J. A. Zahm

“ Beautiful, dark-eyed señoritas, adorned with their graceful mantillas, were promenading with their fathers and mothers, and gay young cavaliers were following at a discreet distance, á la Española. The tropical trees and flowers, which gave to the plaza the aspect of a botanical garden, were beautifully illuminated, and, without any effort of the imagination, one could easily imagine one’s self in fairyland. Hard by, a young lady from Trinidad, on whose finger was a sparkling solitaire, was recounting, in a more audible tone than she imagined, the pleasures of her voyage up the Orinoco. ”

“ It is impossible for the student of early American history to cruise along the Spanish Main, or sail on the broad waters of the Orinoco, the Meta and the Magdalena, without harking back at every turn to the achievements of some of the early discoverers or conquistadores. Every island, every promontory, every river has been visited by them and, if endowed with speech, they could tell thrilling stories of daring adventure and brilliant exploit unsurpassed in the annals of chivalry and crusading valor. ”

“ I can fully sympathize with Waterton’s longing for the wild and his love of tropical life. Every lover of nature, who has spent some time in the heart of the equatorial forests, is affected in the same way. The wanderlust and abenteuergeist—the love of travel and adventure—grows on one, it seems, in the wilds of South America more than elsewhere. Is it because the conquistadores and other early explorers have impregnated the atmosphere with their spirit, or because the environment of itself has the power of inoculating the visitor from the north with the microbe of a life-long wanderleben? ”

“ We longed to see that massive chain that extends in unbroken continuity from Panama to Patagonia. And day by day, as we moved westward, our wistful eyes were ever peering through broken forest or over [191] grass-covered glade, to catch the first view of La Cordillera de los Andes.
While silently sitting on the prow of our launch admiring the countless, ever-changing beauties of that marvelous moonlight night—our last on the Meta,—giving free rein to our fancy, and shifting our course as the meandering river demanded, behold! ”

“ Every hour—yea, every minute—on his upward journey, he is greeted by new forms of vegetable life and must needs at the same time bid farewell to others that may not accompany him beyond their own proper zones. But, although Flora’s children are ever changing, they are always beautiful and it would be difficult for the botanist to say where they challenge the most admiration—in the hot plains of the Orinoco and the Meta or high up on the cheerless and inhospitable paramo. ”

“ Such has been the fate of Venezuela since the time of Bolivar, whom its people hail as the Liberator, as the Washington of South America.
But pitiful as has been the country’s lot, unfortunate as it is to-day, the future is not without hope. Only one thing is necessary to change the present lamentable condition of affairs, and convert Venezuela into a great and happy country. That one thing is a man—a ruler of strong arm and stout heart, who is a patriot in deed as well as in name ”

“ Tierra fría extends from twenty-four hundred to three thousand meters above sea level. Its vegetation, as would be expected, is entirely different from that of the hot plains and temperate valleys of the lowlands. One no longer sees the elegant forms of the plantain and the bamboo, nor the majestic palm and ceiba, nor the graceful and flexible bejucos and creepers of hotter climes. But, notwithstanding the absence of all these charming representatives of Flora, it cannot be said of the vegetation of tierra fría that it is either poor or devoid of importance. ”

“ As a feat of engineering the road is quite equal to any of the kind that may be seen in Europe or the United States; but for scenic beauty and splendor it is absolutely unrivaled. On the lofty flanks of the Rockies, and in the deep cañons of the Fraser and Colorado rivers, where the shrill whistle of the locomotive startles the falcon and the eagle, one can have fully gratified one’s sense of the grand and the sublime in nature ”

“ And what an eventful story is that of the Caribbean Cartagena! What changes has she not witnessed! What fortunes of war has she not experienced! What disasters has she not suffered! Like her African prototype, whose very strength caused her rival on the Tiber to decree her downfall, Cartagena seemed to be singled out for attack by all the enemies of Spain for long generations. Her cyclopean walls, that seemed to render her impregnable, did not save her. Time and again she was assaulted by pirates and buccaneers, who levied heavy tributes and carried off booty of inestimable value. ”

“ Go where we will, we are astonished and bewildered by the novelty and the exuberance of the vegetation that surrounds us.
If we drive over the broad and well-kept roads along the western coast, we pass under shady avenues of cocoa palms bending under their burden of fruit. If we go to the cacao groves—and they are large and numerous here—our eyes are gladdened by the vermilion bloom that covers the protecting Erythrina umbrosa.6 In a glen hard by is a giant ceiba, transformed, by the countless number of creepers and epiphytes to which it has given hospitality, into a vast air-garden. ”

“ And what marvelous perspectives, what delightful exhibitions of color, what superb and ever-changing effects of light and shade—scenes that would be the despair of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa, and as difficult to catch on canvas as the glories of the setting sun.
No where else in the wide world can one find such another picture as greets one’s vision when, rising into cloudland, one gets one’s last view of the Caribbean circling the mountain thousands of feet beneath the silent and awe-stricken [41] spectator. ”

“ Probably, like Scipio Africanus, we are among those who never felt less alone than when alone. Far from feeling lonely while crossing the Cordilleras, we congratulated ourselves that we were far away from the beaten track of personally conducted tourists.
We could not help comparing the splendid panoramas around us with the noted show places of Switzerland. In the Andes it was the forest primeval, or the humble cot, or the picturesque village of the unspoiled and simple people of eastern Colombia, where a foreigner is rarely seen, but where he is always sure of a cordial welcome. ”

