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THE EDINBURGH JOURNAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



about three lines in diameter at their extremities, either split or diverging hke a fork. 

 As to the cylindrical figure ascribed to them by Baker (who, besides, supposed them 

 ZQ be hollow), Dr Blumenbach scarcely observed one of that form. 



Dr Telesius observed that these men look quite different in autumn from what they 

 do-at other seasons, because they then lose their outer skin, or oldest crust, and ap- 

 peared spotted. 



On examining the fragments, he found that those which he had broken off were 

 softer to the touch than those which had fallen off spontaneously ; probably on account 

 of their being under the immediate influence of the eshahng vessels and the sebaceous 

 fflands. Where the excrescences were longest and thickest, they appeared to Dr 

 Blumenbach to be like those of the Elephant, under the forehead and above the pro- 

 boscis; their colour, in general, appeared of a chesnut or coffee-brown. This, how- 

 ever, was the case at their surface only; for the inferior parts, especially of the 

 largest ones, were of a yellowish-gray. Some of the hair of the skm appeared as if 

 grown into the horny substance of the excrescences. The skin on the top of the 

 head before, especially in the eldest, formed a kind of broad callosity, somewhat like 

 the top of the Camel. As for the perspiration of these men, it had nothing un- 

 common connected with it, nor any perceptible odour. 



Of cases really analogous to that of the Porcupine Men, Dr Blumenbach mentions 

 other two which came under his notice; the one was of the boy of Bifegha, of whom 

 Stalp Vanderwiel has given a description and figure in his Observations; the other, a 

 female child at Vienna, described by Professor Brambilla, in his Memoirs of the Jos. 

 Sled. Chirurg. Academy. In both the face was free from any excrescences, but the 

 palms of the hands and soles of the feet were most defaced by them. 



CARGUEROES, OR MAN-CARRIERS OF QUINDIU. 

 The mountain of Quindiu is considered as the most difficult passage in the Cordilleras 

 of the Andes. It is a thick uninhabited forest, which, in the finest season, cannot be 

 traversed in less than ten or twelve days. Not even a hut is to be seen, nor can any 

 means of subsistence be found. 



Travellers, at all times of the year, furnish themselves with a month's provi- 

 sion, since it often happens, that by the melting of the snows, and the sudden swell 

 of the torrents, they find themselves so circumstanced, that they can descend neither 

 on the side of Cai-thago, nor on that of Ibague. The highest point of the road, 

 the Garito del Paramo, is three thousand five hundred and five metres (11,500 feet) 

 above the level of the sea. As the foot of the mountain, towards the banks of the 

 Cauca, is only nine hundred and sixty metres (3,150 feet high), the climate there is 

 in general mild and temperate. The pathway which forms the passage of the 

 Cordilleras is only three or four decimetres in breadth (from a foot to a foot and a 

 half), and has the appearance, in several places, of a gallery dug, and left open to the 

 sky. In this part of the Andes, as almost in every other, the rock is covered with a 

 thick stratum of clay. The streamlets, which flow dovvn the mountains, have hollowed 

 out gulhes, six or seven metres deep (from 20 to 23 feet). Along these crevices, 

 which are full of mud, the traveller is forced to grope his passage, the darkness of 

 which is increased by the thick vegetation that covers the opening above. The oxen, 

 which are the beasts of burden commonly made use of in this country, can scarcely 

 force their way through these galleries, some of which are two thousand metres (2,200 

 vards) in length ; and if, perchance, the traveller meets them in one of these passages, 

 he finds no means of avoiding them but by turning back, and climbing the earthen 

 wall which borders the crevice, and keeping himself suspended, by laying hold of the 

 roots which penetrate to this depth from the surface of the ground. 



