Notes on Panama and Colombia 



465 



was taken 32 years ago; but an official 

 estimate made in 1881 gave her about 

 3,600,000, not including the people of 

 Panama. Colombia has no army to 

 speak of, no ships, no money, only a few 

 miles of railway, and hence no means of 

 sending a good force against Panama. 



Bogota, the capital, is called the 

 Athens of South America, and has a 

 population of 125,000. The national 

 university is located in the city and there 

 is a valuable library of 50,000 volumes, 

 an observatory, a picture gallery, and 

 several learned institutions. 



An intending visitor to Bogota is 

 lauded at Barranquilla, at the mouth of 

 the Magdalena River; thence he pro- 

 ceeds by steamer up the river for 592 ^ 

 miles to Honda, then by rail 22 miles to 

 La Dorada, then by mules 45 miles to 

 Facatativa, and thence by rail 24 miles, 

 when he finally reaches the Colombian 

 capital. 



Colombia, exclusive of Panama, is as 

 large as the two states of California and 

 Texas combined. Three high moun- 

 tain ranges cross the republic from north 

 to south, making high table-lands be- 

 tween, where the days the year round 

 are scarcely hotter than those of a tem- 

 perate zone. On the Bogota table-land 

 the glass oscillates between 50 and 78 

 Fahr. , while the annual rainfall rarely 

 exceeds 45 inches. In the lowlands, of 

 course, the tropical sun beats down with 

 an intensity that makes those sections 

 uninhabitable by the white man. 



The people are a mixture of races. 

 At the time of the Spanish conquest 

 the population of Colombia was esti- 

 mated at eight million. Wholesale butch- 

 eries and enslavement in the mines re- 

 duced the number in a few generations 

 to less than a million. Most of the na- 

 tives were too helpless to resist, but 

 "some retaliated and in the Antioquia 

 district poisoned the salt springs so ef- 

 fectually that they remain poisoned to 

 this day." The present Colombian na- 

 tionality is a fusion in varying propor- 

 tions of the aborigines with the whites 



from various parts of Spain, including a 

 considerable number of baptized Jews. 

 This Hebrew element is quite notice- 

 able, especially in the province of Antio- 

 quia, which is" the wealthiest and most 

 prosperous of the departments of Co- 

 lombia. There is also a considerable 

 African element in the population. 



Colombia has great wealth lying un- 

 touched on her plains and in her forests 

 and mountains. Dr A. H. Keane de- 

 scribes her resources in the following 

 glowing terms : * 



' ' So varied and abundant are its nat- 

 ural resources, both above and below 

 ground, that, under a firm and enlight- 

 ened administration, Colombia, despite 

 the insalubrious climate of many dis- 

 tricts, might soon become one of the 

 most prosperous regions in the world. 

 It supplies nearly all the platinum as 

 well as the very finest emeralds brought 

 to the European market, while gold- 

 bearing reefs and washings occur almost 

 everywhere, the total annual yield be- 

 ing about ,£650,000 and the yield of 

 gold and silver since the discover}' nearly 

 £150,000,000. In 1891 as many as 

 4,960 mines of all kinds were open, in- 

 cluding 3,398, 794, and 571 of gold in 

 the three departments of Antioquia, 

 Tolima, and Cauca respectively, besides 

 32 of emeralds, 14 of cinnabar, 7 of 

 manganese, and several of platinum, 

 silver, lead, mercury, iron, coal, and 

 salt. Extensive coal-fields and reser- 

 voirs of petroleum occur in several 

 districts, so that few regions can com- 

 pare with Colombia for the astonishing 

 variety of its underground products. 

 Scarcely less varied are those of its for- 

 ests and cultivated lands, including 

 coffee, cocoa, tobacco, sugar, vegetable 

 ivory, rubber, dye-woods, plantains, 

 wheat, and maize ; but at present only 

 a small part of the country is under 

 tillage, and the development of its agri- 

 cultural resources is greatly retarded 

 by the lack of good communications." 



* Central and South America. By A. H. 

 Keane. Vol. I, p. 152. 



