Medellín

“ In the interior Colombia possesses many cities of considerable size, ranging from thirty to sixty thousand inhabitants, which are centers for the mining and agricultural districts—Pamplona in the mountains near the Venezuela frontier, Bucarmanga, a little to the west, Mompóz, near the confluence of the Cauca and Magdalena, once a port on the latter river but now, owing to the erratic wanderings of that stream, twenty miles east of it, Medellín, in the Cauca valley; Popayán and Pasto near the head waters of that river, and La Plata on the other side of the Central Cordillera. ”

“ Sandoval called his town Medellin, after the birth-place of Cortes; and the Rio de las Vanderas, from which he procured the 15,000 crowns, was for some time the port where the merchandise from Spain was discharged, until Vera Cruz became the emporium.
We now marched into the province of Coatzacualco, through the district of Citla [3] , which is about twelve leagues in length and breadth, and is very populous, having a fine climate and abounding in provisions. The chiefs immediately submitted. ”

“ Seeing the convenience of this site for the safety of the ships, I moved thither the town of Medellin, which was about twenty leagues in the interior of the province of Tatalptetelco; and already most of the householders have gone there and built their houses, and steps have been taken to clear that inlet and establish a custom house, for although the ships are delayed in discharging, by means of canoes over a distance of two leagues, they will have safe anchorage. ”

“ Medellin is built along the base of a lonely hill, on the left bank of, and close to the Guadiana. On the summit of the little conical mount, stands a castle, better calculated to repel the assault of a pop-gun, than a twenty-four pounder. On our arrival, we threw a strong piquet into it, which was followed by the whole battalion two hours before [Pg 134] day-break next morning. On ascending the eminence, the air was disagreeably cold, but the scene which opened to our view at sun-rise, soon banished past miseries into the shades of forgetfulness. ”

“ Botero is very similar to Cisneros. There are two small hotels where the traveller may rest in comfort until the train leaves for Medellin, which is at 4.30 P.M.
Numerous villages are scattered along the railroad, which follows closely the course of the Medellin River. The country is green and apparently fertile. Thickets of wild cane grow near the stream, and the valley is dotted with clumps of tall, slender willows; so dense is the latter growth in some parts of the region that it forms groves and woods. ”

“ Ernst met me at the station at 6:30 in the evening and we stayed the night in the hot, mosquito-tortured, plague-stricken city. Leaving at eight o'clock in the morning we were at Medellin in an hour. Our journey was through low, swampy ground on which the chief growth was of palm. The padre, whom we had not seen since we parted at Oaxaca, met us at the station and took us at once to his house. The town is small, the population a miserable mixture of black, white, and indian elements. Few of the couples living there have been legally married. The parish is one of the worst in the whole diocese. ”

“ Leaving the railway-station, which is six and one fifth feet above the Gulf of Mexico, the road traverses a broad plain, which is barren near the city of Vera Cruz. The tourist soon encounters a dense growth of cactus and chaparral, with a few palms interspersed.
A branch road leaves the main track about three miles from Vera Cruz, and runs to Medellin, six miles distant. In the tierra caliente (hot land) the hovels of the natives are of one story, and are generally thatched with palm-leaves. ”

“ Traversed also by the West and Central Cordillera Antioquia has great diversity of character. It is the leading Department in mining, in education, and as centre of industries; it is among the foremost in agriculture, has the largest, most enterprising, and prosperous population. Nearly one-fourth of the coffee exported from Colombia comes from Antioquia, that from Medellín bringing the highest price. The forests contain hard wood and rubber. The Department has five cities besides the capital with a population of 20,000 or above, and 30 more with a population over 10,000. ”

“ From the fifth year, when a crop of about 650 pounds to the acre can reasonably be expected, the productiveness steadily increases until after fifteen or sixteen years, when a maximum of over one thousand pounds an acre is attained.
Antioquia is the largest coffee producing department in the republic, and its coffee is of the highest grade grown. Medellin, the capital, where the business interests of the industry are concentrated, is a handsome white city located on the banks of the Aburra river, in a picturesque valley that is overlooked by the high peaks of the Andean range. ”

“ The third night after leaving Medellin we reached Yarumal, a large town built on a steep, rocky slope. From a distance it seems as if the houses were standing one on top of another, and it is difficult to understand what prevents the whole town from sliding down the steep mountainside.
114 The “Hotel de la Madre” is one of the institutions of Yarumal. It is conducted by an old negress who looked us over suspiciously and found it hard to decide whether or not to admit us. ”

“ Colombia. In Colombia, coffee is the principal crop grown for export. It is produced in nearly all departments at elevations ranging from 3,500 feet to 6,500 feet. Chief among the coffee-growing departments are Antioquia (capital, Medellin) ”

“ According to Cortés and others, Tapia received a severe reprimand in Española for his attempt to create troubles in New Spain. If he failed to enjoy the office, he certainly received his salary as governor. Herrera, dec. iii. lib. iv. cap. iii. ↑ At Medellin, says Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 167, whither he summoned the authorities from Goazacoalco. The municipality of Medellin had probably not yet taken up their abode there. San Juan de Chalchiuhcuecan, or de Ulua, served as port for Medellin. This summons may account for Cortés' statement that he arrived at Espíritu Santo. ”

“ In one place or another are factories of almost every kind: silk, flour, chocolate, matches, shoes, tanneries, ice, mineral waters, breweries, tiles, iron and steel, glass, candles, soap, etc. Bogotá has the largest number of factories, about 40, Medellín the next; others are well scattered over the country. Few do much more than supply local wants, partly on account of the difficulties of transportation.
Export. The only manufactured product important in export is Panamá hats. The principal centers of the industry are Antioquia, Nariño, Huila, and Santander Sur. ”

