According to the people of the region, Colombia’s chief novel is little more than the autobiography of its author, polished into the ideal love-story in vogue a half-century ago. Isaacs, like the hero “Efraín,” was the son of an English Jew, born in Jamaica, who came to Colombia as a young man, married, and embraced Christianity. Like “Efraín,” the author had a sister Emma, in real life the recently-deceased wife of a doctor of Popayán. “Carlos,” who first offered his hand to “María,” still lived on his hacienda a few miles out across the valley. “Juan Angel,” the slave-boy of “Efraín,” was said to be still living in Cali, an old, old man. The bear and tiger hunting, the country weddings, the simple and patriarchal household, the life and scenes of the Cauca, had all been things of reality, deftly lifted into the realms of the imagination by the hero-author. Even the evil stroke of fortune that had befallen the family on that dismal night in the “hacienda of the valley” was no story-book tale, but a stern fact that had left the novelist without patrimony and brought into the hands of strangers “the house of my fathers.”
We took our leave in the early afternoon, drifting down through sloping meadows past the great black rock to which “María” used to climb to watch for the return of “Efraín” from the valley, which here spreads out in all its rich expanse, majestic and silent, to the dim Western Cordillera. Hays, long lost in meditation, broke it at last to announce that he had found the end of his wanderings; that he would return to the Zone to earn a new “stake” and come back to end his days as the owner of the “novela casa.” He was given to catching such enthusiasms—to have them die during the succeeding night. It was, indeed, the most splendid spot in all the magnificent Cauca valley, this simple dwelling set where it could see and be seen from untold leagues away, from the very crest of the western range, yet never standing forth boldly and conspicuously. Framed modestly among its evergreens, just a little way up the first easy slope of the Andean range that piles into the clouds behind it, it seemed as unassuming and removed from the hubbub of the modern world as gentle “María” herself. All the day through our eyes were drawn back to it at frequent intervals, and as long as the light lasted it stood forth plainly in this clear air, though it shrunk to a house in miniature, then to a mere speck on the skirt-hem of the central range.
All the hot afternoon we plodded onward. Some miles after falling in with the camino real again, we passed “La Manuelita,” the “hacienda of the valley” where Isaacs’ father had set up a sugar factory while the son was still a student in Bogotá, and where took place, both in the novel and real life, that pathetic scene that marked the ruin of the family. To-day the estate is the property of Russian-Americans, and its products are known throughout all Colombia. Beyond the little Amaime river the way led through a forest of bamboo, then across a monotonous and dusty despoblado. The great Cordillera Occidental, now like a badly wrinkled garment of sepia-brown hue, drew ever nearer, as did a line of bright-green trees marking the course of the Cauca river. The central range all but faded away in the east, leaving a broad expanse of fertile country longing for the plow. Further on, a broken bridge or two adorned a waterless stream, and an occasional ox-cart, the first thing on wheels we had seen since crossing the Magdalena, crawled by in the sand. The after-curse of African slavery was everywhere in evidence. In little cabins thrown together from jungle rubbish lounged swarms of ragged humanity, black or half-black in color. Yet somehow they seemed less lazy than in our own land, perhaps because the activity of their few lighter neighbors gave less contrast. Swift tropical night was spreading its cloak over all the Cauca when we sighted the sharp church-spire of Palmira, where we were soon housed in the well-named “Hotel Oasis.”
In mid-afternoon of the day following we broke out suddenly on the bank of the Cauca river. A barca, or ferry, moored to wires that sagged from shore to shore, set us across, and with sunset we plodded into Cali. Our arrival was well timed. The chief commercial city of the Cauca valley was en fête. From end to end, on the Sunday morrow of our entrance, the place was crowded with happy, rather dusky, throngs, and gay with the chiefly yellow flag of the nation and the bishop’s banner and mitre. For on that day the ancient church of Cali became a cathedral, and one of her “sons” a bishop; dividing a territory ruled over for centuries by the chief ecclesiastic of Popayán. The name of the “hijo de Cali” about to don the purple blazed forth from the façade of the church in enormous electric letters, like that of some Broadway star, and by sunset fully half the visible population was reeling drunk in honor of the honor that had fallen upon their native town.
“What you don’t look for in Cali, you won’t find,” runs a local proverb; which is a Colombian way of saying that its shops offer for sale anything man may desire. In a small and Colombian sense this is true, except on those frequent occasions when the stock is exhausted. Connected with the Pacific port of Buenaventura by seven hours muleback and four hours rail—it was hard to realize that we were again only four days from a Zone police station—the place is in more or less constant connection with the outside world. But the transportation facilities of the country are so lax that the merchants of Cali are accustomed to announce the receipt of a shipment from Europe or America with a sarcastic placard:
“POR FIN LLEGARON!” (At last they have arrived.)
The city’s rôle is chiefly that of distributing center for the vast territory about and behind it, and on the heels of this first announcement appears on the chief shop fronts the information, of interest only to arrieros and the owners of mule-trains:
“HAY CARGA PARA—There is a load for” this or that town of the interior.
Life in Cali is largely governed by placards, as if she had but recently discovered the art of printing and were making the most of it. Hardly an establishment but is adorned with its set of rules. Among those of our hotel were two of purely Latin-American tone:
“Correct dress is required of anyone presenting himself in the salons of this establishment.