MATERIAL CONDITION OF COLOMBIA. 211 



Panama Canal works ; but since the suspension of that project an exodus has 

 taken place in the opposite direction. Altogether not more than about 10,000 

 foreigners are supposed to be at present resident in the republic. In 1883 the 

 returns for Bogota gave only 455 in a total population of nearly 96,000. 



Colombia still remains but thinly peopled, over half of the territory being 

 almost uninhabited, while the relatively better-peopled districts are interrupted 

 by vast solitudes. The boundless spaces roamed exclusively by the wild tribes 

 .are even decreasing in population, owing chiefly to the ravages of small-pox. 

 Amongst the Colombians proper there is an excess of about 100,000 women over 

 men (2,150,000 and 2,050,000 respectively). According to Yergara the annual 

 increase by the excess of births over deaths averages from 80,000 to 85,000. 



Certain epidemics are prevalent, especially on the swampy coastlands, where 

 marsh-fevers often assume a virulent character along the shores of the Caribbean 

 Sea, while yellow fever or some analogous disorder occasionally ravages the low- 

 lying plains. Dysentery is almost equally dreaded, and cutaneous diseases are 

 very common, particularly amongst the negroes and half-breeds. Of late years 

 leprosy has also made its appearance, and seems to be rapidly spreading in many 

 districts, but mainly in the provinces of Santander and Boyaca. Those tainted 

 by this loathsome aâ'ection already exceed 20,000, and goitrous subjects are even 

 more numerous, being met in all the dark and gloomy upland valleys, especially 

 in the upper Magdalena and Cauca basins. 



As the great bulk of the population still belongs to the peasant class, indus- 

 trial pauperism has not yet invaded Colombia, and although there is no lack of poor, 

 there are no proletarians. All have at least sufficient bread, except when famine 

 is caused in certain districts by inundations or the plague of locusts. Slavery was 

 abolished over fifty years ago ; nevertheless, servitude may be said still prac- 

 tically to exist, for the system of small free holdings is far from general, while 

 the peasantry, always burdened with debts, are obliged to work like coolies on the 

 large estates. 



But Colombia still possesses a vast reserve of waste lands, more than sufficient 

 for the needs of a rural population twent};- times more numerous than the present. 

 In 1890 the state had at its disposal over 250,000,000 acres of such lands, and 

 during the two previous years the public domain had diminished only by about 

 130,000 acres. 



Settlers chiefly select wooded tracts, where the trees have to be felled, left to 

 dry for several months, and then fired at the risk of infection from the half-burnt 

 bodies of the innumerable reptiles and other animals destroyed by the conflagra- 

 tion. The rotation of crops usually begins with maize, which the first season 

 yields enormous returns ; but after two or three harvests the clearings are often 

 abandoned, and are soon again clothed with forest growths. 



The alimentary plants vary with the altitude and from province to province. 

 In the hot lands the staple food is yucca bread (manioc), eaten with bananas, of 

 which, according to the local saying, there are as many varieties as days in the 

 ^'■ear. The most esteemed is the large platano, which is roasted under the embers, 



