67 



backs are sometimes as raw. as those of beasts of 

 burden, and that travellers have often the cruelty 

 to leave them in the forests, when they fall sick ; 

 that they earn by a journey from lb ague to 

 Carthago only twelve or fourteen piastres (sixty 

 or seventy francs) in a space of fifteen, and 

 sometimes even twenty-five or thirty days ; we 

 are at a loss to conceive, how this employment 

 of a carguero, one of the most painful which can 

 be undertaken by man, is eagerly embraced by 

 all the robust young men, who live at the foot of 

 the mountains. The taste for a wandering and 

 vagabond life, the idea of a certain independ- 

 ence amidst forests, leads them to prefer this em- 

 ployment to the sedentary and monotonous la- 

 bour of cities. 



The passage of the mountain of Quindiu is 

 not the only part of South America, which is 

 traversed on the backs of men. The whole of 

 the province of Antioquia is surrounded by 

 mountains so difficult to pass, that they who 

 dislike entrusting themselves to the skill of a 

 carrier, and who are not strong enough to travel 

 on foot from Santa Fe* de Antioquia to Bocca de 

 Nares, or Rio Samana, must relinquish all 

 thoughts of leaving the country. I was ac- 

 quainted with an inhabitant of this province, so 

 immensely bulky, that he had not met with 

 more than two mulattoes capable of carrying 

 him ; and it would have been impossible for him 



