when you have made more proficiency in Spanish, I'll tell you why it is not our business to know any of the facts you inquire about." I asked no more questions about other men's business ; but the honest goldsmith ordered some very good fruit, and told me, I must be the American colonel whose daughter his daughters had visited a month ago, as I answered the description she gave them.
M. Villel, at whose house we lodged, when he could not prevail on us to stay, placed in the hands of our servant a quantity of chocolate unknown to us, until we were about to breakfast below the confluence of the Cauca. Our ser- vant George had disposed of his baggage at Mompox, and this was fortunate, for our boga was so narrow, that we two could not lie side by side on the split cane bed, upon which we spread our clothes, and we were obliged either to sleep tnd watch by turns, or to lie like the soldiers under the field eco- nomy of Marshal Saxe, or, in the soldier's phrabe, " heads and points."
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CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Magdalena, leaving Mompox — Pinto — Guayamal — Plato — TenerifFe — ac- count of its capture by General Cordova — anecdote of a negro militia soldier — numerous towns — lake of Marerica — Rio Chamillar — reappearance of the An- des— Valley Dupar — Torres — his estate of San Carlos— now a desert — reach Barranca Nueva — the digue or canal — Siepe — negroes brought from the West Indies — hapless condition — night adventures at Mahate— Arjona — pestiferous pool — exaction for passing it — foul enough for Cocytus or Styx — Charon's lieutenant — luxuriant forests — spacious opening of the road — Turbajo — beau- tiful elevation, handsome houses, broad streets — neatness and temperature de- lightful— the Montpellier of the provinces around — delightful route to Cartha- gena — cotton trees for hedges — village of Benavides — Ternera — see the Po- pa— meet my friend Major Brush — enter Carthagena by the left of San La- zaro — striking aspect of the military works — advantage of travelling with a military title.
THE Magdalena, after leaving Mompox, flows for thirty miles in a south-west direction, when it stretches its broad bason nearly north for twelve miles to Pinto. An island of some extent, whose only inhabitants are monkies of a very large growth, conceals the view of the town of St. Sebastian, on the remotest east bank ; thence to Pinto, which stands in front of the broad river, and seems to shut it up from all egress. There are several towns on the right and left banks ; those on the right are Zeno, San Fernando, and Santa Ana ; those on the left are Talcagua, Naranja, and Tomacal.
The river in front of Pinto again strikes off to the west seventeen miles ; the channels of the Cauca and Magdalena here uniting, their deposite forms an island west of Pinto, behind which are three little towns ; where, rushing to the right side, it leaves a longer island on the left, called Guay- amal. The river here takes a new direction, directly west, about eighteen miles to Plato, which is on the right bank, a place of some consequence. The towns contiguous to the river here are numerous, as the climate is delicious and the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 603
landscape delightful. Several rivers fall in from the west, and the evidences of population and natural riches are every- where conspicuous, on those beautiful but solitary and yet unappreciated waters.
From Plato the river winds a little more to the west, and the great stream, which gives a circuitous navigation, is aban- doned, to follow a beautiful channel, which has cut off part of the bank, and formed the island of Playatura ; it is about a quarter of a mile broad, and, though we passed it at mid- day, such was the loftiness of the forests, that the sunbeams were excluded from this charming canal. Emerging from this shade, the stream broke upon our left with added mag- nificence ; having gained the centre of the current, there stood upon our right a bold and rounded hill, with a splendid stretch of the river stealing to the north.
I prevailed upon the patron, who had now become com- municative, to bear nearer to the right shore, and one of our bogas, who was the only one of African descent I had yet seen on the river, gave us an account of the capture of this place. On our passage from Mompox, as this poor fellow was not much better clad or provided for than the soldiers who have the honour to win battles for other men's glory, accidentally exposed his abdomen, which appeared as if it had been ripped open from the left hip to beneath the right arm-pit ; and, more extraordinary, such had been the fact : unaware how the wound had been made, I enquired, and thus came to learn that he had been a slave, and, having taken up arms for Colombia, was one of the soldiers under the command of Colonel Cordova (since general of division, promoted on the field of Ayacucho) — he exposed his arm from beneath his blanket ; and that had also been wonderfully cured of a sabre wound.
The Spaniards under Morales had occupied Teneriffe— - the town stood on a bank, whose lowest termination on the river was about ten feet above the surface of the current ; a
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gradual slope of about 110 yards led to a more steep ascent, which terminated in the handsome shaped hill. The town stood in sloping terraces from the river, to nearly the sum- mit of this hill ; to the south, handsome fields of culture ; and to the north, haciendas, some in ruin, and some rebuild- ing, were clear to the sight. But the town itself was an utter wreck ; the havoc of artillery was as fresh as the day after the assault ; gavel ends lay in the places in which they had fallen ; the timbers of the roofs stood in all directions, as if an explosion took place a week before, and of all lengths and magnitudes, doors and windows gave every attitude of which ruin, and military ruin especially, is so ingenious in forming.
The Spanish force which had ascended the Magdalena to this place, had seized on the position with consummate judg- ment. From its summit the stream was commanded above and below, and a fleet of twenty-seven stout flecheras, with heavy brass artillery, and numerous river craft, enabled them to intercept every thing passing by water, which could pass only in sight of Teneriffc. The country on both sides abounded with rich agriculture, and no part of the republic has so many towns on a like space, composed of graziers or agriculturists, as this from the mouth of the Opon river, or the outlets of Ocana to the Digue of Nueva Barranca twen- ty, five miles below. The view of a military position al- ways excites curiosity. A work which presents only a flank or a bastion to an adversary, and masks the rest, acts upon the ardour of action as if there were no more difficulty than was first seen, but where not only real works are to be over- come, but artificial means are so easily employed to give an appearance of reality and force, both in works and numbers, such a position, in capable hands, is doubly strengthened by actual and moral force.
The force of the republicans, was selected by General Mariano Montilla, intendant of the department of Cartagena,
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 605
whose infirm state of health detained him below, but it was placed under a youth of twenty-two, who had already distin- guished himself in the field. Colonel Cordova had eleven fle- cheras, with guns of different calibre, eighteen champans of the largest size, well manned with the best bogas that could be collected on the river between Mompox, Cartagena, and Santa Marta, and some of the most expert pilots of the coast, accustomed to boisterous seas and storms, and to whom danger was temperamental. There was no cove nor indent in front of Teneriffe, and the sides of the place above and below were so encumbered with vegetation as to forbid an attack on either quarter, which would leave the Spanish flotilla to act at the same time with the land force ; a false step of one or the other, might be fatal to all. Cordova determin- ed to move upon the Spanish flotilla, board, and attack it at its anchorage ; having disposed of half of his troops in champans, in the Cana de Plato, and placed row boats to cover the outer stream, he moved up the left bank before dawn, so as to glide down with the current at the first glimpse of day ; his division in the canal was to move at the sound of the first gun. The first gun was, in fact, a sig- nal from the first felucha, and the whole line of Cordova's flotilla came in contact, boat with boat, at the same instant. Cordova, himself, was the first on board the leading flechera of the Spaniards. The batteries on shore could not now act, on account of the position of their own flotilla — the cham- pans with the troops had not yet approached, but they were in view, spread across the river, here about three miles broad. Cordova seized and caulcd.cfF every armed vessel of the Spaniards ; some smaller craft were upset, and the Spanish troops who could swim, sought to escape by water, but many perished in the attempt. Cordova drew off the captured flotilla and his own, and taking a position a few miles above, distributed his force on the captured feluchas, manned them with the best riflemen, from his reserved cham-
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pans, and placed such craft as were not required for actual service, on the left bank within signal distance.
