INHABITANTS OP COLOMBIA. 169 



invaded by hosts of locusts, as in 1825, when the Cauca valley was wasted ; not a 

 blade of grass was left for the cattle, sheep, and goats, which were driven to devour 

 the grubs and young locusts. Pigs and poultry also surfeited on the same food, 

 so that milk, eggs, meat, everything acquired a sickening flavour of musk, and 

 reeked of grasshopper. 



Inhahitants of Colombia. 

 The present Colombians descend, for the most part, from the Indian peoples 

 occupying the land at the advent of the Spaniards towards the middle of the 

 sixteenth century. How the natives were treated by the ruthless Conquistadores 

 is a twice-told tale of savage massacres and frightful atrocities. Wholesale 

 butcheries, dire oppression, epidemics, and especially weariness of life, swept away 

 hundreds of thousands. The adelantado Jimenez de Quesada, the same who had 

 conquered the plateau, testified thirty-nine years afterwards that where he had 

 found 2,00(>,000 of inhabitants there then survived only the wreck of a few 

 wretched tribes. But from these humble remains, crossed to a slight degree by 

 European elements, has sprung the Colombian race, a young shoot from a felled 

 stem. 



Although all the nations formerly'- inhabiting the land have contributed to the 

 formation of the Hispano-Colombians, these claim as their forefathers chiefly the 

 Muyscas of the plateaux between the Magdalena and the Suma Paz cordillera. It 

 was natural that preference should be given to those Indians who had already 

 developed an advanced civilisation, and who have left a name in history. In any 

 case, Cundinamarca, land of the Muyscas, included at the time of the C'^nquest 

 not only the present province of that name, but also all the uplands east of the 

 Magdalena as far as the Sierra Nevada de Merida, in the neighbouring state of 

 Venezuela. 



The Muyscas, that is, " Men," * also bore the alternative name of Chibchas, 

 from the frequent recurrence of the ch sound (as in church) in their language. 

 According to the national legends they were still barbarians, ignorant even of the 

 arts of tillage and weaving, when a youth of fairer features than their own came 

 to teach them the crafts and industries. This civiliser, often confounded with the 

 god Bochica, had also given them a complete political constitution, and at his death 

 appointed his two sons, or those of his sister, one as the spiritual, the other as the 

 .secular and supreme chief. 



The Muyscas worshipped the heavenly bodies, all of which, as well as the 

 forces of nature, were personified. Altars were raised to them in the open, and to 

 their temples were brought offerings — gold, stuffs, precious stones, even living 

 victims. A wayfarer passing by a mountain, a rock, or a plant, and hearing its 

 voice in fancy, would forthwith prostrate himself in worship of the mysterious life 

 thus revealed, and henceforth a new deity was added to the multitude of gods. 

 Above them all stood Bochica, the universal spirit and supreme master, who had 

 entrusted the whole earth, and especially Muyscaland, to Chibchacum, " Wand of 



* From Mn-isca, "body-five," i.e., body of five extremities, apparently in reference to the five- 

 fingered and five -toed hands and feet used in counting. 



