Birds of Columhia 121 



HiHnming-birds) were to be met with here, but we were uot 

 fortunate enough to fall in with them. 



The bare country around Ocana was sprinkled with tufts of 

 grass and a plant with a yellow blossom {Calea, probably C. 

 primifolia), and reminded ,me of parts of Palestine ; but the 

 Saxicolina, so conspicuous in such localities there, were here 

 wanting. The two scavengers {Cathartes aura and C. atratus), 

 Milvago chimachima, and Tinnunculus sparverius seemed to be 

 its only feathered inhabitants, the two latter feeding on lizards, 

 of which there was a great supply. 



We had intended, when we left Ocana, either to return to 

 the Sierra Nevada or to make our way to Cocui, about 100 

 miles further south, where the mountains rise to an altitude of 

 perpetual snow; but we had, for several reasons, to give up the 

 latter, and had decided to go to Aguachica, a small village in 

 the Magdalena valley, situated just at the foot of the moun- 

 tains, and afterwards to return to the coast and the Sierra 

 Nevada ; but, just before we started, our man came to say that 

 he should not go with us into the low country as he was afraid 

 of fever. We found out afterwards that there was nothing unusual 

 in this. It is always a matter of extreme difficulty to induce 

 any of the inhabitants of the healthy mountain-regions to 

 descend to the Magdalena valley. So we had to give the man 

 up, or to alter our plans ; and as he had been with us for nearly 

 a month, and had got accustomed to our ways, we chose the 

 latter, and on February 2nd we started with our man, a peon, 

 and five mules for Bucaramanga, intending to cross the paramo 

 of Cachiri. 



Our course lay by La Cruz, thence southwards through a 

 bare, desolate country until we reached a hut called Canuto. 

 Of all the roads I ever travelled, the road from Ocana to Bu- 

 caramanga is by far the worst. It is impossible for any one 

 who has not witnessed it to conceive the amount of climbing, 

 tearing, and tumbling our mules underwent before we reached 

 our destination. In one place we had to send a man on to 

 make the road wide enough for our cargo-mules to pass. 



On the third day we entered a fine forest-country, going up 

 to an altitude of 8500 feet, a region of oak forests, and diving 