No time was lost — the Spaniards had not yet recovered from their confusion, when a heavy concentric fire, from all the feluchas, now thirty eight in number, opened upon the Spanish troops which lined the beach ; they retired within the town, which being constructed wholly of fragile materi- als, pita walls being even few, or necessary in that climate, the fire was extended to the town ; and so effectually as to exhibit a scene of disorder as distinct to the assailants as their own squadron. The signal was given to land, and Cordova with his staff was on the beach, the flotilla was ar- ranged into two squadrons, above and below the town, and then commenced a conflict the most sanguinary ; it was not the action of manoeuvres of columns and battalions, but of detachments and squads, and of individuals hand to hand. The honest boga here displayed the horrible scar on his arm ; he had belonged to a militia company, each of whom had selected some man for combat ; a Spaniard selected him, and the sabre wound on his arm prostrated him ; while down, another assailant, with a large cuchillo^ ript open his bowels and left him ; what followed he knew not, till he found himself in a ruined rancho, some women of the coun- try about him ; the bowels which had protruded through the wound had been replaced, the sides of the wound closed, his body bandaged, and vegetable cataplasms applied ; his arm was treated in the same way ; and " here I am," said he, with an emotion of laughter, which seemed to express the exultation of gratitude and delight.
The place was taken, and the whole of the stores the Spa- niards had brought — and many prisoners ; the Spanish force never after appeared in the Magdalena. Teneriffe is in 9* 22' N. lat. and 74° 46' W. long.
The country east and west of Teneriffe, appears to be the best adapted for settlement of any part of the republic, for
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an agricultural and commercial people. It is indeed already more populous than I had anticipated. The peninsula, as it may be considered, is formed on the east side by the Magdalena, and on the west by the Gulf of Tolu, and no where fifty miles across ; many navigable rivers have their sources in the very depressed hills that are intermediate, so as to afford portages not more than seven, five, and three miles; and a vast contraband has been carried on from those waters from the first settlement to the present day. Were it not for this circumstance, the number of towns which every where garnish the banks could not be account- ed for. They embellish the landscape by day, and by night you have not lost the lively notes of one fandango, before those of another are blended with them, exciting lively pleasure, as the boat floats without noise or impulse on the tranquil surface of this apparently motionless mirror. Below Plato, on the right bank, I counted thirteen towns, with large intervals of pasture or cultivated lands, the largest of which were Purgatoria and Santa Cruz. On the left bank St. Tomas, Carcajal, Seton, Guatima, and the island of the same name, St. Francisco, Zambrano, and below the strait of Teneriffe also, on the left side, St. Aquinin, where the river bends to the north-east ; Noverio, on the point formed by the entrance of the Cuerrey from the west, and Neverita, on the left side of its debouche. The great lake of Manrica, twenty-two miles from north to south, and six miles east and west, is on the east side of the Magdalena, its south ex- tremity being due east from Teneriffe eleven miles. It re- ceives the waters of the Chamillar from the east, and numer- ous other streams, and discharges them by two channels into the Magdalena, the most southern eight miles below Tene- riffe, and the northern four miles lower down, the interme- diate land extending to the lake nine miles from the river.
The mountains of the great chain west and east, which, after leaving Nare, very soon disappear altogether, except-
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ing two pyramidal clumps of rocks, which appear to block up the channel in the passage to Mompox, are not seen but in questionable shapes on the right and the left, till in sight of Teneriffe ; the indistinct but unvarying line of dark blue shade mixing with the clouds of evening, show the Sierra of Santa Marta ; but below, and nearer, the morning lights mark lower ranges, and, still lower, and more near, green and undulating. I looked towards these vine- covered hills and once gay regions, whose north bound marks the valley Dupar, with a mixture of delight and sorrow. I had before me the map traced by the hand of the late Manuel Trux- illo y Torres, first minister of the Colombian Republic to the United States. His former estate — his residence—the scenes of his married years, and the birth-place of his child, a daughter whose death was one of the arrows which quick- ened the current of life; here he had, by his own mild, kind, and consummate temper, redeemed the Indian of the for- est, and formed a native population, mild, industrious, in- genious, and, as he himself said, the best gardeners and cul- tivators in the world ; here he had founded a new little world of his own — the land was a gift from Charles IV. of Spain, on the presentation of the Viceroy, Archbishop Gongara ; here he married, and here he often said he ought to have lived and died — but he was called to supply different sta- tions ad interim^ upon the removal or resignation of intend- ants or others, and on confidential commissions at Santa Marta, Cartagena, La Hacha, and frequently at Bogota and Tunja. His education, and the force of his intellectual and moral principles, made him a friend of his species, and of human liberty. General Narinho was the last of a band, of which Torres was also one, who had, with the early dawn of the revolution of North America, prepared the way for that of the South — which he just lived, after thirty- four years of exile, to see recognized as independent, and, at the mo- ment when all his labours were consummated, to close his living career. He was among those who were ordered to
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be seized, imprisoned, and sent to Europe, but he was too much beloved, wherever he had authority, not to have friends : his escape was connived at; and, after reaching with his funds an island of the West Indies, where he remained some time, he removed to Philadelphia, where he lived in various degrees of good and evil fortune to his death. He had entrusted his funds, in order that they should produce a respectable subsistence without waste, to persons in trade ; he was fortunate sometimes in the adventures, but in others was defrauded by those to whom he had committed them ; by one person, since deceased, he lost 70,000 dollars — it was his all. He had occasional remittances from his wife while she lived; but the information communicated by Yrujo and Onis, of his zeal in the revolt of South America, and the efforts he was making to furnish the patriots with supplies, caused his estate at San Carlos to be confiscated a short time after the death of his last living ties.
The hacienda of St. Carlos was not more than sixty miles distance, I was told ; but what should I see there ? for Torres was no more, his ashes slept in the cemetery of St. Mary's, Philadelphia ; and what gratification could be derived from seeing the desolation that followed confiscation. I enquired ; and learned there was not a vestige of a habitation : the forests which he had felled, and the gardens laid out and cultivated under his own eye, in which were collected and collecting all the riches of the botanical regions ; the avenues of cotton trees and oranges, the groves of foreign firs on the lofty peaks, and the palms in the valleys, had lost their order and their disposition : the cotton tree sheds its pods in such profusion as to diminish into dwarfs, and the orange had become bitter and deformed, as if in anger or despair : the poor Indian too had lost his earthly providence ; and, when his race was run, the progeny who followed became like their pro- genitors, ignorant, indocile, and wild, little more rational than the monkeys which gamboled on the lofty branches of the
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champaca, or the mountain cedar. A wilderness was to be seen on all sides ; there was no charm left to replace the paradise that had been created by my friend : I did not go ; I could not but cast an eye to the hills, which the bright moon revealed ; and when we reached Barrancas about three in the morning of the 18th, I preferred going to sleep for a couple of hours, to escape the feelings which perhaps were the more acute from the irritation of watching and keeping the watermen awake and at their oars.
Our baggage was transferred to the rocky bank of the river, and repeated messages to the alcalde were without suc- cess. No passport was effective for him ; the plain ordinary passport was of equal value with him as a command, as that from the minister of the interior ; for he was between seven and eight hundred miles off; a lawyer with a heavy fee en- gaged in a technical discrimination, could not be more in- genious in discovering the meaning and signification of words, etymologic, metaphoric, paraphrastic, and any thing but positive or direct. Two interpretations, different from each other, had already been given of the passport ; it was left for the little alcalde of Barrancas Nueva, to find out a third; and this was in fact to be explained after all by employing one mule more than we wanted; and without which, we could not budge from this same rocky mound of ferruginous trap ; instead, therefore, of six we were obliged to take seven mules ; and, instead of three dollars, the usual price, we were obliged to pay four dollars for each mule ; and it was eleven o'clock of the forenoon before we could escape over the steps of the trap ridge ; from this worst trap of all, a profli- gate alcalde, who wore by his side a sword stolen from an officer who had travelled that route, and which my servant now recognised at his side, and as the property of his former master ; being reproached, and this sword pointed at, he re- plied only by an exulting contortion, neither grin nor smile, and yet designed to be both.
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Before we reached this place, we passed Palmas, Palma- nito, Cascali, Buenavista, Yucal, and Barrancas Vitjo, or Old Barrancas, on the left side, and immediately above New Baranca. On the right side Heredia and Ferrara.