We traversed the mountain of Quindiu in the month of October ISOl, on foot, 

 followed by twelve oxen, which carried our collections and instruments, amidst a 

 deluge of rain, to which we were exposed during the last three or four days, in our 

 descent on the western side of the Cordilleras. The road passes through a country 

 full of bogs, and covered with bamboos. Our shoes were so torn by the prickles, 

 which shoot out from the roots of these gigantic Gramina, that we were forced, hke 

 all other travellers who dishke being carried on men's backs, to go barefooted. This 

 circumstance, the continual humidity, the length of the passage, the muscular force 

 required to tread in a thick and muddy clay, the necessity of fording deep torrents of 

 icy water, render this journey extremely fatiguing; but hawever painful, it is accom- 

 panied by none of those dangers with which the credulity of the people alarm travel- 

 lers. The road is narrow, but the places where it skirts precipices are very rare. 

 As the oxen are accustomed to put their feet in the same tracks, they form small 

 furrows across the road, separated from each other by narrow ridges of earth. In 

 very rainy seasons these ridges are covered with water, which renders the traveller's 

 step doubly uncertain, since he knows not whether he places his foot on the ridge or 

 in the furrow. As few persons in easy circumstances travel on foot in these climates, 

 through roads so difficult, during fifteen or twenty days together, they are carried by 

 men in a chair tied on their back ; for, in the present state of the passage of Quindiu, 

 it would be impossible to go on mules. They talk in this country of going on a 

 man's back, (andar en carguero), as we mention going on horseback, no humiliating 

 idea is annexed to the trade of cargueroes ; and the men who follow this occupation 

 are not Indians but Mulattoes, and sometimes even whites. It is often curious to 

 hear these men, with scarcely any covering, and following a profession which we 

 should consider so disgraceful, quai-relling in the midst of the forest because one has 

 refused the other, who pretends to have a whiter skin, the pompous title of doii^ or 

 of su mp.rced. The usual load of a carguero is six or seven arrobas (about 180 lbs.) ; 

 those who are very strong cai-ry as much as nine arrobas (about 250 lbs.) 'V\Tien 

 ^e reflect on the enormous fatigue to which these miserable men are exposed, 

 iourneying eight or nine hours a day over a mountainous country ; when we know 

 that their backs are sometimes as raw as those of beasts of burden, and that 

 travellers have often the cruelty to leave them in the forest when they are sick ; 

 that they earn by a journey from Ibague to Carthago only twelve or fourteen piastres 

 (from L.2, 10s. to L.3), in a space of fifteen, and sometimes even twenty-five or 

 thirty days, we are at a loss to conceive how this employment of a carguero, one 

 of the most painful which can be undertaken by man, is eagerly embraced by all the 



robust young men who live at the foot of the mountains. The taste for a wandering 

 and vagabond life, the idea of a certain independence amidst forests, leads them to 

 prefer this employment to the sedentary and monotonous labour of cities. 



The passage of the mountain of Quindiu is not the only part of South America 

 which is traversed on the backs of men. The whole of the province of Antioquia is 

 surrounded by mountains so diff.cult to pass, that they who dislike entrusting them- 

 selves to the skill of a carrier, and who are not strong enough to travel on foot from 

 Santa Fe de Antioquia to Bocca de Kares or Rio Samana, must relinquish all 

 thoughts of leaving the country. 1 was acquainted with an inhabitant of this pro- 

 vince, so immensely bulky, that ho had not met with more than two Mulattoes 

 capable of carrying him ; and it would have been impossible for him to return home 

 if these two carriers had died, while he was on the banks of the Magdalena, at 

 Blompox or Honda. The number of young men who undertake the employment of 

 beasts of burden at Choco, Ibague, and Medellin, is so considerable, that we some- 

 times met a file of fifty or sixty. A few years ago, when a project was formed to 

 make the passage from Nares to Antioquia passable for mules, the cargueroes 

 presented formal remonstrances against mending the road, and the government was 

 weak enough to yield to their clamours. "We may here observe, that a class of men 

 near the mines of Mexico, have no other employment than that of carrying other 

 men on their backs. In these climates the indolence of the whites is so great, that 

 every director of a mine has one or two Indians at his service, who are called his 

 horses (cavallitoes), because they are saddled every morning, and supported by a 

 small cane, and, bending forwai-ds, they carry their master from one part of the mine 

 to another. Among the cavallitoes or cargueroes, those who have a sure foot and 

 easy step are known and recommended to travellers. It is distressing to hear the 

 qualities of man spoken of in terms by which we are accustomed to denote the gait 

 of mules and horses. The persons who are carried in a chair by a carguero must 

 remain several hours motionless and leaning backwards; the least motion is sufficient 

 to throw down the carrier ; and his fall would be so much the more dangerous, as the 

 carguero, too confident in his skill, chooses the most rapid declivities, or crosses a 

 torrent on a narrow and slippery trunk of a tree. These accidents are, however, 

 rare, and those which happen must be attributed to tho imprudence of travellers, 

 who, frightened at a false step of the carguero, leap down from their chairs. 



