EASTERN COLOMBIA — CRIST AND GUHL 413 



Caqueta. Santa Kosa should then be tied to Mocoa and Puerto 

 Limon. This accomplished, the road following the foot of the Cor- 

 dillera from Florencia to Puerto Limon, via Belen, would open up a 

 vast fertile area to settlement. 



CONCLUSIONS 



Almost three decades ago F. O. Martin 13 felt that the three chief 

 drawbacks to settlement and development of this vast region were the 

 lack (a) of kept-up roads and trails; (b) of a good labor force, and 

 (c) of community spirit. He felt keenly about the latter item, com- 

 plaining that "there is no community spirit among the inhabitants 

 in the matter of maintaining trails or in any other communal rela- 

 tions. Cooperation is unknown; rather, intense jealously among in- 

 dividuals prevails." It has been seen that, although in Colombia as 

 elsewhere miracles are rare in the affairs of men, improvement has 

 been steady : roads and trails are being kept up and improved, and 

 the labor force is not only more numerous than when Martin wrote, 

 but it is more efficient because of a better diet and a lower incidence 

 of the so-called tropical diseases. The community spirit cannot be 

 said to have become Utopian, but it has certainly changed for the 

 better generally, in spite of the temporary setback resulting from the 

 revolutionary outburst of 1950-53. Of fewer and fewer sectors can 

 it be said, "settled but unexplored," for the reality is that population 

 pressure in the mountain areas has built up to such an extent that 

 a wave of migrants is actually crossing the eastern cordillera at many 

 points to enter the tropical lowland. The physical climate is one 

 that can the more readily be coped with if collective man surrounds 

 himself with a favorable political, social, and economic climate. 



In the words of Professor Bates, tropical forests are not unfriendly : 

 they are merely disinterested. It .is understandable why they do seem 

 unfriendly when they are engaged in single combat by a lone indi- 

 vidual armed only with a machete, who, besides being poorly fed and 

 poorly housed, may be suffering from fever and intestinal ailments 

 and parasites. The picture changes completely when man is ,in cul- 

 tural control, as it were, and can create his own favorable habitat 

 as he penetrates the forest or any other natural landscape he has 

 decided to live in or change ; a young army officer in Florencia pointed 

 out that any place can be a pesthole if one eats poorly and takes 

 none of the ordinary precautions to maintain health. He concluded 

 that, by merely minimizing and guarding against the bad features 

 of the tropical climate and taking advantage of the good ones, one 

 could lead a very pleasant life there. And thousands of his com- 

 patriots are finding this to be true, no longer regarding the forces of 



"Martin, F. O., Exploration in Colombia, Geogr. Rev., vol. 19, p. 628, 1929. 