The town of Barrancas Nueva is situated on the Mag- dalena, here flowing from south to north, on its east face ; a breach of the river, as the name signifies, overflowing at the foot of the mound of ferruginous trap rock, appears to have made a natural inlet or communication with the interior lower ground to the west side of the peninsula ; uniting the wa- ters which enter the same channels with the lake and harbour of Cartagena, which are not more than twenty five miles due west of Barrancas Nueva; but the currents when united taking a direction from Barrancas south-west thirty miles, and from Sinorin on the west, in a north-east direction, thirty miles, give it a course of an angular form, which makes its meanderings more than sixty-four miles. This breach of the waters is the scite of what has been called the Digue, or C ano del Barrancas. The Spanish government had authorised the application of much ill-directed labour, and great expense, intending to give to this ditch the advantage of a free and ample navigable communication with the west side, so as to draw through this channel the commodities which usually passed down to Barranquilla, eighty miles below, or through the canal de Renagado into the Cienega of Santa Marta, a hundred and twenty miles to the north-east.
The work was placed in bad hands; and undertaken to be executed by persons who either did not understand what should be done, or, if they did, perfidiously neglected to do it. The great object should have been to obtain a tree cur- rent from either side. The Magdaiena is always sufficiently elevated to carry a powerful stream by its own force through this channel, had the means been taken to profit by its cur- rent ; at the mouth of the Digue nothing more was required than to deepen the inward channel between the two exterior
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waters before the flood was admitted at either side on the line of the natural run of water; which would have afforded, with the plains and handsome hills between which it runs, ample space to take levels. To force the Magdalena to pay tribute and drive the current, an oblique section cut from the upper rocky angle of Barrancas would afford materials to form a pier or mound on its lower side, projecting in an angle of 45° to 50° to the current of the river, and thus carrying as much of its current as experience might speedily determine to be ne- cessary into the Digue or canal.
At present the mouth of the Digue is employed as a horse- pond ; a hundred and fifty yards from the river it is dry, and when we reached it on our inland route beyond Arjona about thirty miles, it was a green and turbid pool, the stench of which affected the senses at half a mile distance.
In leaving Barrancas, our course to the south-west lay over the stairs of brown granulate trap, for two miles, when we descended into a broken, but rich, verdant, and beautiful country ; this way, however, was without living waters, of which the heat made us very sensible, and by which we were very much more affected than in any part of our long journey. We reached a hacienda of good structure of the West India style about two o'clock, which we approached through open fields of great extent, cleared and abounding with cattle ; the house stood on an elevation with its double range of verandah on its east front. The owner, it seems, was absent ; the place is called Siepe, and the agriculture sugar. The owner was from home, and the house in charge of a tall well- shaped negro-overseer. We determined to take refuge in the veranda till the sun's heat abated, and immediately put our mules to graze, and hung up our hammocks, while our cook collected whatever was to be had in the village of huts upon an adjacent bank, whose front was to the north. A negro- man from these huts, invited our attention by the proffer of his services, which he tendered in the dialect of the
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 613
British West Indies, and made use of the disposition in which he found us, to tell us his story — he was a native of Africa, and carried young to an island of the West Indies, where he was as happy, he said, as a man could be who was a slave ; he thought his condition bad there, but here he thought his former state good by comparison ; his age did not give him the benefit of the republican law, and his mas- ter, who had some years ago under the Spanish rule trans- ported himself and sixty others from the West Indies, was seldom there ; and their hard fortune was to have one of their own countrymen and colour as his overseer ; he had, he said, a wife and several children, who would be free — but for himself, he thought every hour of his life a misery, of which he said he was tired — " why do I toil ? — to me this plantation is as the whole world — and nothing to hope !"
The appearance of the overseer, whose visage, out of hear- ing, seemed to say he knew the sad story — put the poor story-teller in tribulation, from which I rescued him by an affectation of dissatisfaction, telling him to go about his bu- siness, we wanted nothing — his wife, however, told us after- wards, he understood us, and sent some fine bananas, and a couple of delicious melons, for which we paid in some of the small silver change of the country that was now no longer of use to us, but was a treasure to the poor girl, who looked doubting at the six or seven bits on her hand — then towards her husband, holding her open hand towards him — and then looking in our faces, as if to say " Is it possible you mean to give me all this?" — no empress ever felt such sensations with the wealth of conquered nations at her feet. We left Siepe at half past six o'clock, P. M. and at half-past nine reached Mahate. Though this route is much travelled, the mule- teers diverge into the forests of bamboo and lofty timbers. The shape of a road appears at some openings, but it is a mere ditch, which contains stagnant waters offensive to the senses ; the part which represents the road is usually a pool, there
614* VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
having been neither sagacity nor skill to raise the centre even, with the materials excavated from the sides; by which means that which was intended to be marked for a commo- dious and clear road, is for miles, between Barrancas and Turbaco, a pestiferous slough of putrescent water, rank with decomposed vegetation.
The character of our muleteers we had anticipated from the character of the alcalde at Barrancas. On the road some of their friends overtook them, and they kindly afforded them each a ride on those mules which the alcalde told us would be so overburdened with our baggage, that we were obliged to hire one extraordinary. They marched us to the alcalde of Mahate on our arrival, and having talked to each other aside, the alcalde's deputy, answering to our constable of police, led the way and towards his own house, which, besides every interior visible sign of dirt and unsavory smells, was in such a climate as promising of comfort as the orlop deck of a ship under the line. I declined entrance, and required better accommodations, to his very great amusement, and not a little to mine ; for as, in such unhelpable cases, it is best to call upon courage for good humour, and moreover obtain an advantage by not being angry, I thus disappointed him who endeavoured to cheat and vex me too. I ordered all our cara- van to the right about, and determined either to sleep in the street, or go to the adjacent forest ; a house with a veranda or corridor in front presenting itself, I knocked and asked per- mission to hang our hammocks inside the corridor; but our disappointed minister of police loudly protested to the person inside, we should have no room there, as we had refused the use of his house — in a village, the constable is not a small cha- racter— the woman knew it. Mahate had been conflagrated, as I learned from a lady of the place, about six months before, by a sunbeam ; and few houses had escaped ; many were there- fore barely roofed and open at the sides. It resembled the Bo- dega at Honda ; but, as it belonged to somebody, and I had
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 615
ItVJ
•*
resolved not to be tricked out of a lodging by this local mi- nister of malignity, I entered close to the rear, where I found some respectable-looking females, and feeling as I always feel at the sight of agreeable women, I addressed them as should be addressed, beautiful or ugly, with courtesy — said 1 was a traveller, and wanted only the permission to hang up my hammock in the unfinished house ; they all rose — it was granted as soon as spoken, and any thing in the house was perfectly at the disposal of the Senor. I asked for some milk, only to have the pleasure of paying for it, but there was none to be had at that late hour ; some fruit they produced in a neat basket on the instant, but no payment would be received; it was a sufficient pleasure that they were acceptable, and without having asked for wa- ter, a handsome Lancashire pitcher made its appearance with water, which was so cool and fine, that it seemed to have passed through an ice filtre.
