222 THE MOUNTAIN OF QUIXDIU. 



The mountain of Quindiu was considered the most 

 difficult passage in the Cordilleras of the Andes. It was 

 a thick, uninhabited forest, which, in the finest season, 

 could not be traversed in less than ten or twelve days. 

 Not even a hut was to be seen, nor could any means of 

 subsistence be found. Travellers, at all times of the year, 

 furnished themselves with a month's provision, since it 

 often happened, that, by the melting of the snows, and 

 the sudden swell of the torrents, they found themselves 

 so circumstanced, that they could descend neither on the 

 side of Cartago, nor that of Ibague. The highest point 

 of the road, the Garito del Paramo, was one thousand 

 four hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea. 

 As the foot of the mountain, towards the banks of the 

 Cauca, was only three thousand one hundred and forty 

 feet, the climate there was, in general, mild and tem- 

 perate. The pathway which formed the passage of the 

 Cordilleras was only about a foot in breadth, and had 

 the appearance, in several places, of a gallery dug, and 

 left open to the sky. In this part of the Andes the 

 rock was covered with a thick stratum of clay. The 

 streamlets which flowed down the mountains, had hol- 

 lowed out gullies eighteen or twenty feet deep. Along 

 these crevices, which were full of mud, the travellers 

 were forced to grope their passage, the darkness of which 

 was increased by the thick vegetation that covered the 

 opening above. The oxen, which were the beasts of 

 burden commonlv made use of in this countrv, could 

 scarcely force their way through these galleries, some of 

 which were two thousand yards in length ; if a travel- 

 ler had met them in one of these passages, he could not 

 have avoided them, but by turning back, and climb- 



