54 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



away; she gave a fairly loud 'peep' and her offspring at 

 once went to her. 



After a time our work at Squirrel Woods was completed, 

 so, much to the relief of the inhospitable couple, we left the 

 place and returned to Salento, where we had better fortune 

 and were well cared for by one Colonel Martinez; his wife 

 had come from Bogota, was a well-educated woman, and, 

 what interested us more just then, was a splendid cook. 

 The family conducted a fairly good posada and shop and 

 had various other business interests, including several 

 worthless mining claims along streams flowing into the 

 Quindio River just below. A few excavations had been 

 made into the hillsides; the largest was known as La Mina 

 del Gallo and had yielded hundreds of tons of rocks and 

 earth; but as not a speck of the elusive yellow metal they 

 so eagerly sought had been forthcoming, the mine had 

 been abandoned, and owls and bats inhabited the dark tun- 

 nel. The greater part of the mining population had de- 

 serted Salento for a place about ten miles distant, where 

 extensive cinnabar-fields had been discovered. They ex- 

 pected to acquire fabulous riches extracting the mercury 

 from the deposits. Some Englishmen headed by a man 

 named Lloyd-Owen were also interested in the enterprise, 

 but I learned later that the prospect failed. 



At dusk we occasionally had a brief view of the Nevado 

 del Tolima far to the east. The snow-capped summit is 

 over eighteen thousand feet high, but we could never see 

 more than a small portion of it on account of the ridges 

 that surrounded it. At night the snowy dome gleamed 

 white and frosty beneath a brilliant moon, and chill winds 

 blew from the frigid heights and roared through the town. 

 The paramos of Ruiz and Isabel, composed of high, cold 

 valleys, plateaus, and snow-covered peaks are south of the 

 Tolima. We straightway resolved to visit that region, and 

 as the rainy season with its severe electrical storms was fast 

 approaching, no time was lost in starting on the expedition. 

 My experience on the Cerro Munchique was still too fresh 