Our hammocks were soon up, and, by means of certain bamboos and other apparatus of rancheria architecture, we had formed our lines of contravallation and circumvallation, and lodged under the same roof with our mules. We were about to cast away all our cares, when the minister of mis- chief appeared jabbering in a villanous style ; but there was no doing any thing with him in the way of talking, for the parrots at Merida were gentle of discourse compared with him. A pair of pistols happened to be produced, and being unloaded, a priming from a cartridge in the holster of the saddle offered me an opportunity of making a flash in the pan ; if a culverin had exploded, the effect could not have been better ; how he went off I can only conjecture, for we saw nor heard of him any more. A better lodging- place could not have been selected for the liberator had he been there ; and, no doubt, the deputy alcalde, who had calcu- lated on making only perhaps half a dozen reals, and took it to heart that we should seek our own comfort, would have
616 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
been mortified more, if he knew that the good lady had sent us a bottle of good sweet wine before we went to sleep, and that we slept as soundly as good health fatigued is apt to do. We resolved to profit of our past day's scorching, to be up and moving before the sun's appearance, and pushed on boldly over flat Bengal-like plains surrounded by palms and plantains, bamboos, and the clatter of flocks of paroqueets. No halting place presenting itself till half past ten o'clock, when we reached Arjona, a very poor place, and according to appearance has a considerable dependance on smuggling. A slight rain had commenced, and seeing a sentinel on post at a spacious gate, I rode up, and aware that military men respect superior orders, called for the officer of the guard, who made his appearance ; a fine young man, who caused our mules to be placed under shelter, and tendered any ser- vices. My hammock was hung up in the guard room, and as more than seven hours ride had sharpened our appetites, we had our chocolate, and some fine fruit of the place. The young officer was intelligent and inquisitive, and I was not backward to say ail I could to contribute information, such as I believed to be new to him, and we parted with a good opinion of each other at three o'clock. A servant of the offi- cer, one of those singularities which all countries and wars produce, during our halt, amused and obliged us, and nar- rated his adventures with extreme humour; whether real or invented was not material, they produced the effect intended ; he was another Guzman d^Alfarache^ according to his own narration ; he made us laugh ; and he discovered, that all men approaching the sea- coast for foreign countries, must have little things half worn of no value to them, but which might be useful to poor fellows who remain in the country, and had no money to buy better. He saw we were moved to merriment, and archly asked, " if he had not hit the bull in the eye ?" — We gave him some half- worn-out shoes, a broken-elbowed jacket or two, and some other things, which,
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 617
being of no value to us, he said would, by what he could wear and what he could sell, set him up for a month or two.
We had to pass the digue or canal, in our route of the morning ; there is but a very slight descent to its course ; the appearance of the water was a foul green, and the stench was pestilential ; a toll had been established at this place, at the period when it was proposed to be improved. A person, \vho might well have passed for a deputy of Charon, appear- ed in a canoe, which, though adapted to the transport of another individual, made way through this foul Cocytus or Styx, — for of both it bore resemblance, — with much diffi- culty, stirring up the filth and mud through which it pushed. Our muleteers appeared loath to pass before us, but our servant George, who had travelled that way often, plunged into the pool, and crossed without wetting the girths of his mule, and we followed. Poor Charon's deputy was disconsolate ; he demanded two reals for each mule, and as much for each passenger. I gave him two reals. Death seemed to have taken the guage of his existence, yet, on cros- sing, in a cottage, on the very verge of this pestiferous pool, we found his wife, lovely as the daughter of Oceanus, who as- sisted Jupiter in his war with the Titans, a fine woman, in perfect bloom of life, not attended by Hydray but with a little Cupid at her bosom, in all the roundness and floridity of health. She had a little of the Styx in her tongue at least, for she belabored us with that weapon with as much angry energy, as the daughter of Oceanus had berated the chief of gods and men.
We disappeared in the forests, which led along the north margin of the digue for two miles, where it presents a bason of three hundred yards in breadth, the whole length of the vision, but stagnant and offensive. This is susceptible of being made a canal of very great importance, but the levying of a toll upon passengers and merchandize, where no manner of service is rendered, ought not to have survived the alcavala;
78
618 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
it is indeed a reproach to the government that permits it, and the greater reproach from the offensiveness of the passage, for riding or wading across, which the passenger has to pay. The triviality of the imposition matters not, the levy is a tolerated fraud, which may be pleaded in precedent for any other exaction.
The road after leaving Arjona, and thence to Turbaco, was throughout good. It led through devious ways and very deep forests, parts of which had been recently felled on each side of the road for several miles before ascending the ridge that leads to Turbaco. We entered this delightful town about five o'clock, by a gentle ascent, and found the height, broad and sloping, covered with a delicate green turf above the summits of the surrounding forests, which fil- led the foot of the high ground in every direction. The place was laid out in spacious streets of forty feet broad, as usual intersected at right angles. The houses were not continuous, though on the line of the street — all of one sto- ry, but that lofty and well thatched — having a broad veran- dah in front, to which it was necessary to ascend one or two steps from the street. The alcalde here was an obliging man, he rode up from the extreme end of the town to meet us, and conducted us to a commodious house, left a servant to provide us whatever we stood in need of, and who obtained for us good wheaten bread and fresh milk. This delightful town of Turbaco is about fifteen or sixteen miles from Car- tagena, and is occupied by about a hundred and fifty com- modious houses of one story, neat and clean within and without, and the inhabitants polished, courteous, and obli- ging. Many families of Cartagena have establishments here, to which they retire at the warm season of the year, or at other times, to recreate or to recruit health. This place is said to have, at one period, had a population of 200,000 Indians — indeed the elevated ground would admit of 5000 houses without incommoding any — and with spacious gar-
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 619
den and pasture room for all that is necessary to human comfort ; and the most delicious springs are every where around. We had heard of Los Volcamtos of Turbaco, which are at five miles distance from this place, and on ground of greater elevation. In a swamp of some extent, upon this high ground, several irregular hillocks rise to the height of thirty or forty feet, conical in form, and represent- ed as having a bason at the summit filled with water, which sends forth small flashes of inflamed gas, at unequal intervals. We had not time to see and speak for ourselves of these Volcanitos ; the stories we heard are not such as we could warrant ; and what is here given is only from the casual in- formation of others.
Turbaco is memorable in the history of this part of the country in different ages. It was here that Alonzo Ojeda, inj!610, put the Indians to the rout. Heredia, another Span- ish commander, fought some battles here, and burnt the city to the ground, since which time the place has been aban- doned by the natives. Here Morillo fixed his head-quarters on llth June, 1815, and attacked La Popa defended by Col. Soublette; here it was that Bolivar established his head quarters first, when the federal spirit which set the provinces in hostility to each other, induced Castillo to refuse co-opera- tion with Bolivar ; here it was, that while Morillo was alluring him by a truce and a compromise, Bolivar prepared the way for the final subjection of Cartagena.
On the 20th of May, before dawn, we were on our route to Cartagena ; the night was cool and delightful, and the line a continued descent, but very gradual. Much more labour has been bestowed in rendering this passage com- modious than any I had seen. The hills, where they pre- sented inequalities, have been cut down, to pursue the incli- nation of the line in a graduation uniform and regular. But, like all things begun by the Spaniards, they are still undone, or only half done : this road, however, admits of a wheel carriage all the way, but there are some parts which will
620 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
admit no more than one. The only wheel carriages in the republic, are a few heavy-built machines, called volantes* with heavy shafts and bodies ; but which will disappear, and their place be supplied throughout the republic, when- ever the government begins to execute the principles in which they concurred in 1823. Roads alone are now the desiderata of the republic. With good roads its commerce would quadruple every year, for a century of years, the pro- duct of the year preceding. The world is still insensible of the resources of Colombia.
We passed the village of Benavides amidst hedges of cot- ton-trees, whose ripe and unpicked fleeces were flaring in the breeze, and fringing the flowering shrubs with every tint and hue. The village of Ternera, on our right still farther on, had something of the appearance of a military hamlet, such as are every where seen adjacent to large garrisons ; where the old veteran finds a nurse, the idler a lurking place ; whence the morning's parade of the garrison, and the Sunday inspection, exhibits the handy-work of soap and starch, and the smooth- ing iron of the village washerwomen, whom we could discern with their elbows in the suds narrating the battles of their lovers, or chaunting an eulogistic canta or an aria on Bolivar.
As my family had been here some time, old friends were on the watch, as we descended the hill from which the sea and the Popa of Carthagena first broke upon us, and finally the exquisite picture of the city, its splendid bason of Tosca, and the crowd of ships and objects which occupy the space of vision all around. The figure I presented in a black silk coat, a broad-leafed hat of native manufacture, which I had worn daily on the road since I left Caracas, military boots, and linen very much in need of the laundress, whose snowy handy- works I had but just past. My friend Major Brush scarcely recognised my face under the the painting of sun- shine and the growth of beard. We entered this justly ce- lebrated and beautiful city, and I found my family perfectly at home.