“ By law of July 12, 1530, the royal officials must alternate in residing there, one at a time. Aided by the local authorities they must make the valuation of goods. Fonseca, Hist. Hacienda, v. 10. Several orders for the selection of sites, the construction of defences, and other measures for towns, are given in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xxiii. 362-5; Zamora, Bib. Leg. Ult., iii. 30. ↑ Cortés leaves the impression that Medellin was moved to Vera Cruz, Cartas, 313; but the statements of Albornoz and later developments show the contrary. ”

“ On the far side of this great river runs the Central Cordillera, some ninety miles west of the capital, and on clear days the giant white-topped volcano, Tolima, 18,400 feet high, and the Mesa de Herveo, but sixty feet lower—constituting the culminating points in Colombia—are plainly visible.
The traveler’s first impressions of Bogotá are those of surprise and admiration—surprise at finding so large a city (150,000 in population) perched high up in the Andes, fully “six hundred miles from anywhere;” ”

“ It happened a few months after the freeing of Guayaquil. The people of the city, dressed in their gayest clothes, were crowding along the streets, and craning their necks to watch for a procession.
Triumphal arches spanned the streets. On each arch was inscribed:—
BOLIVAR!
And while the people watched eagerly, lo, the new white and blue flag of independent Guayaquil was hauled down from the gunboats on the river, and in its place were run up the red, yellow, and blue colours of the great new Republic of Colombia, which had just been formed to the North of Guayaquil. ”

“ The white contingent in the population of Colombia is chiefly composed of the descendants of the Spanish colonists who settled there during the three centuries following its discovery and conquest. Mining enterprises and climate drew them into the highlands of the interior, and there they have remained down to the present day, their only settlements on the hot, unhealthy coast being the few ports necessary for commercial and political intercourse with the mother country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bogota` (100) , capital of the United State of Colombia, situated on a remarkable, almost mountain-encircled, plateau, on the river Bogotá, 65 m. SE. of its port, Honda, the highest navigable point of the Magdalena, is 8600 ft. above sea-level, and has a spring-like climate. It is regularly built, with innumerable churches, a mint, university, library, and observatory, and several schools. Though the country is fertile and the mountains rich in coal, iron, salt, and precious metals, its situation and the want of a railway hinder trade. ”

“ There are also many smaller streams flowing into the Magdalena from both sides of the valley. Of those named, the Funza drains the “sabana” of Bogotá and is celebrated for the great fall of Tequendama, about 480 ft. in height; the Sogamoso passes through some of the richest districts of the republic; and the Cesar rises on the elevated slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and flows southward across a low plain, in which are many lakes, to join the Magdalena where it bends westward to meet the Cauca. The course of the Magdalena traverses nine degrees of latitude and is nearly 1000 m. ”

“ The mountain chains which cover this part of Colombia are the northern terminal ranges of the great Andean system. In northern Ecuador the Andes narrows into a single massive range which has the character of a confused mass of peaks and ridges on the southern frontier of Colombia. There are several lofty plateaus in this region which form a huge central watershed for rivers flowing east to the Amazon, west to the Pacific, and north to the Caribbean Sea. ”

“ Colombia, like Peru or Mexico, or Ecuador or other of the sisterhood of nations in our survey, [19] is a land of great contrasts, whether of Nature or man. The unhealthy lowlands of the coast give place to the delightful valleys of higher elevations, which in their turn merge into the bitter cold of the melancholy paramos, or upland passes, and tablelands of the Andes. Or the cultivated lands pass to savage forests, where roam tribes of natives who perhaps have never looked upon the face of the white man. ”

“ But, great as has been the change that it has undergone during the last few decades, it preserves much of the quaintness of colonial times. Indeed, it is not difficult, in certain parts of the city, to fancy oneself carried back to a typical Spanish town of the time of Charles V or Philip II. As a whole, however, the Bogotá of to-day does not differ materially in appearance from a city of the same size in Spain or [288] Mexico. All Latin-American cities are similar in their leading features, and when you have seen one you have seen all. ”

“ The capital of Colombia’s southernmost department, claiming a population of 16,000, sits in the capacious lap of the extinct Pasto volcano, seeming, in spite of its 14,000 feet elevation, a mere hill, for the city itself is more lofty than Bogotá. By no means so backward and fanatical a mountain town as described by its rivals to the north, it proved the most lively and progressive place we chanced upon between the Cauca and Ecuador. A highway links it with the outside world by way of Tuquerres and Barbacoas, thence by boat to the island 114port of Tumaco on the Pacific. ”

“ The shelf, overlooked by fine snowclad volcanoes, has a low rim on the west and a high ridge on the east. About 70 miles long and 30 wide, it is entirely covered with towns and farms. The city is the largest in Colombia (population probably 150,000) , on account of its being the capital and having a good climate; the mean temperature ranges from 54° to 64°. 600 miles from the north coast and 210 from the Pacific, Bogotá is the most difficult of access of any of the South American capitals. Nevertheless, the city has always been noted as the home of culture and of intellectual tastes. ”

“ When peace shall have been firmly established in Colombia, and its finances shall have been placed on a satisfactory basis, the patriotic and far-seeing statesmen of the republic, will, I am convinced, see the necessity of carrying out the plan of the former Archbishop and Viceroy of New Granada—Don Antonio Caballero y Gongora—and connecting Bogotá with Europe by means of the Meta and the Orinoco. It will not be a difficult feat of engineering to build a railroad from the capital to a suitable point on the Meta, and the length of such a road need not exceed one hundred and fifty miles at most. ”