“Only a thousand pesos, señor,” I replied, disdaining the temptation to multiply by ten.
“Muy bién, señor,” he replied, and making out an order to his cashier for that amount, tucked the check away in a drawer.
“It is not good unless I sign it,” I suggested.
“Ah, no?” he asked, producing it again for that purpose, “A thousand thanks. Pués, adiós, señor. Until we meet again.”
So unlimited is the faith in “ingleses” in these regions that he had no hesitancy in accepting from a stranger a check which he would not have dreamed of cashing for one of his fellow townsmen without ample proof of its value.
One evening three men in frock-coats and the manners of prime ministers dropped in upon us and announced themselves editors of the newspaper “Sursum.” They had only an hour or two to spare, however, and by the time the introductory formalities were over they bowed themselves out with the information that they would come and tertuliar (interview) us—mañana. Two days later I chanced to meet one of them again.
“Did you say ‘Sursum’ is published every week?” I asked, having had no visual evidence of its existence since our arrival.
“Oh, yes, indeed!” cried the editor, rolling another cigarette. “Every week. Ah—that is, last week it did not appear, it is true; and the week before the editor-in-chief was al campo, and the week before that he was very busy, as his sister was getting married. But it is sure to come out next week, or if not, then the week after. And I am myself coming to interview you—mañana.”
It was in Popayán that we found coca leaves for sale for the first time, and met Indians whose cheeks were disfigured by a cud of them. Long before the white man appeared on his shores, the Indian of the Andes, unacquainted with the tobacco of his North American brother, was addicted to this habit. The leaves—from which is extracted the cocaine of modern days—are plucked from a shrub not unlike the orange in appearance, that grows down in the edge of the hot lands to the east of the Andean chain. Once dried, they are packed in huge bales, or crude baskets made on the spot, and sold in the marketplaces by old women who weigh out the desired amount in clumsy home-made scales, or in handfuls by eye measure. The Indians thrust the leaves one by one into their mouths, and as they become moistened, add a bit of lime or ashes, dipped with what looks like an enlarged toothpick from a tiny calabash which, with a leather pouch for the leaves themselves, constitutes the most indispensable article of the aboriginal equipment. How harmful the habit may be, it is hard to gage. Its devotees are, it is true, languid of manner and slow of intellect; but they show no great contrast in this particular from the “gente decente,” their neighbors, who rarely indulge in the leaves, except on some long and wearisome journey. So marked is this languor in Popayán that, as in most Andean towns, brawls are rare, despite the half-anarchy that reigns. Youths merry with liquor or its equivalent raced their horses up and down the roughly cobbled streets, forcing them to capriole until Hays took to cursing his loss of police powers; street women may,—though few find it necessary—ply their profession as openly as vegetable hawkers. Even when a dispute grows noisy, there is no interference. A policeman may wander up in curiosity, like any other bystander, but he is almost sure to find that the contender is some “authority,” or the second cousin of the alcalde, or a grandson of the bishop, or wears a white collar, and wanders away again, lest he get himself into trouble.
So we remained in Popayán until it had dwindled from the romantic city of the past our imaginations had pictured to the miserable reality—though in after years, veiled by the haze of memory, its charm and romance may return—and one evening asked to have our coffee served at a reasonable hour in the morning.