VISIT TO COLOMBIA. 621
The entrance to Cartagena leaves the celebrated mountain called La Popa on the right ; and about midway between La Popa and the east face of the works, is St. Lazare, a low hill, on which was erected originally an hospital, and more recently a military work, which I understood to be called the castle of St. Philip ; it was originally left unoccupied, but it was in time found to command the entire rear of Cartagena ; and is now rendered very strong. The face of Cartagena as approached on this side is by much the most masterly part of the military works ; it is not only beautiful as a spectacle, but admirable for its military architecture and efficiency; its force, well manned and served, is such as to forbid all approach on that side : the works on other parts, particularly on the sea face, are inferior in science and in appearance.
The baggage of travellers is examined on passing the first barrier. Little incidents illustrate manners and impressions. I rode along with my friends towards the place I was to lodge ; the servant remained with the baggage, but I had the keys ; George hallooed loudly after me, " Colonel ! colonel!" I turned about, and when I reached the custom-house the officer apologised, and said he did not understand I was colonel, or my baggage should not have been stopped a mo- ment. The man's eyes were not to be reproached, for my figure as I passed him looked like any thing but a colonel. The point most remarkable is the deference paid to the mi- litary rank.
I was lodged in the house of my friend, W. D. Robinson, who was then absent at Santa Marta, but who returned before my departure. Here I found my family party.
The delay waiting for a passage afforded full opportunities to examine this splendid and charmingly-situated city. The works of Cartagena have been described so frequently, that little could be added, unless that the impressions of its strength altogether appeared to me much less after the view than be- fore. The Bay, fourteen miles in length, is beautiful, but I
622 VISIT TO COLOMBIA.
apprehend the Spaniards, by stopping up the Bocca Grande r, under the notion of rendering the place stronger by leaving the Bocca Chica alone open to navigation, have prepared the way for closing up a considerable part of the bason. The light tide of a foot to eighteen inches flows now through the bay at ebb and flood ; but a strong current rushed through the Bocca Grande, which required a labour of thirty years to close it up.
The residence at Cartagena was a constant entertainment, and poor Robinson appeared to derive relief from disease, by administering to our enjoyments. Much injustice has been done, and mere justice would be sufficient to render the memory of this man, who lately died at Caracas, respected by every good heart. An occasion may yet present itself to offer that tribute to this worthy man.
We remained till June, and the incidents of the voyage being only such as are common, we landed at New York quarantine ground the fourth of July.
APPENDIX.
No, I.
FUNDAMENTAL LAW
OF THE
REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA.
THE Sovereign Congress of Venezuela, whose authority has been voluntarily recognized by the people of New Grenada, liberated by the arms of the republic, considering —
1. That the Provinces of Venezuela and New Grenada, united in a single re- public, possess all the requisites for attaining the highest degree of power and prosperity : ,
2. That if formed into distinct republics, and even united by the closest ties, far from profiting by their great advantages, they could, with difficulty, give sta- bility to, and command respect for, their sovereignty :
3. That these truths, being deeply impressed on the minds of all men of su- perior talents and sound patriotism, have determined the governments of the two Republics to agree upon their Union, hitherto obstructed by the vicissitudes of war :
WHEREFORE, actuated by necessity and mutual interest, and conforming to the report of a Special Committee of Deputies from New Grenada and Venezuela,
In the name, and under the protection of the Almighty, they have decreed, and do hereby decree, the following Fundamental LCTM of the Republic of Co- lombia :
ART. 1. The Republics of Venezuela and New Grenada are henceforth united in one, under the glorious title of the Republic of Colombia :
2. Its territory shall comprehend the former Captain-Generalship of Venezu- ela and the Viceroyalty of New Grenada, comprehending an extent of a hun- dred and fifteen thousand square leagues, the precise limits whereof shall be fixed hereafter.
3. The debts contracted separately by the two Republics, are hereby consoli- dated as a national debt of Colombia, for jthe payment of which all the property of the state is pledged, and the most productive branches of the public revenue shall be appropriated.
4. The Executive power of the Republic shall be vested in a President, and, in case of vacancy, by a Vice-President, both to be provisionally appointed by the present Congress.
5. The Republic of Colombia shall be (pro tern.} divided into the three great Departments of Venezuela, Quito, and Cundinamarca, comprising the Provinces of New Grenada, which denomination is henceforth abolished ; and their Capitals shall be the cities of Caracas, Qitito, and Bogota, the adjunct Santa F£ being annulled.
6. Each Department shall have a Superior Administration, with a chief, to be appointed for the present by the Congress, and entitled a Vice-President.
7. A new city, to be called Bolivar, in honour of the assertor of the public li- berty, shall be the Capital of the Republic of Colombia. Its plan and situation to be fixed on by the first General Congress, upon the principle of adapting it
APPENDIX.
to the exigencies of the three departments, and to the future grandeur to which nature has destined this opulent country.
8. The General Congress of Colombia shall assemble, on the first day of Janu- ary, 1821, in the town of Rosario de Cucuta, which, from various circumstances, is considered the most eligible situation. It shall be convened by the President of the Republic, on the first day of January, 1820, who shall communicate such regulations concerning elections as may be formed by a special committee, and approved by the present Congress.
9. The Constitution of the Republic of Colombia shall be formed by the Ge- neral Congress ; to which shall be submitted, in the form of a plan, the Constitu- tion decreed by the present Congress, which, together with the laws enacted by that body, shall be provisionally carried into execution.
10. The arms and flag of Colombia shall be determined on by the General Congress, and in the mean time those of Venezuela, being most known, shall continue to be used.
11. The present Congress shall adjourn on the 15th January, 1820, after which the new elections to the General Congress of Colombia shall be made.
12. A committee of six members and a President shall replace the Congress, whose particular powers and duties shall be regulated by a decree.
13. The Republic of Colombia shall be solemnly proclaimed throughout the towns and armies, accompanied by public festivals and rejoicings, and this cere- mony shall take place in the Capital on the 25th of the present month, in com- memoration of the birth of the Saviour of the World, through whose especial fa- vour this wished-fdr union, regenerating the state, has been obtained.
14. The anniversary of this political regeneration shall be perpetually cele- brated with the solemnities of a national festival, at which, in imitation of the Olympia^ premiums shall be adjudged to citizens distinguished by their virtues and their talents.
The present fundamental law of the Republic of Colombia shall be solemnly promulgated throughout the towns and armies, inscribed on all the public re- cords, and deposited in all the archives of societies, municipalities, and corpora- tions, both clerical and secular.
Given at the Palace of the Sovereign Congress of Venezuela, in the city of St. Thomas de Angostura, on the llth day of December, in the year of our Lord 1819, ninth of Independence.
FRANCISCO ASTOITIO ZEA, President of the Congress, Juan German Roscio, Antonio M. Briceiio, Ignacio Munoz,
Manuel Sedeno, Eusebio Afanador, Onofre Bazalo,
.Juan Martinez, Francisco Conde, Domingo Alzuru,
Jose Espana, Diego Bautista Urbaneja, Jose Tomas Machado,
Luis Tomas Poraza, Juan Vincente Cardoso, Ramon Garcia Gadiz,
Diego de Vallenilla, Deputy and Secretari/.
APPENDIX. 625
No. II.
FUNDAMENTAL LAW
OF THE
UNION OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOMBIA.
WE the Representatives of the People of New Granada and Venezeula, in ge- neral congress assembled,
Having carefully considered the fundamental law of the Republic of Colombia, passed by the Congress of Venezuela, at the city of St Thomas of Angostu- ra, on the 17th day of December, A. D. 1819, are of opinion,
1. That united in one republic, the provinces of Venezuela, and New Grana- da, possess all the means and faculties necessary to place them in the most ele- vated state of power and prosperity.
2. That constituted into separate republics, however closely bound by the ties of union, they would find it difficult to give stability or induce respect for their sovereignty.
3. That, deeply penetrated by these advantages, all men of superior intelli- gence, and distinguished patriotism, have declared, that the governments of the two republics should form an union, which the vicissitudes of war have hi- therto prevented.
