THE OOLOGIST 



date as the name implies. Cherrie 

 and I are in a room plastered with 

 mud over laths of bamboo. The floor 

 is of boards and has never been swept 

 or cleaned. Many huge spiders and 

 roaches, together with a few fleas and 

 rats also occupy the suite. Ring is 

 in a tiny room backing up against 

 ours, which is equally dirty and con- 

 tains a fine collection of old bottles, 

 rags and junk of all kinds. 



The poor people of Colombia keep 

 everything that they can lay their 

 hands on, even old bits of dirty paper, 

 for everything is of value in this 

 country. 



One enters the house through a 

 narrow passage way, paved with cob- 

 bles, either on foot or on horseback. 

 At the back is a typical open court 

 also paved, which serves as chicken 

 yard, pig pen, kitchen and general 

 dump. 



The cooking is all done over a 

 small fire built between three round- 

 ed stones, as stoves are unheard of. 

 It is remarkable how the women can 

 turn out four or five coarse meals for 

 six hungry men, each of them eating 

 twice as much as any Colombian pos- 

 sibly could! The dining room is 

 simply an open porch on the court, 

 back from the bed-rooms. Here is a 

 wooden table and several chairs 

 covered with the skins of Jaguar, oce- 

 lot and steer. There is a scant set 

 of table ware, a few earthen jugs for 

 water made in the country, but all 

 other articles such as cups, glasses, 

 etc., are imported from great dis- 

 tances.. In the evenings we eat and 

 write our notes by the light of tallow 

 dips or Deitz lanterns which are uni- 

 versally used in the country. 



The owner of the house is an old 

 maid and for assistants she has two 

 stunted Indian girls, who are as good 

 as gold and ever ready to do anything 

 that we ask of them. They will spend 



an entire day grinding corn into meal 

 by pounding it between two stones in 

 order to make soup and other strange 

 dishes for us, which are remarkably 

 good. 



The town itself is a remarkably in- 

 teresting old place consisting of twelve 

 streets paved with cobbles. The house 

 are all of the same type, being made 

 of native lumber and mud with either 

 thatched or tile roofs. In the center 

 of the main street there is a fast flow- 

 ing stream two or three feet wide, 

 running from one end of the town to 

 the other. This is the sewer of Villa- 

 vicencio, and most everything is 

 dumped into it. 



There is a half tumbled down 

 church near our house and at the en- 

 trance to the village there is a huge 

 wooden cross. Further up the moun- 

 tains stands another one, consider- 

 ably larger and of much heavier tim- 

 bers. These I learned are to keep the 

 Devil out of the town, but we saw 

 plenty of him in the saloon across the 

 street, which also contained a pool 

 table which had been brought across 

 the Andes, slung between two mules. 



It is curious that the poorest people 

 all over Colombia possess Singer sew- 

 ing machines. I have seen them in 

 thatched mud huts far up in the moun- 

 tains, belonging to people that even 

 do not have money enough to buy a 

 chair or table to furnish their house 

 with. I cannot imagine how they get 

 them, unless they save for years and 

 years. The Singer appears to be the 

 one thing that they are willing to suf- 

 fer for, in order to possess, and one 

 sees them everywhere. 



(To be continued) 



Let me congratulate you on decided 

 improvements lately. Reminds me of 

 the issues of '92 to '95. 



F. A. Doolittle. 



