THE ROAD MULE AND GUADUAS. 



105 



rather getting ahead of us in our dish, sucking pig. Salt, of which 

 the government has the monopoly, was weighed out in little scales 

 as carefully as a druggist weighs his medicines. The duty on salt 

 is about three and a half cents per pound, and in Guaduas it was 

 sold at ten cents per pound. Beef is very good here, and cattle 

 are butchered every morning. The hides, which are exported in 

 large quantities, are prepared by simply stretching them out with 

 pegs over the ground, hair side down, but clear by about ten inches. 

 When dry, they are folded up into squares about the size of a coffee- 

 sack, and then tied up into bales. 



A good deal of the produce from the neighborhood was brought 

 in on the backs of bullocks. They are said to be even more 

 sure-footed than the mules, though slower. Such things as fruit, 

 vegetables, earthenware vessels, etc., are put into purse-like bags 

 of a coarse netting, and then loaded on the pack-animal. (See 

 page 88.) 



In the afternoon Cabell went out with his gun, and later Alice 

 and I went out a short ways to meet him 

 on his return. He had been to some flow- 

 ering trees near a coffee plantation along 

 the road, and brought back eleven hum- 

 ming-birds of eight different species. They 

 were, first, a pair of the large black- 

 throats [Lampornis nigricollis). Sec- 

 ond, a pair, male and female, but slightly 

 smaller ; the male green above and below, 

 with broad, black tail-feathers and con- 

 spicuous white plume-like under tail-co- 

 verts ; the female was similar, but had 

 more gray in the green below {Hypurop- 

 tila huffoni). Third, a pair, golden bronze 

 above with a greenish tinge, tlie central 

 tail-feathers the same ; the others chestnut, with purplish bronze 

 and white tips, below gray, with a darker patch on the throat 



HYPUROPTILA BUFFONI. 

 (From Elliot.) 



