164 Travels and Adventures 



found between the river Opon and the river Carare : 

 these are two rivers which together drain the southern 

 part of the State of Santander, and the land lying 

 between them is a narrow strip less than one 

 hundred miles wide. I descended the river to a 



MILTON I A VEXILLARIA. 



place called Barranca bermeja, with the object of 

 getting a canoe to navigate the river Opon. This, 

 I was told, would require at least six men, well 

 armed. The river is not navigable for more than fifty 

 miles, and the distance is intercepted by fallen trees, 

 while the forest between the two rivers is infested 

 by hordes of hostile Indians. The first tw T o days 

 nothing extraordinary happened ; the banks of the 

 river were thick forest, and we saw no tracks of the 