4. Finally, that the same considerations of reciprocal interest, and a necessity most manifest, had made it obligatory on the Congress of Venezuela, to antici- pate this measure, which has been proclaimed in the most authorotative manner, by the unanimous votes of the people of both countries.
In the name, and under the auspices of the Supreme being, they have decreed, and do hereby decree, the solemn ratification of the Fundamental Law of the Republic of Colombia, which has been before mentioned, in the follow- ing manner :
Art. I. The people of New Granada and Venezuela, being united in one na- tional body, founded on a compact, which determines, that the government is now, and shall for ever be, popular and representative,
Art. II. This new nation shall be known, and denominated, by the title of the REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA.
Art. III. The Colombian nation is, and shall for ever be, irrevocably free and independent of the Spanish monarchy, and of every other foreign power or domination ; nor shall it ever be the patrimony of any family or person.
Art. IV. The supreme national power shall always be separately exercised, and divided into legislative, executive, and juridical.
Art. V. The territory of the Republic of Colombia, shall comprehend all that was within the limits of the ancient Captain-generalship of Venezuela, and the Viceroyalty of New Granada ; but reserving for a more suitable time their pre- cise demarcation.
Art. VI. For the more advantageous administration of the Republic, its terri- tory shall for the present be divided into six or more departments, each bearing a particular name, with a subordinate administration dependant on the national government.
Art. VII. The present Congress of Colombia, shall form the Constitution of the Republic, in conformity with the principles here expressed, upon those liberal principles which have been consecrated by the wise practice of other free nations.
Ai't. VIII. They recognize in solidum, as the national debt of Colombia, all the debts which the two people have separately contracted ; and for which they make responsible all the property of the Republic.
79
626
APPENDIX.
Art. IX. The Congress shall, in the mode that may be found convenient, ap- propriate the branches most productive of the public revenue, the taxes, and shall create a special sinking fund for the redemption of the principal, and pay- ing the interest of the public debt, duly verified and liquidated according to law.
Art. X. In more favourable circumstances, there shall DC erected a new city, with the name of the Libertador BOLIVAR, which shall be the Capital of the Re- public of Colombia. Its plan and site shall be determined by Congress, founded on the principle of accommodation to convenience of the different parts of this vast territoiy, and the grandeur to which this country is destined by nature.
Art. XI. Meanwhile, until Congress shall establish the distinctive insignia, and the flag of Colombia, the actual flags of New Granada and Venezuela shall be continued in use.
Art. XII. The ratification of the establishment of the Colombian Republic, and the publication of the constitution, shall be celebrated in the towns and in the armies, with festivity, and public rejoicings, making known, in all places, the solemnity of the day on which the constitution is promulgated.
Art. XIII. There shall be perpetually a national festival, for three days in each year, upon which shall be celebrated the Anniversary —
1. Of the emancipation and independence of the people of Colombia.
2. The union in one republic, and the establishment of the Constitution.
3. To those great triumphs and splendid victories, by which we have con- quered and secured these blessings.
Art. XIV. 'I his national festival shall be celebrated every year, on the 25th 26th and 27th of December, consecrating each day to the special remembrance of one of those three glorious causes, and in particular, to that of the virtues, the intelligence, and the services rendered to the country.
The present fundamental law of the union of the people of Colombia, shall be solemnly promulgated in the towns, and in the armies, inscribed on the public registers, and deposited in all the archives of the cabildos and corporations, civil and ecclesiastical, and shall be communicated to the supreme executive power by a special deputation.
Done in the palace of the general congress of Colombia, in the town of Rosario de Cucuta, the 12th July, A. D. 1820, twelfth year of Independence.
JOSE IGNACIO MARQUES, President. ANTONIO M. BRICENO, Vice President.
Felix Restrepo, Jos£ Cornelius Vallacia, Fran, de Orbegogo, Lorenzo St. Ander, Andres Rojas, Gabriel Bricevio, Jose Prudencia Lanz, Miguel Tobar, Jose A. Mencloza, Sinforoso Mutis, lldefonso Mendez, Vincente Borrero, Mariano Escobar, Diego B. Urbaneja, Francisco Conde, Cerbellon Urbina, Jose Ignacio Balbuena,
Manuel M. Quijano, Casimiro Calvo, Carlos Alvarez, Juan B. Esteves, Bernardino Tovar, Louis Ignacio Mencloza, Jose Manuel Restrepo, Jose Joaquin Borrero, Vincente Azuero, Domingo B. Bricerio, Jose Gabrel de Alcala, Francisco Gomez, Miguel Pena, Fernando Penalver, Jose M. Hinestrosa, Ramon Ignacio Mendez, Joaquin Ferandozal Soto,
Pedro F. Carbajal, Miguel Ibanez, Diego F. Gomez, Jose Antonio Yanez, Jose Antonio Paredes, Joaquin Plata, Francisco Jose Olero, Salvador Camacho, Nic. Ballen de Gu/.man, Jose Felix Blanco, Miguel de Zarraga, Pedro Gual, Alejandro Osorio, Policarpo Uricoichea, Manuel Reniles, Juan Ronderos, Pacifico Jaime,
The Deputy and Secretary, MIGUEL SANTAMARIA. The Deputy and Secretary, FRANCISCO SOTO.
This instrument was further signed by the ministers of the interior, and the Vice President, St. Ander— and so promulged— the Constitution being formed in conformity thereto.
ITINERARIES.
It must be premised, that exactness or accuracy is not to be expected in any of these itineraries ; they are mostly measured by time. The first itinerary is computed from the space over which a mule is supposed to travel in a given time. But as the difference between a road on a plain and a road on an ascent differs materially, and both from a descending road, there can be no uniformity as to time and space in the passage of such routes. A like difference will be found in the condition of different mules, and of the same mules in changes of temper- ature ; the ordinary journey of the mules procured from the alcaldes on the road, is from twenty to thirty miles a day, but twenty -five is most frequent ; though we have travelled forty miles of a day, availing ourselves of the cool serenity of the moonlight nights. Where leagues are expressed, the leagues are not the same in different parts of the country — being in some cases leagues of 5000 geometri- cal paces, leagues of Burgos, leagues of Castile, French, Italian, or geographical leagues of twenty or twenty -five to the degree ; so that they are to be considered only as approximations, upon which scarcely two travellers agree. It was given me as a rule for the Itinerary of the Magdalena, to deduct one mile out of forty, which would bring Spanish leagues to an equal quantity ; but the rule would not work — the number of leagues on that itinerary 1 think excessive-
No. I. The first, entitled " Demonstration de este Viaje," 8tc. is the Itinerary of Padre Madrigada, canon of Chili, when sent on a secret mission from Bogota in 1812.
No. II. Itinerary on the return of the Minister on a new and untravelled route, by the Meta river.
No. III. Colonel Acosta's Itinerary from Caracas to Bogota. No. IV. Do. do. from Bogota to Carthagena.
No. V. Itinerary from Bogota to Carthagena, by an Officer,
628
APPENDIX.
NO. I.
