Account of Travels letween the Tropics-. 35{) 



tormented by the mosquitoes, while Bonpianci stadlcd the 

 vegetation, rich in heliconia, psycliostrla, vieiasioma, mij- 

 rodin, and dyckotria emetka, the root of which is tiie ipe- 

 •cacuaiiha of Carthagena. 



Having landed at Flonda, our travell-ers proceeded on 

 mules, the only way of travelling in South America, and 

 ■by frightful roads through forests of oaks, melastoma and 

 cinchona, to Santa Fe de Bagota, the capital of the kingdom 

 of New Grenada, i?ituated in a beautiful plain ISGOtoises 

 above the level of the sea, and, in consequence of a perpe- 

 tual spring temperature, abounding in the wheat of Europe 

 and the sesamum of Asia. The supcro collections of Mutis-; 

 the grand and sublime cataract of Tequeiidama, 98 toisos 

 or 588 feet in height; the mines of Mariquita, St. Ana, 

 and Zipaouira; the natural bridge of Icononzo, two de- 

 tached rocks which by means of an earthquake have been 

 tlisposed in such a manner as to support a third ; occupied 

 the attention of our travellers at Santa Fe till September 

 1801. 



Though the rainy season had now rendered the roads al- 

 most impassable, they set out for Quito ; they rc-descended 

 bv Fusagasuga, in the valley of Alagdalena, and passed the 

 Andes of Ouindiu, where the sr.owy pyramid of Tolina rises 

 amidst forests of s/i/ra.v passijiora in trees, land'i/ta, and 

 wax palms. For thirteen days they were obliged to drag 

 themselves through horrid mud, and to sleep, as on the 

 Orenoko, under the bare heavens, in woods where thcv saw 

 no vestiges of man. When lhe\' arrived, bare-footed and 

 drenched with continual rain, in the valley of the river 

 Cauca, they stopped at Cathago and Buga, and proceeded 

 along the province of Choco, the country of platina, which 

 is found between rolled fragments of basalies, filled with 

 olivin and augitc, green rock (the grunsie'm of Werner), 

 and fossil wood. 



Tliev ascended by Caloto and Onilichao, w'nere gold is 

 washed, to Popavan, visited bv Bouguer when he returned 

 to France, and situated at the bottom of the snowy volca- 

 noes of Purace and Sotara, one of the most picturesquii 

 sifualions and in the most delightful climate of the uni- 

 verse, where Keaunmr's thermometer stands constantly be- 

 tween 17 and 19 degrees. When they had reached, with 

 much difficulty, the crater of the volcano oC I'uraee, (llied 

 with boiling water, which from the midst of the snow 

 thiows up, with a horrid roaritig, vapours of sulphurated 

 hydrogen, our travellers passed from Popavan by the steep 

 Z 4 Cordilleras 