WTien the cargueroes reach Ibague and prepare for their journey, they pluck in 

 the neighbouring mountains several hundred leaves of the Vijao, a plant of the family 

 of the Bananas, which forms a genus approaching the llialia^ and which must not 

 be confounded with the Ueliconia bihai. These leaves, which are membraneous and 

 silky, Hke those of the J\Iusa, are of an oval form, fifty-four centimetres (twenty 

 inches) long, and thirty-seven centimetres (fourteen inches) in breadth. Their lower 

 surface is a silvery white, and covered with a farinaceous substance which falls off in 

 scales. This peculiar varnish enables them to resist the rain during a long time. 

 In gathering these leaves, an incision is made in the middle rib, which is the continua- 

 tion of the footstalk, and this serves as a hook to suspend them when the moveable 

 roof is formed. On taking it down, they are spread out and carefully rolled up in a 

 cylindrical bundle. It requires about a hundred weight of leaves (50 kilogrammes) 

 to cover a hut large enough to hold six or eight persons. AVhen the travellers 

 reach a spot in the midst of the forest, whero the groimd is dry, and where they 

 propose to pass the night, the cargueroes lop a few branches from the trees, with 

 which they make a tent. In a few minutes the slight timber work is divided by the 

 stalks of some climbing plant, or threads of the Agave, placed in parallel lines, three 

 or four decimetres from each other. The ^'ijao leaves meanwhile have been um'oUed, 

 and aie now spread over the above work, so as to cover each other like tiles of a 

 house. These huts thus hastily built, are cool and comm.odious. If during the 

 night the traveller feels the rain, he points out the spot where it enters, and a single 

 leaf is sufiicient to obviate the inconvenience. We passed several days in the 

 valley of Boquia under one of these leafy tents, which was perfectly dry amidst 

 violent and incessant rains. The mountain of Quindiu is one of the richest spots in 

 useful and interesting plants. Here we found the Palm Tree {Ceroxi/Jon andicola)^ 

 the trunk of v.hich is covered with a vegetable wax, the Passiflora in trees, and the 

 majestic Muiisia grandiflora, with flowers of a scarlet colour, sixteen centimetres, 

 or six inches long. — Humboldt. 



The Sleepikg Lassie of Dunkinald.. — Margaret Lyall, aged 21, daughter of 

 John Lyall, labourer at Dunninald, near jMontrose, was first seized with a sleeping fit 

 on the 27th June 1815; next morning she was again found in a deep sleep. In this 

 state she remained for seven days, without motion or food; but at the end of this 

 time, by the moving of her left hand, and by plucking at the coverlet of the bed 

 and pointing to her mouth, a wish for food being understood, it was given her. This 

 she took, but still remained in her lethargic state till Tuesday the 8th of August, be- 

 ing six weeks from the time she was seized with the lethai-gy, without appearing to 

 be awake, except on the afternoon of Friday the 30th June. For the first two weeks 

 her pulse was generally about 50, the third week about 60, and previous to her re- 

 covery at 70 to 72. Though extremely feeble for some days after her recovery, she 

 gained strength so rapidly, that before the end of August she began to work at the 

 harvest on the lands of I\Ir Arkley, and continued, without inconvenience, to perform 

 her labour. This account was drawn up by the Rev. James Brewster, Minister of 

 Craig. 



ERRATA. 



Lettering of Plate LI., Deer, fig. 6, for C. Macrourus read C. Paludosics* 

 ANiiiAL KiNcnoji, page 31, col. 2, line 42, for Aluntian read Aleutian. 

 Journal, .... 29, 1, 11, ^ov Spanow read Thrush. 



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