302 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



last few days of our descent on the western slope from incessant 

 heavy rain. Our road lay through a swampy district covered 

 with reeds of bamboo. The pricks on the roots of this gigantic 

 kind of grass so completely destroyed our boots, that, as we 

 would not allow ourselves to be carried on the backs of men 

 (cargueros), we reached Cartago with bare and bleeding feet.' 

 Humboldt describes these cargueros with some minuteness : 

 ' In these climates Europeans become so completely enervated, 

 that it is customary for every director of mines to have one 

 or two Indians in his service who are termed his horses 

 (cdballitoa), because every morning they allow themselves 

 to be saddled, and with their body inclined forward, and lean- 

 ing on a short stick, they carry their masters on their backs. 

 Among the caballitos and cargueros some of them are re- 

 commended to travellers as being sure-footed and possessing 

 an easy and even pace ; it really makes one's blood boil,' adds 

 Humboldt in a burst of generous feeling, ' to hear the qualities 

 of a human being described in the same terms as w r ould be 

 employed in speaking of a horse or a mule.' 



At Ibague, during a day's heavy rain, the travellers pro- 

 vided themselves with an impervious shelter by means of tents 

 constructed out of the leaves of the heliconia. At length they 

 reached Cartago c with feet bare and bleeding, but enriched 

 with a valuable addition to their collection of plants.' 



' From Cartago,' writes Humboldt to his brother, in a letter 

 dated Lima, November 25, 1802, 4 we went to Popayan by way 

 of Buga, and the magnificent valley of the Cauca, to the right 

 of which rise the mountains of Choka, celebrated for their 

 platinum mines. 



' We passed the month of November, 1801, at Popayan visit- 

 ing the basaltic mountain of Julusuito, the crater of the volcano 

 of Purace, which emits with a terrific noise jets of steam 

 impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, and the rocks of 

 porphyritic granite, exhibiting the form of columns, shaped 

 as pentagons and heptagons, similar to those described by 

 Strange, which I remember to have seen when in Venetian 

 Lombardy. 



4 The greatest difficulties of our journey lay yet before us, 