“ After the Parana and the Amazon, it is the largest waterway in South America, and, for the volume of water it carries into the ocean, it ranks with the Mississippi, the Congo, Yang-tse-Kiang, and the Brahmaputra. Well have the natives of the lands through which it flows named it the Great River—for it is great in every way—great in the immense basin it drains; great in the tribute it carries to the ocean, and great in the number and magnitude of the rivers it counts among its affluents from the distant Cordilleras. ”

“ Here, before us, there is reason to believe, was the land of Cariari, and, just a stone’s throw from our steamer was the charming island of Quiribri, which, on account of its beauty and the lovely trees with which it was adorned—palms and bananas and platanos—the Admiral called El Huerto—the orchard. To-day it is known as the island of Uvita, and is used for quarantine. As we gazed on this exquisite spot, provided with cozy cottages nestling among clumps of stately palms, and decked with beauteous flowers of every hue, we almost regretted that we could not spend a few days there. ”

“ Some of the houses near the river banks have a most cozy appearance. They are almost embowered in a mass of flowers of every hue, and surrounded by lofty palms whose lovely emerald coronals were each a picture of rarest beauty.
“These princes of the vegetable world” always had a peculiar fascination for us, no matter where we saw them. And during our long journey from the delta of the Orinoco they were never absent from view even for a single hour. ”

“ The hills, which here and there rise above the fog, look like islands and strengthen the illusion. But this effect is all dissipated as soon as the sun makes his appearance above the crest of Suma Paz. One then has before him one of the most lovely panoramas in the world. The wide verdant expanse is intersected with rivers and streams, all tributaries of the Funza, and dotted with towns and hamlets and haciendas, lakes and lakelets, large herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, troops of horses, mules and burros. ”

“ It is when the sun has attained its greatest height, that such scenes should be viewed; then the dense, splendid foliage of the mango hides the ground with its darkest shade, whilst the upper branches are rendered, from the profusion of light, of the most brilliant green. In the temperate zones the case is different—the vegetation there is not so dark or so rich, and hence the rays of the declining sun, tinged of a red, purple, or bright yellow color, add most to the beauties of those climes. ”

“ I have said that the plants in a hothouse fail to communicate a just idea of the vegetation, yet I must recur to it. The land is one great wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay houses and formal gardens. How great would be the desire in every admirer of Nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of another planet! ”

“ And we dreamed—or was it a telepathic intimation of a future reality?—when the precious remains, that have so long been guarded in this distant and rarely visited island, should be transferred for a third and a last time, but this time where they might be visited and venerated by millions instead of the few hundred that now find their way hither, and where they might occupy a noble sarcophagus, like that which beneath the dome of the Invalides, holds all that is mortal of the great Corsican, and in a temple worthy alike of the man and of the greatest nation in the world. ”

“ A few rods away was San Miguel, at last. Only the tired, famished traveler in a strange land can realize how glad we were that the day’s journey was finally at an end.
We spent a very uncomfortable night at San Miguel, and were glad when we found ourselves, early the following morning, again in the saddle, bound for Caqueza, the capital of a district near the summit of the Cordilleras. “We must make better time than yesterday,” I said, on starting, to our vaqueano. “Si, Señor.” “We shall arrive at Caqueza by four o’clock, shall we not?” “Es imposible, Señor. It is impossible, Sir.” ”

“ In the foreground was the montaña through which we had passed just before reaching Villavicencio. Farther afield was a limitless sea of verdure, interspersed with groups of trees, which offered their grateful shade to the countless herds that reposed beneath their wide-spreading branches. In every direction the green savannas were intersected by caños and rivers which looked like streams of molten silver. It was, indeed, a panorama of surpassing beauty and loveliness—of its kind unique in the wide world. ”

“ Students of American life have often smiled, and with reason, at the stilted and extravagant fashion in which the Southern woman had been described south of Mason and Dixon’s line—the unconscious self-revelations of Mary Chesnut explain, if they do not justify, such extravagance. For here, we cannot but believe, is a creature of a fine type, a ‘very woman,’ a very Beatrice, frank, impetuous, loving, full of sympathy, full of humor. ”

“ To one looking towards the west, from a spur of the mountain at the foot of which Bogotá is situated, as Granada is located at the foot of its hills, the ridge of Suba is seen towards the northwest, just as the sierra of Elvira is seen with respect to the old Moorish capital. And so it is with the relative positions of Santa Fé en la Vega and the pueblo of Fontibon. The illusion is complete, and the similarity between these two famous places in Spain and Colombia must have impressed themselves on the receptive mind of the illustrious conquistador with peculiar force. ”

“ One may forget all about his enterprise as a navigator and may ignore his claims as a discoverer, but one can never become oblivious of that strange episode with which his name is inseparably connected—the romantic search for the Fountain of Youth.
For the historian, as for the psychologist, the subject possesses an abiding interest, and even the casual visitor to Florida finds himself unconsciously dreaming about the days long gone by when Spaniard and Indian were wandering through forest and everglade in search of the life-giving fountain about which they had heard such marvelous reports. ”

“ North, who were so long the scourge of western and southern Europe, the Buccaneers were the scourge of Spanish America from Tortuga to Panama and from California to Patagonia. They warred against but one enemy—the one that had harassed and driven them from their peaceful avocation of bucaning, or had persecuted and oppressed their brethren in the peaceful pursuit of commerce, when the lands of their birth, or the countries to which they owed allegiance, were unable or unwilling to protect them. ”