DEMONSTRACION DE ESTE VIAGE FOR TIERUA Y AGUA CARACAS A BOGOTA E INVERSO.
|
Jor na- das. |
Fechas y horas de p arter. |
Lugare* de Salida. |
De Almorazar. |
De Comer. |
Derendir Jor- nada. |
I.eguas de camino se- *nn calcula lorario. |
|
1 |
Dec. 26, a. in. 6 |
Caracas* |
Buena Vista |
San Pedro |
Laxas |
~~13~~ |
|
3 |
22, 5 |
Laxas§ |
Coquzas |
Victoria |
Victoria |
5 |
|
4 |
23, 5* 24, 3i |
Victoria^ Maracay |
Guerre San Joaquin |
GUerre San Joaquin |
Maracay Valencia |
10 14 |
|
5 |
Enero 1, p.m. 6 |
Valencia* |
Tocuyito |
2 |
||
|
6 |
2, a.m. 5 |
Tocuyito |
Carabobo |
Chirgua |
Tinaquillo |
12 |
|
7 |
3, 5 |
Tinaquillo |
Palmas |
Paso de la |
San Carlos |
13 |
|
. 8 |
10, p.m. 6 |
San Carlos* |
[Laxa |
San Jose |
1 |
|
|
9 |
11, a.m. 3 |
San Jose |
Camoruco |
Camoruco |
Caramacate |
14 |
|
,10 |
12, 6 |
Caramacate |
El Altar |
El Altar |
Gamelotal |
8 |
|
11 |
13, 5 |
Gamelotal |
La Morita |
Morita |
Barquesimeto |
12 |
|
12 |
16, 2 |
Burquesimeto |
Quibor |
Quibor |
Quibor |
10 |
|
[de Madrugada |
||||||
|
13 |
17, 5 |
Quibor |
Tocuyo |
Tocuyo [baxo |
8 |
|
|
14 |
21, 7 |
Tocuyo* |
Buena Vista |
Buena Vista |
Humocaro |
10 |
|
15 |
22, 12 |
ffumocaro Baxo |
Pena |
8 |
||
|
16 |
23, 9 |
Pena |
En el Monte |
Agua Obispos |
Palmas |
8 |
|
17 |
24, 8 |
Palmas |
tdem |
Carache |
Carache |
6 |
|
18 |
25, 7 |
Carache |
Santa Ana |
Santa Ana |
Santa Ana |
9 |
|
En el Caracol, |
||||||
|
19 |
26, 5i |
Santa Ana |
En el Monte |
sombre de un |
Truxillo |
8 |
|
arbol |
[la Plata |
|||||
|
20 |
29, 7 |
Truxillo* |
Sabana Larga |
Hacienda de |
9 |
|
|
21 |
30, 4^ |
Plata |
[esta |
Mendoza |
La Puerta |
r t |
|
22 |
31, 7 |
Puerta |
Pie de la Cu- |
Timothes |
8 |
|
|
23 |
Feb. 2, 11 |
Timothes |
La Venta |
La Venta |
3 |
|
|
24 |
3, 6 |
La Venta |
Mucuchies |
Mucuchies |
11 |
|
|
25 |
4, 8 |
Mucuchies |
Mucupiche |
Merida |
7 |
|
|
26 |
7, 8 |
Merida* |
Egido |
Valle de Cu- |
9 |
|
|
[rupa |
||||||
|
27 28 |
8, 7 11, 6 |
Curupa Estanques |
[la Pena Hacienda de |
Lagunillas Pena |
Bstanques Bayladores |
11 7 |
|
29 |
12, 5 |
Bayladores |
Bayladores |
Cebada |
5 |
|
|
30 |
13, 7 |
Cebada |
En el Monte |
La Gritja |
Gritja |
8 |
|
31 |
14, 8 |
Gritja* |
Higuera |
Higuera |
7 |
|
|
32 |
15, 7 |
tliguera |
Sabana Larga |
10 |
||
|
33 |
10, 5 |
Sabana Larga |
Capacho |
Cucuta |
12 |
|
|
34 |
20, 9 |
Cucuta Rosario |
Garita |
6 |
||
|
35 |
21, 7 |
Garita |
Chinacota |
Alinadero |
6 |
|
|
36 |
22, 8£ |
Alinadero |
Chopo |
Pamplona |
10 |
|
|
37 |
28, 10 |
Pamplona* |
[Guesta |
Venta |
Cacota |
4 |
|
38 |
Mar. 1, 7i |
Cacota |
Baxada de la |
Llano Grande |
Chitaga |
7 |
|
39 |
2, 7 |
Chitaga |
Paramo Co- |
Pie del Para- |
9 |
|
|
[Grande |
rn agate |
[mo Grande |
||||
|
40 |
3, 8 |
Pie del Paramo |
Cerrito |
Concepcion |
8 |
|
|
41 |
4, 12 |
Concepcion |
Llano Ansiso |
4 |
||
|
42 |
5, 7 |
Ansiso |
Orillas de Rio |
Capitanejo |
Chibatera |
8 |
|
Capitanejo |
||||||
|
43 |
6, 5£ |
Chibatera |
Venta de Su- |
Suata |
Suata |
9 |
|
[ata |
||||||
|
44 |
7, p.m. 2 |
Suata |
Susacon |
11 |
||
|
45 |
8, a.m. 7 |
Susacon |
Sativa |
Sativa |
Eslaba |
9 |
|
46 |
9, 7 |
Eslaba |
En el Monte |
Serinza |
Santa Rosa |
8 |
|
47 |
10, 8 |
Santa Rosa |
Llanos |
Venta Sisga |
Venta deMico |
14 |
|
48 |
11, 7 |
Venta de Mico |
Hicata |
Venta Que- |
15 |
|
|
mada |
||||||
|
49 |
12, 7 |
Venta Quemada |
En la Cuesta |
Hato Viejo |
Seducio |
16 |
|
50 |
13, 6 |
Seducio |
Suesca |
Guatavita |
Bogota |
26 |
|
Bogota* |
1 |
—45. |
||||
|
In the several places are prefixed a characteristic mark, apparently intended to designate the relative i |
||||||
|
.frequence of the several places, and the following; appears to be the order of magnitude or importance :-* |
APPENDIX.
629
NO. II.
ITINERARY OF A JOURNEY BY THE MET A AND THE LLANOS TO CARACAS. BY THE CANON OF CHILI.
|
Days.! Departure. |
Time. 1 Place of Departure. |
Place of Halting. |
Nature of Country. |
Leagues. |
||
|
1 |
June 14 |
).m. 12^ Bogota |
Chipaque |
settled |
6 |
|
|
2 |
15 |
a. m. 10 jChipaque |
Coqueza |
4 |
||
|
3 |
18 |
6 iCaqueza |
Messita |
5 |
||
|
4 |
19 |
6i |
Vlessita |
Taravita |
5 |
|
|
5 |
21 |
7 |
Taravita |
Susumuco |
desert |
5 |
|
6 |
22 |
5 |
Susumuco |
Servita |
settled |
5 |
|
7 |
24 |
6 |
Servita |
Asury |
10 |
|
|
8 |
July 8 |
7 |
Asuay |
1st post of |
desert |
8 . |
|
9 |
y 9 |
p.m. 5 |
1st post of Cundinamarca |
Cundina- |
Rio Negro |
2 |
|
10 |
10 |
a. m. 6 |
Playa |
marca |
do. |
12 |
|
11 |
11 |
6 |
of the Meta |
18 |
||
|
12 |
12 |
9 |
Bahaia Corte |
settled |
20 |
|
|
13 |
18 |
7 |
St. Miguel de Jua |
12 |
||
|
14 |
19 |
6 |
Maquivo |
17 |
||
|
15 |
20 |
6* |
Boca del Guarimena |
15 |
||
|
16 |
23 |
8 |
St. Miguel de Macuco |
11 |
||
|
17 |
24 |
p.m. 2 |
St. Augustine de Guanapalo |
desert |
6 |
|
|
18 |
25 |
1* |
St. Rosalie de Cabapuri |
11 |
||
|
19 |
26 |
a. m. 6£ |
Yslote |
8 |
||
|
20 |
27 |
6 |
Ysla |
16 |
||
|
21 |
28 |
5 |
15 |
|||
|
22 |
^Q |
5 |
18 |
|||
|
23 |
30 |
5i |
15 |
|||
|
24 |
31 |
11 |
Retire de Camelsford |
5 |
||
|
25 26 |
August 1 2 |
6 6 |
Piedra de Tigre Riv. del Auraca |
22* 21 |
||
|
27 |
3 |
8 |
Playa de Chiguires |
settled |
22 |
|
|
28 |
4 |
«i |
ftiv. de Altamayca |
|||
|
29 |
6 |
Sis |
St. Rafael del Altama |
4£ |
||
|
30 |
7 |
s |
Uano del Gasgua |
10 |
||
|
31 |
8 |
8 |
Uano del Negro |
12 |
||
|
32 |
9 |
11 |
Guayabal en el Guarico |
desert |
13 |
|
|
33 |
10 |
5 |
Playa de Perital |
settled |
8 |
|
|
34 |
12 |
6 |
Alta Gracia |
desert |
10 |
|
|
35 |
13 |
6* |
Playa |
8 |
||
|
36 |
14 |
*i |
Las Palmes |
9 |
||
|
37 |
15 |
6 |
Playa Estrecha |
settled |
10 |
|
|
38 |
21 |
8 |
Calabozo |
10 |
||
|
39 |
22 |
5 |
Pilar |
6 |
||
|
40 |
23 |
6 |
Hato de Ascaiio |
7 |
||
|
41 |
24 |
7 |
Mosquitero |
6 |
||
|
42 |
25 |
5 |
Flores |
5 |
||
|
43 |
26 |
7 |
St. Juan de los Moros |
6 |
||
|
44 |
27 |
6* |
St. Luis de Cura |
5 |
||
|
45 |
28 |
5 |
Victoria |
settled |
6 |
|
|
46 |
29 |
Laxas |
settled |
18 |
||
|
47 |
30 |
St. Pedro |
settled |
5 |
||
|
48 |
31 |
Caracas |
settled |
18—300 |
Both these Itineraries were performed in 1812.
