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 Ibague 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 
vaga])ond 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 F6 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 
F 2 
