The only water supply of Almaguer, attached to the world only by the “royal highway” at either end, was a little wooden spout projecting from the hillside. The estanquillo had no lack of aguardiente, however, and as to washing, Almaguer avoids what would otherwise be a difficulty by never having formed the habit. The making of candles is its chief industry. A bluish wax is gathered from a “laurel” tree which abounds in the region, and even the acting alcalde spent the evening making candles by dipping pieces of string again and again into a bowl of molten wax. That worthy was also village school-master and purveyor of patent medicines to Almaguer; a lank, ungainly man in an habitual lack of shave, with a handkerchief knotted about his neck like a Liverpool wharf-rat. Before the sun had set he had given us a score of commissions, chiefly in the patent medicine line, to be fulfilled when we returned to the “Europe.” Then he fell to talking of a “Meestare Eddy Sone” and his inventions. For some time we fancied the personage in question was some local celebrity, and not until the patent-medicine-schoolmaster-alcalde had turned the conversation to a “Meestare Frunk Lean,” who was also, it seemed, a great gringo electrician, and answered to the surname of Benjamin, did we catch the drift of his monologue. He had brought up the subject, it turned out, because he had long been curious to know whether the Meestares Frunk Lean and Eddy Sone often met to plan their work together, or whether, as so often happened among the great men of Almaguer, they were unfortunately rivals and enemies.
It is always a long time night in this Andean land of no lights and little covering. The read-less evenings seem interminable. Small wonder the inhabitants are ignorant and priest-ridden when they can only sit and gossip after the sun goes down. The traveler eats supper—if it is to be had—takes a walk, talks awhile with some one—if he is gifted with the medieval art of conversation—comes “home,” sits around awhile on the earth floor or an adobe block, thinks over his past history and future plans—if any—wishes he smoked, and, finally deciding to go to bed, looks at his tin watch to find it is almost seven! In Almaguer there were none of these drawbacks. For, as I lay abed,—on my upper shelf—the “laurel” candle gave sufficient flicker by which to make out the dimly printed pages of a Bogotá masterpiece—so long as I kept wide enough awake to balance the candlestick on my forehead.
It is not far from Almaguer to its twin city of Bolívar; yet they are far apart. On the map one could stroll over in an hour or two, pausing for a nap on the way. So could one in real life but for a single drawback,—the lack of a bridge. Both towns, the largest between Popayán and Pasto, lie at about the same 7500 feet above the level of the sea; but between them is a gash in the earth which does not reach to the infernal regions simply and only because these are not situated where ancient—and some modern—theologians fancied them.
For days now there had been persistent rumors of salteadores, highway robbers, reputed experts in the art of shooting travelers in the back from any of the countless hiding-places along the trail. Every town, in turn, asserted that its own region was eminently safe; the danger was always in the next one. Each traveler we met—and they were never alone—carried a rifle or a musket. Once, at an awkward defile, we suddenly caught sight of an ugly-looking group of ruffians on a knoll above, and our back muscles twitched reflexively until we had climbed out of range. The fact that our own weapons hung in plain sight may have been the cause of their inaction. Again, in San Lorenzo, of especially evil repute, several shifty-eyed fellows showed great interest in our movements. When we took the opportunity to oil our side-arms and demonstrate their quick action, however, the group assured us that the robbers never troubled foreigners, and faded gradually away.
The danger, if it existed, was multiplied by the fact that we were forced to canvass the town until we had changed our money into silver. We were about to enter the half-autonomous Department of Nariño, southernmost of Colombia, where the paper bills of the central government have never been accepted. Yet the department has no money of its own. Silver coins of whatever origin have a fixed worth, according to size rather than face value, those with holes in them losing nothing thereby. Pieces of the weight of our silver dollar were known as fuertes, and valued at 36 cents. Our quarter, or an English shilling, was accepted as “dos reales,”—seven cents. Among the hodgepodge of coins that came into my possession was a two-peseta piece of old Spain, dated 1794 under the profile of Charles IV. The shopkeeper with whom I spent it valued it at two reales because it was somewhat smaller than the four-real piece, but after an argument accepted it as four. The twenty dollars we each gathered made a sackful nearly as heavy as all the rest of our baggage.
The landscape, too, had changed. Instead of the hot, dry, repulsive ranges behind, we were again in deep-green woods and fields, the trail climbing from bamboo-clad valleys where ran cold mountain streams so clear we could not see the water, but only the bottom of the bed, to wind-swept oaken heights. In places there were slight outcroppings of coal. Then a lung-bursting road rick-racked for hours up a wall-like mountainside, now and then, when we were ready to drop from exhaustion, bringing us out on a little level space, like a landing on an endless stairway, then scrambling on up still steeper heights. When at last we stood on the blade-edge of the Cuchillo de Bateros, dividing autonomous Nariño from the rest of Colombia, Bolívar, two days behind, lay as plainly in sight as a house across the street, the immense peak beside it sunk to an insignificant knoll. To the west we could look down into the misty valley of the Patía—and wonder whether we would not have done better to have taken its more level route, for all its fevers.
Crossing the Cauca River with a pack-train by one of the typical “ferries” of the Andes
A village of the mountainous region south of Popayán