122 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



trousers, and all other wearing apparel as quickly and easily 

 as the proverbial rat running through a cheese; and when 

 we entered our room, vermin of a still more objectionable 

 character rushed joyfully from the beds, walls, and chairs 

 to gloat in hungry anticipation at their prospective victims. 

 We erected our cots in the patio and spent a long, long night 

 out in the open. 



Buritica was reached on the following day. Immediately 

 after leaving Antioquia, a mere ledge of a trail begins the 

 ascent of the Coast Range, and while a good deal of anxiety 

 was felt for the safety of the pack-animals, it was never- 

 theless a relief to escape from the cheerless desert wastes 

 and the intolerable heat of the low country. The altitude 

 of Buritica is six thousand two hundred feet. On account 

 of the jaded condition of the mules, we spent a half -day in 

 the town, and also lightened the cargoes by leaving at the 

 inn all equipment intended for a subsequent journey in 

 another direction. We had, of course, never visited Bu- 

 ritica before, but I had not the slightest hesitation in leav- 

 ing with perfect strangers a good deal of valuable material. 

 The honesty of the Colombians is well known, and we did 

 not lose a single thing by theft during the entire two years 

 I spent in that country. 



At Tabacal, a half day's ride from Buritica, we lost sight 

 of the Cauca River. Our view was shut off by an indepen- 

 dent ridge of mountains several thousand feet high, which 

 rises out of the valley between the range we were on and 

 the stream. A slight change was also perceptible in the 

 character of the country; extensive areas covered with 

 brush now dotted the slopes, although at infrequent inter- 

 vals; and on the extreme tops of both ranges a thin fringe of 

 green was plainly discernible. The country is also very 

 rough and broken, and there are a number of ridges to be 

 crossed, many of which are two thousand feet high. Sev- 

 eral separate mountains, not connected with the main 

 ranges, stand here and there like giant, man-hewn mono- 

 liths, rising from a basal elevation of three thousand to 



