106 



When the Adalantado Goi^alo Ximenez de 

 Quesada, surnamed the conqueror, arrived, in 

 1537, from the banks of the Magdelena, at 

 the lofty savannahs of Bogota, he was struck with 

 the contrast, which he remarked between the 

 civilization of the nations inhabiting the moun- 

 tains, and the savage state of the hordes 

 scattered along the sultry regions of Tolu, Ma- 

 hates, and S\ Martha. On the elevated plain, 

 where, in latitude 4° and 6°, the centigrade ther- 

 mometer keeps constantly between 17 and 20 de- 

 grees during the clay, and between 8 and 10 de- 

 grees at night, Quesada found the Muyscas, the 

 Guanes, the Muzoes, and the Calimas, settle in 

 communities, employed in agriculture, and cloth- 

 ed in cotton garments; while the tribes that 

 wandered through the neighbouring plains, 

 nearly on a level with the surface of the Ocean, 

 appeared brutalized, destitute of clothes, with- 

 out industry, and without arts *. The Spaniards 

 were surprised at seeing themselves transported 

 into a country, where, on a soil of little fertility, 

 the fields every where yielded plentiful harvests 

 of maize, chenopodium quinoa, and turmas, or 



* Ilistoria general de las Conquistas del Nuevo Reyno de 

 Grenada, par el Doctor D. Lucas Fernandez Piedrahita, p. 15. 

 (The author, who died Bishop of Panama, compiled this his- 

 tory from the manuscripts of Quesada, the Conqueror ; Juan 

 de Castcllanos, vicar of Tunja ; and the franciscan monks, 

 Fray Antonio Medrano and Fr Pedro Agueda) 



