Dabney Herndon Maury

“ He asserts that a strong government is essential to the peace and consequent prosperity of Colombia; that the people are not educated or intelligent enough to govern themselves; and that therefore he will govern them, and meantime educate them, until they shall be capable, as we of the United States are, of having a free government. ”

“ For more than twenty miles that company had made a canal, one hundred yards wide at the brim, and thirty feet deep, with the slopes of the banks securely sodded with wire grass; so that, should the scheme of an Isthmus canal ever again be agitated, the American half of the work will be found ready for service. I believe that our interests will be better served by the Nicaraguan than the Isthmian route, which lies out of the track of our commerce with the Pacific Coast, as well as of our trade with China. ”

“ When struck elsewhere, or when startled by the passage of the bullet, the alligator flounders with great to-do into the river, but when fatally hit his tail quivers, and he lies still until some native takes his skin and fat. ”

“ The expedition of Vernon against Cartagena was prepared with great ostentation and parade. One hundred ships and fourteen thousand men sailed and debarked before the place. Vernon's long and conspicuous preparations gave due notice of the object of his attack, and he found the Spaniards had not been idle or unprepared. In those days, no troops were so good as they, nor were any officers so proud and skillful; for they were in constant wars and rarely met defeat. ”

“ He says the following is a list of the chief agricultural products of Colombia: Cocoanut palm, cocoa, date palm, cotton, indigo, rice, yucca, sugarcane, anise, plantains and bananas, tobacco, olives, maize, aloes, caoutchouc, coffee, arrocucha, apples, eucalyptus, wheat, cinchona, cochineal, potatoes, and barley. All of these can be raised at little cost. Colombia is the home of the potato. They are raised there in fine quality and in great abundance. Wheat and corn yield two crops a year, yet the largest export from the United States to Colombia is of wheat flour. ”

“ They live and die in their dreadful isolation, in full view of the shipping of the great city and the people of the busy world they can never enter more. A canal ninety miles long, called the Dique, connects Cartagena with the Magdalena River at Calamar. Steamboats run up this canal into the river and thence up to Honda, at the base of the Andes. ”

“ The raising of coffee is the most lucrative business, and as it is always conducted in a healthy region, well up the mountain, is very tempting to foreign capital. The trees do not bear until they are four years old, and during that time the expenses are heavy, and there is no return. ”

“ The native horses are rarely over fifteen hands high, and but few are that height. They all pace from their birth, and are active, enduring, and gentle. The method of breaking young horses is very cruel, but is effectual. They are tamed forever after. There are a few imported coach horses in Bogota, but they are very clumsy, heavy-footed beasts. ”

“ When one remembers that for a long time civil wars recurring every three or four years have stopped the progress and wasted the resources of this rich country, one cannot withhold approval of Nunez's policy, so far as it can preserve peace throughout the country. ”

“ In butchering beef, all the flesh is cut from the bone, so that the viscera, hide, head, and bones made the gross weight of this animal over 3000 pounds. He had on his estate a number of cattle of equal size fattened on blue grass, the seed of which he procured from Kentucky. The native grasses are excellent. ”

“ The sport would be wanton, but that the creatures are very prolific and dangerous to human life. The only vulnerable spot is the eye or the point where the jaw joins the throat. A ball, even from our Winchesters, could not penetrate any other part of their armored bodies. ”

“ The cries of the muleteers are not unmusical, and cheer their animals, while they lend life to the road. They also keep all wild animals away, and serpents, too. I never saw in all of my hunts and travels one of those dangerous and tremendous snakes of which such terrible accounts are told. ”

“ They are verdant from base to summit, and covered with small farms of bananas, corn, barley, etc., all cultivated by the hoe, -- for no plough can work on their steep sides, -- and along the whole road, which was paved by the Spaniards, one is never out of sight and sound of the pack trains passing up and down. ”

“ Of these, the United States received a little over $3,000,000. The imports the same year were $8,719,297. England's share of this was $3,611,775, the United States getting only $9739 worth of goods. The Tobacco of Columbia is easily grown and of excellent quality. There is a cigar factory in Ambulema, which employs 500 hands, and makes excellent cigars at $1 per hundred. They are preferred by some to those of Cuba.
The country abounds in fine cattle and good, active horses. On the plains of Bogota are the largest cattle I have ever seen. ”

“ There are towns, and hamlets, and homesteads all along that route, where meat and drink for man and beast are plentiful and cheap. Hundreds of packs, "cargoes," pass daily along the road, a "cargo" weighing 250 pounds ”

“ They draw two and a half feet, and as the navigation is very dangerous, they tie up every night. The trip from Barranquilla to Honda is usually made in from seven to eight days when the river is high. ”