EASTERN COLOMBIA — CRIST AND GUHL 399 



quired the habit of stealing rather than working, during the years of 

 civil strife, but fortunately they were rapidly returning to the good 

 old-fashioned custom of hard work. 



THE NEIVA-FLORENCIA HIGHWAY 



During the war with Peru in 1932, when the most deadly enemy 

 proved to be the diseases so often associated with the Tropics, Co- 

 lombian Amazonia assumed great importance for the nation. The 

 national government hastily planned roads into a vast tropical area 

 that had been so long neglected as to create serious differences of 

 opinion as to just where the international boundary line should be 

 drawn. The road as originally planned was to run from Neiva to La 

 Tagua on the Caqueta River, via Florencia and Tres Esquinas, the 

 latter town at the junction of the Caqueta and Orteguaza Rivers. 



FLORENCIA 



In the last decade of the past century, gatherers of wild rubber and 

 quinine made clearings along the Orteguaza and Hacha Rivers on 

 which they planted yuca, corn, and plantains. Shortly after this a 

 clearing was made for the planting of cane, and a still was set up for 

 distilling raw nun. The first settlement was called La Perdiz, but the 

 name was soon changed to Florencia. Then depression struck the 

 wild-rubber and quinine industry and very shortly all that remained 

 of Florencia was the name. 



The town of Florencia was officially founded in 1908 when 37 of the 

 principal settlers agreed to construct their houses in accordance with 

 a map drawn up by the Capuchin priest, Father Fidel de Montclar. 



The highway reached Florencia from Altamira in 1932, at the time 

 of the war with Peru. The construction of the road meant that this 

 potentially rich area became economically tributary to a hinterland 

 from which it attracted immigrants and to which it could ship its 

 products. In this instance the highway was the cause rather than the 

 result of settlement. 



The people who actually settle on the land are the advance columns 

 who make it possible for the bridgeheads along the piedmont to sur- 

 vive. The highways and rivers are the arteries along which flow 

 people, the lifeblood of any area. A major factor that animates the 

 heart that pumps this blood is demographic pressure. The more one 

 sees of active, voluntary colonization the less faith one can have in 

 settlement projects sponsored by the government. For one thing 

 government agents, representatives, or inspectors, are little interested 

 in going to zones in which actual pioneering is taking place. They 

 want to "inspect" areas that are already equipped with airstrips, hotels, 

 or guest houses, and other modern conveniences. In several places it 



