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COLOMBIA. 



covered with trees. But how this can act to in- 

 vert the usual order of things, I have never heard 

 any one attempt to explain ; certain it is, that all 

 the women we saw were fair, and perfectly resem- 

 bled, in this respect, the inhabitants of cold cli- 

 mates. 



At the next house, the most conspicuous per- 

 sonage we encountered was a tall, gentlemanlike, 

 rather pompous sort of person ; dressed in a spot- 

 ted linen wrapper, and green slippers, with his 

 hair cropped and frizzled after a very strange fa- 

 shion. His wife, a tall handsome woman, and 

 his daughter, a grave pretty little freckled girl, as 

 we thought of sixteen years of age, but actually 

 only thirteen, were seated in a hammock ; which, 

 by the united efforts of their feet, was made to 

 swing to a great height. In another very large 

 hammock sat a beautiful little girl of five years of 

 age, waiting impatiently for some one to swing it 

 about. On a sofa, which was more than twenty 

 feet long, sat two or three young ladies, daughters 

 of the lady in the hammock, and several others, 

 visitors ; besides five or six gentlemen, several of 

 whom were dressed, like the master of the house, 



10 



