The Eastern Cordillera slopes off into the Orinoco and Amazon plains—over a territory constituting two-thirds of the republic’s area—and thus gives to Colombia the same astonishing range of productiveness that distinguishes her southern neighbors along the Andean chain. Gold is scattered literally all over the Andean ridges and is picked up along the streams that flow into the lower levels. Silver, iron and lead are almost as universally present; the platinum deposits are surpassed only in Russia; the emerald mines of Muzo, seventy-five miles from Bogotá, have been famous ever since the brilliant stones were torn from the turban crowns of the Indian kings by the Conquistadores, and are the principal source of the world’s supply; the salt mines and pearl fisheries add largely to the republic’s revenue.
The Review Number of the Pan American Bulletin (August, 1911) says of the emerald industry:
“All, or very nearly all, the emeralds mined to-day come from Colombia. And, in spite of the supposed higher value of diamonds, the emerald is the most precious of gems. Carat for carat, a flawless emerald would bring perhaps three times the price of a flawless diamond in the jewelry market. India, the storehouse of precious stones, is credited with producing the first emeralds, but the oriental emerald is not identical with the modern gem, as it is a variety of the ruby, of a green color, and extremely rare. The stone that adorned Aaron’s armor, described in the writings of Moses, if it was a real emerald and not a carbuncle, may have come from the mines of Coptos in Egypt, which furnished the ancients with the precious green gems. Certain of these old mines are known as ‘Cleopatra’s Mines,’ because that remarkable Egyptian queen is supposed to have obtained her jewels from that source. Nero wore an emerald monocle at the gladiatorial combats that came perhaps from the mines of Ethiopia. The Museum of Naples contains fine emeralds taken from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, some of which are carved, and the history of this gem shows that it was highly treasured from the earliest recorded times....
“Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador were ravished of their mineral wealth; so wonderful emeralds, as part of the spoil, found their way into the treasury of the Spanish kings. Pizarro and Cortés sent the first emeralds from the New World to Spain, where they acquired the name ‘Spanish emeralds.’ Tradition has it that an Aztec gem appropriated by Cortés was valued at forty thousand ducats. