IN QUEST OF THE COCK-OF-THE-ROCK 85 



crosses, some newly erected, others decaying and ready to 

 topple over; it is the custom of the natives to erect a new 

 one each year on Good Friday, permitting the old ones to 

 remain standing. We had reached the frontier of Huila. 



On Easter Sunday we had our first glimpse of San Agus- 

 tin, which was decidedly disappointing. All that we could 

 see as we descended the last steep slope was a cluster of 

 some fifty-odd mud huts protruding from the centre of a 

 wide, barren plain; there is no forest within a mile in any 

 direction, and very little cultivation is carried, on in the 

 immediate vicinity. The town is very old; the inhabitants 

 are mainly of Spanish descent, but scattered throughout the 

 surrounding country can be found small clearings, orfincas, 

 cultivated by full-blooded Indians. These latter are of a 

 reticent though friendly disposition, emerging from the 

 seclusion of their forest-bound homes only on market-days 

 to dispose of the products of the soil and of their flocks. 



In recent years the name San Agustin has come into 

 prominence on account of the prehistoric ruins and mono- 

 liths that are found in its vicinity, and which are supposed 

 to be of very great antiquity, dating back to a culture that 

 has entirely disappeared and of which nothing definite is 

 known. Even the Indians who to-day inhabit the region 

 have no traditions or folk-lore of the vanished race, and 

 scientists who have examined the ruins have, up to the 

 present time, been unable to account for their origin. It 

 has been suggested that they may represent the work of the 

 tribe of Andaquias, but this statement is disputed by Carlos 

 Cuervo Marquez, who points out that the mute reminders 

 of an ancient civilization already existed in the same un- 

 known condition at the time the Conquistadores overran 

 the empire of the Chibchas. 



The thing that first attracted our attention was the row 

 of twelve stone images that stand in the centre of the plaza 

 facing the village chapel, which vary in height from two to 

 eight feet and are carved from sandstone and granite. Gi- 

 gantic heads, with round faces and staring, expressionless 



