CHAPTER VI 

 IN QUEST OF THE COCK-OF-THE-ROCK 



On my fourth visit to Popayan we had to remain in the 

 city the greater part of a week, arranging for the continua- 

 tion of our journey across the Central Andes to the head- 

 waters of the Magdalena. Hereafter we were to travel on 

 foot, partly due to the fact that some of the trails were im- 

 passable, both to riding and pack animals, and partly to 

 enable us to be in a position better to study the wild life 

 of the region we traversed. I was accompanied on this 

 particular expedition by Doctor Allen and Mr. J. T. Lloyd, 

 of Cornell University. 



On February 27 we left Popayan on foot, the mule-train 

 following some little distance behind. The route lay 

 through undulating country, rather well cultivated, where 

 there were numerous huts at which we found shelter for 

 the nights. At one of these stopping-places the natives 

 were engaged in thrashing beans. The pods had been 

 heaped upon a straw mat and the family were beating them 

 with heavy flails. Wheat was thrashed in the same man- 

 ner, but after the grains had been beaten loose from the 

 chaff large pans full were held high above the head and 

 poured out in a thin, steady stream; the wind blew the 

 chaff from the falling column and the wheat dropped upon 

 the mat. At another hut men were manufacturing "ca- 

 bulla" by stripping off, between two sticks, the fleshy part 

 of the leaves of the yucca-plant. The tough fibres remain- 

 ing were mixed with horsehair and braided into strong 

 ropes. Food was scarce, the natives subsisting upon the 

 inevitable "sancocho" of boiled green plantains, and corn- 

 meal "jarepas." However, we managed occasionally to 

 pick up a fowl, some green corn, and once we succeeded in 



76 



