316 VILLAGE OF TURBACO. 
summits in the neighbourhood of Carthagena. Here 
they remained until they made the necessary pre- 
parations for their voyage on the Rio Magdalena, 
and for the long journey which they intended to 
make to Bogota, Popayan,and Quito. The village 
is about 1151 feet above the level of the sea. Snakes 
were so numerous that they chased the rats even in 
the houses, and pursued the bats on the roofs. From 
the terrace surrounding their habitation, they had a 
view of the colossal mountains of the Sierra Nevada 
de Santa Marta, part of which was covered with 
perennial snow. The intervening space, consisting 
of hills and plains, was adorned with a luxuriant 
vegetation, resembling that of the Orinoco. There 
they found gigantic trees, not previously known, such 
as the Rhinocarpus excelsa, with spirally-curved 
fruit, the Ocotea turbacensis, and the Cavanillesia 
platanifolia ; the large five-winged fruit of which 
is suspended from the tips of the branches like paper 
lanterns. They botanized every day in the woods 
from. five in the morning till night, though they | 
were excessively annoyed by mosquitoes, zancudoes, 
xegens, and other tipulary insects. In the midst of 
these magnificent forests they frequently saw plan- 
tations of bananas and maize, to which the Indians 
are fond of retiring at the end of the rainy season. 
The persons who accompanied the travellers on 
these expeditions often spoke of a marshy ground 
situated in the midst of a thicket of palms, and which 
they designated by the name of Los Volcancitos. 
They said that, according to a tradition preserved 
in the village, the ground had formerly been ignited, 
but that a monk had extinguished it by frequent | 
aspersions of holy water, and converted the fire- 
volcano into a water-volcano. Without attaching 
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