630 APPENDIX.
NO. III.— ITINERARY OF COLONEL ACOSTA, ON THE ROUTE FROM CARACAS BY THE SAFEST ROAD, AND MOST CONVENIENT FOR SUBSISTENCE AND ABUNDANT PROVISIONS.
Span, leagues From Caracas to St. Pedro, . . . . 6£
to Victoria, passing Consejo, .... 11
by San Mateo to Maracay in the valley of Aragua, . . 7
by St. Joaquin, Guacara, and Guayo, to Valencia, . 10
The route thus far excellent, having only to pass the highlands to the foot of Cocuyzas.
by Tucuyta to Tanaquilla, . . . . . 10
toTinaco, ....... 9i
San Carlos, ...... 4£
Good road, having only to pass the heights of Palmas and Hermanas.
To the estate of Onoto, ..... 8
by the mountain El Altar to the village of Cabudare, . . 13 to Barquisimeto, ...... 1£
This route is good, excepting only the Altar mountain, which in winter is very bad, and it is necessary to dismount even in summer, to Quibor, . . " . . . . .10
Tucuyo, . ... 6
These two journeys may be performed in one, by setting out in the afternoon and travelling all night, as the road is good and the sun by day is hot. to Humacaro Baxo, ...... 6
Obispos, ...... 6£
Carache, ....... 5
Santa Ana, ...... 6$
Truxillo, . ..... 5|
Good roads the first and last days' journeys, the rest high lands, but these last five may be travelled with ease in four days. To Mendoza, ....... 11
The road diverges into a large plain, in which there are houses to accom- modate travellers.
From Mendoza to Puerte, Timothes, and Chacopo, . . 8
This road is not good ; the paramo commences here, which is called Muchechies, at the
village of Muchechies, (tolerably cold,) ... 5^
by Mucurabo, Tabay, to Merida,
by San Juan to the villa of Egido, < . . 6$
to the plantation of Estanques, ... 6
This part of the road is bad, and in some places dangerous, from its declivity and narrowness, to Bayladores Village, ... . 6£
From thue village to the town of Bayladores, 2£ ? Q
toGritja, . . . 6^5
This road is not good, and in Gritja terminates the desert, called that of Wild Boars.
To the post house El Cobre, .... B
The desert commences here, and terminates beyond the post-house of Ahullamar.
From El Cobre to Ahullamar, . . . . • 5
to the village of Tariba, ..... 4
to San Chnstoval, ...... 1
These three journeys should be performed in two, but it is necessary to carry provisions.
ToCapacho, 4O Q
San Antonio de Cucuta, . 4£3
APPENDIX. 631
This is the last village of Venezuela, and one fourth of a league from it the river Tachira separates Cundinamarca from Venezuela ; one fourth of a league further you reach Rosario de Cucuta, a town of
Cundinamarca, ...... i
to San Joseph, ....... 2
Chopo, ....... 10
If it be not necessary to change mules, you may take the direct road
without entering St. Josef direct for Pamplona, . . 8
from Pamplona to village of C*ucuta, ... 2 J
to Chitaga, ....... 4|
The desert of Chitaga commences here, the road mountainous and bad.
to Cerrito, ....... 6
to Capitanejo, through the villages of Conception and Enciso, 10 In the village of Capitanejo the river is crossed ; it is a rapid stream, and the bridge not repaired.
From Cupitanejo to Zoata, ..... 4
to Susacon, ...... 3
Satiba, ....... 3$
Parish of Serinza, ..... 7
SautaHosa, ...... 3^
Paypa, 5$
Tunja, S
The venta of Barrazon, lofty mountain, snowy, covered always, 8£
Choconta, . . . . . . . 6
Zipaquira, ...... 8
If it be not requisite to change mules, the route may be pursued direct by Zesquile, without passing through Zipaquira.
From Zipaquira to Bogota, ..... 7
NO. IV.— ITINERARY OF COLONEL ACOSTA FROM BOGOTA TO CAR
TAGENA.
It is necessary to write beforehand to the chief persons of villages, to procure the requisite mules for saddle and baggage, to prevent detention.
It is also necessary to carry one or two trunks for the conveyance of provi- sions and refreshments.
Road from Bogota, by the Magdalena : by land, from Bogota to Honda. From Bogota to Facatatiba, ..... 6
to Villeta, ...... 5
Guaduas, ... ,
Bodegas de Honda, ..... 7—22
This whole road has been measured geometrically, and marked every half league as far as Facatatiba, where the mountains commence, the road leading over the famous heights of Trigo and Sargento.
The navigation of the Magdalena from Honda to Nare, . 43$
Thei'e are seven passes that are bad and dangerous, and some others not so dangerous, so that a tow line becomes necessary in navigating upward.
From Nare to San Bartolemeo, . . . 26£
to San Pablo, . ...
the national post of Ocaiia, ....
Mompox, . . . . .
Baranquilla, . ... 59
Sabanilla, ...... 7
There are many villages on the river not noticed here, where provisions are to be had, and fish especially abundant.
632
APPENDIX.
No. V.— ITINERARY OF THE ROUTE FROM BOGOTA TO HONDA— BY THE MAGDALENA TO MOMPOX AND BARRANCAS NUEVO, BY LAND TO TURBACO AND CARTAGENA.
|
From Bogota to Span, leagues. Span, leagues. Facitativa, ... 6 Mjnchiqueo, ... 2 |
|||
|
Villetta, .... |
8 |
Mompox, |
5 |
|
Guaduas, .... |
7 |
San Simon, |
4 |
|
Bodega de Honda, |
8 |
Santa Fernanda, |
I |
|
The ferry to Honda, |
1* |
Santa Ana, ... |
2 |
|
From Honda by Conejo andYeno |
Pinto, .... |
5 |
|
|
toGuarumo .... |
6i |
Plato, .... |
12 |
|
Buenavista, - |
5 |
Teneriffe, |
4 |
|
Nare, |
10 |
Ezero, |
6 |
|
Gurapata, |
9 |
Pedraza, - |
6 |
|
San Bartolemeo, |
45 |
El Cerro, .... |
3 |
|
San Pablo, |
38 |
Penon Baxo, |
2 |
|
Barillos, .... |
15 |
Punto Gordo, ... |
3 |
|
Morales, ... |
12 |
Guimara, |
4 |
|
Rio Viejo, ... |
11 |
Remolinas, |
4 |
|
Regidor, - |
4 |
Barrancas Nuevo, |
6 |
|
San Pedro, |
5 |
Overland to |
|
|
Temalamecrue, |
3 |
7 |
|
|
7 |
Arjona, ... |
6 |
|
|
Guamar, |
2 |
Turbaco |
8 |
|
Margarita, - |
1 |
Benavides, ... |
5 |
|
San Fernando, |
4 |
Cartagena, |
10 |
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