THE EIO MAGDALENA. 153 



1,900 yards below the neighbouring uplands, still preserves its wild character, 

 rushing between its narrow rocky walls with a velocity that arrests all navigation 

 except for a short distance of some 30 miles on its lower course. 



The Lake of Fuquene, whence the Saravita escapes, was certainly much larger 

 at the period of the Conquest than at present. Piedrahita, who visited it in the 

 middle of the seventeenth century, gives it 10 by 3 leagues, whereas Roulin's 

 recent careful measurements show only 4| by 3 miles for the whole basin. Its 

 level, now 8,400 feet, was formerly much higher, comprising the lacustrine basin 

 of Ubate and all the intermediate plains, as is attested by the water-marks still 

 visible along the flanks of the encircling hills. But the waters gradually subsided, 

 revealing islands, peninsulas, isthmuses, and extensive plains, so that in 1780 

 the inland sea had already been decomposed into two completely distinct basins. 

 The village of Fuquene, originally built on its banks, is now 3 miles distant. 

 Boussingault attributes the subsidence to the destruction of the surrounding oak 

 and wax myrtle (myrica) forests, used up for building purposes, and especially 

 as fuel for the Nemocon and Tausa salines. At present the lake has only an 

 average depth of from 20 to 26 feet, although much used for the traffic in local 

 produce. 



Although much smaller than the Sogamoso, the Lebrija is also a copious 

 affluent, rising in the eastern mountains and joining the Magdalena on the plains, 

 not directly, but through the wide-branching and ever-shifting inland delta 

 which is here developed. Towards the middle of this delta the main branch is 

 now deflected to the north-west, but it formerly continued its northerly course 

 to the sea east of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, through the valley now 

 occupied by the Rio Rancheria. During the floods the Magdalena still sends its 

 overflow northwards to the old bed, and thus is formed the vast Zapatosa lagoon, 

 varying with the seasons from 400 to 700 or 800 square miles in extent and from 

 20 to 25 feet deep. 



Besides the periodical contributions of the Magdalena from the south, 

 Zapatosa and the neighbouring basins receive the Rio Cesar, descending on the 

 opposite side from the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra Negra. The Cesar, formerly 

 Cesari, takes its name not, as might be supposed, from the Portuguese conqueror 

 of the Antioquia plateau, but from an Indian word meaning " Smooth Waters." 



Below its Zapatosa affluent the Magdalena again ramifies. Till recently the 

 main branch trended north-west along the foot of the Sierra Nevada terraces ; but 

 in 1801 it had already reopened on the left the tortuous Loba channel, through 

 which some of its waters flowed to the Cauca. After various shiftings between 

 the two beds, the Loba at last became the main channel in 1868, since which time 

 the more convenient eastern branch has been gradually silting up. In the dry 

 season it is at present a narrow passage, scarcely 20 inches deep at the sills, and 

 in some places merely stagnant water. The Loba branch, on the contrary, which 

 receives the Cauca, and a little lower down the San Jorge on its left bank, now 

 carries nearly all the united waters of the whole b isin. The line of navigation 

 has thus been changed, and while the towns on the east branch are decaying, 



