12 Meteorological Observations made in 



lowlands of the coast and interior. The mixed race, or people of 

 color, unite to bodily hardihood intrepidity, ambition, and a dead- 

 ly feeling of those prejudices which, in spite of laws, continue to 

 separate them from the white descendants of the Spaniards, who 

 thus encounter, both in the high and lowland, two races in whom 

 the seeds of hostility have been sown by injustice, and fostered 

 by mistaken feelings of interest and vanity.* It is on the moun- 

 tain slopes of from 3,000 to 7,000 feet that we encounter climates 

 most analagous to our ideas both of health and pleasure. Raised 

 above the noxious miasmata of the coast, we dwell in perpetual 

 summer amid the richest vegetable productions of nature, amid a 

 continued succession of fruits and flowers. This picture, how- 

 ever, must not be considered as universally exact. In those un- 

 broken forests where population has made little progress, the sky 

 is often clouded, and the soil deluged with continual rains. The 

 western declivities of the Andes, which front the Pacific, are par- 

 ticularly exposed to this inconvenience. 



It might be expected that with regard to human life and vigor, 

 the elevated plains of the Andes would correspond to the northern 

 countries of Europe. This, however, as far as regards the inhab- 

 itants of the European race, does not seem exactly to take place. 

 It is true they escape the billions and intermittent fevers so prev- 

 alent in the lowlands ; but they are generally subject to typhus, 

 dropsy, goitre, and such complaints as indicate constitutional de- 

 bility. Nor do we find among them either the muscular strength 

 or longevity of the Indians or Africans ; and still less of the nations 

 of northern Europe. Are the diurnal changes of temperature to 

 which they are exposed, less favorable to health than the alterna- 

 tion of European seasons which expose the frame to changes 

 equally great but less rapid? Or must we rather look for the 

 cause in their domestic habits, which exhibit a strange mixture of 

 effeminacy and discomfort ? 



When we examine the social or political effects of climate 

 and locahties, we are struck with their powerful effects on the 

 past struggles and present state of the country. The cities of the 

 coast must be considered as the inlets both of European products 

 and European ideas. Liberal opinions have extended themselves 



* It is the people of color, or mixliire of Africans with Whites and Indians, who 

 on the plains Ibrm the moyt hardy and warlike part of the population of Colombia. 



