326 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
(bulb) of these plants is returned to us in the form of medicine, and that 
each little phial is sold again for five pesas’’ (twenty-five francs). Some- 
times they say this ina loud tone, quite convinced that these plants are 
used by us to make drugs. 
In other cases the proprietor, after much hesitation, thinks that he 
would realise a greater profit by exploiting the mountain himself, without 
even suspecting that he may have been the victim of the greatest 
deceptions. He thinks that he has only to take his axe in hand to be able 
to return with cargoes of plants, and it is with great astonishment that he 
finds out that others have been before him, cutting down the trees on a 
large scale, and carrying off the plants unknown to himself, notwithstanding 
all his vigilance. 
This is a case which often occurs when the proprietor has refused, 
notwithstanding the offer of a great indemnity, to allow the exploration of 
his woods. The peons then enter by a neighbouring property, which itself 
perhaps may not contain any plants, and to which they have obtained 
access by the payment of a small fee, which allows them to enter, and 
afterwards depart with the plants collected in the former. 
When this proceeding fails to succeed—it may be because the property 
or the woods are sufficiently isolated for the careful guarding of the main 
outlets—they resort to strategy, to effect an entrance surreptitiously, one 
by one, without attracting the attention of the sub-tenants, who occupy 
or cultivate a plot of land in the hacienda (farm), concealing in theif 
‘muchila” (a little bag made of Fourcroya fibre) their axes, concealed 
under their food, and some clothing which they each carry for a week's 
supply when out on a collecting expedition. 
In groups as rocky as the Colombian Cordilleras there is always some 
spot where the rocks are so precipitous, or cut so perpendicularly as to 
produce giddiness, that all entrance or exit appears to be materially 
impossible from that side. These places are usually inhabited, and in 
consequence overlooked, but these are the places which are selected by the 
peons, who work in the following manner. 
A cable, made of lianas twisted together, is stretched obliquely, fixed at 
one end to the summit, and at the other to the foot of the precipice, by 4 
tree. : 
The plants, carefully rolled in the ‘muchilas,’ are then passed along the 
cable by means of a ring, and are sent to the bottom without receiving the 
least injury from the projections of the rocks. There the plants are 
received by one or two of the ‘associés,’ who are eager to put the booty in 4 
safe place. The same manceuvres are repeated week by week, until the 
mountain is perfectly cleared, and without the proprietor having received 4 
penny benetit. 
