88 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



sacerdotal order; but whether the reigning classes who 

 withheld their knowledge from the common people for 

 selfish purposes were annihilated by an uprising of the ser- 

 vile hordes or by an outside invasion, or whether some 

 great cataclysm of nature extinguished the progress of ages 

 at a stroke, may forever remain a secret. 



The bird life around San Agustin was varied and abun- 

 dant. Trees were in blossom, especially one with a feath- 

 ery, pinkish flower (Mimosa), and to this scores of hummers 

 came. One species had a slightly curved bill and was green 

 in color, with a patch of deepest purple on the throat; an- 

 other of a blue color had tail-feathers six inches long. In 

 the ravines there were many chachalacas that kept up a 

 demoniacal cackling. The bushes were full of finches and 

 lovely velvety red tanagers, while honey-creepers came to 

 our table daily and gorged themselves on sugar. In the 

 forest we saw many large, woolly monkeys, some bluish, 

 others silvery gray. There were kinkajous, agoutis, and 

 peccaries. The two-toed sloth was abundant; the flesh 

 of all these animals was greedily eaten by the natives. 

 Numbers of large lizards or iguanas prowled about the 

 town and feasted on the tiny chickens and ducklings. A 

 flight of locusts covered the entire upper Magdalena, and 

 for days the air was black with the pest; millions would 

 rise from the ground in a steady cloud in front of us as we 

 walked along through the fields. In a few days not a speck 

 of green remained. The hungry, insatiable hordes moved 

 on, but behind them remained a wide, brown desert, filled 

 with sorrow and desolation, for the crops of corn, yuccas, 

 and bananas had been destroyed and there would be famine 

 for many months to come. 



We scouted the forests daily, confining our search to the 

 untrodden ravines of the Rio Naranjos, a turbulent, wicked 

 stream that joins the Magdalena a short distance below. 

 Great precipices flank its sides and the water rushes through 

 dark, narrow gorges. Everywhere the river-bed is dotted 

 with great boulders against which the water dashes with a 



