TOPOGEAPHY OF COLOMBIA. 201 



Itagui and Envigado, the latter noted for its exceptionally high birth-rate ; fami- 

 lies of 20 or even 25 childre/i are by no means rare, and one of the founders of 

 the settlement, who died at the age of 93 in 1870, left behind him as many as 

 700 direct descendants in the district. 



On the northern slopes the chief centres of culture are Cojmcabnna, Jivardoia, 

 and Barhosa, future stations of the projected main trunk line. Santa Rom de los 

 Osos, a mining station in the Porce valley north-west of Barbosa, lies in an 

 extremely rugged country everywhere surrounded by deep gorges, with a relatively 

 cold normal temperature of 58° Fahr., but so healthy that, according to the local 

 saying, " Nobody dies except of old age or by his own hand." In 1880 no physi- 

 cian had yet ventured to settle in the place, although it had at that time a popula- 

 tion of 10,000, chiefly miners and gold- washers. 



North of Santa Rosa the population falls rapidly with the fall of the land. 

 In the mining regions the Antioquenos, accustomed to the bracing air of the 

 uplands, avoid the moist valleys and lowlands, and settle almost exclusively on the 

 higher grounds. Thus Carolina, near the magnificent falls of the Rio Guadalupe, 

 Angostura, Yarmnal, Anori, Amalfi, all stand at altitudes exceeding 4,750 feet, and 

 are all thriving places, whereas Remedios, in the basin of the Ite afliuent of the 

 Magdalena, was soon abandoned after the exhaustion of the local gold-mines. 

 Even Zaragoza de las Palmas, capital of all the low-lying country below the Porce- 

 Nechi confluence, remains an obscure village, despite the immense extent of its 

 district, and the advantage of a navigable waterway on which steamers already 

 ply regularly. Still smaller places are Nechi and Santa Lucia, at the confluence of 

 the Nechi with the Cauca, where begins the marshy region of labyrinthine 

 channels and backwaters forming the inland delta of the Magdalena, Cauca, San 

 Jorge, and Cesar rivers. 



MoMPOs — Carmen. 



Till recently the capital of this half- submerged region was Mompos, on the left 

 bank of the Magdalena, one of the oldest settlements in Colombia, havino- been 

 founded by Alonso de Heredia in 1539. But after being swept away by the floods 

 of 1762, and again almost ruined by the erratic character of the mainstream, it 

 was threatened with final extinction in 1868, when the Magdalena shifted its 

 channel westwards to the Loba branch. 



Formerly Mompos was the chief riverine port of the main artery between 

 Honda and its mouth. At the annual fair held in February the produce of the 

 uplands was exchanged for the merchandise imported from the coast, the trans- 

 actions often exceeding £180,000 or £200,000 in value. In the hope of 

 recovering this flourishing trade it is proposed to again divert the stream 

 eastwards and reopen the Mompos channel. Meanwhile, the shifting of the 

 fluvial current has conferred some importance on Guamal, at the junction of the 

 Loba branch with the Cauca ; but the change has been even more beneficial to 

 Magangiié, on the left bank of the united streams below the San Jorge confluence. 



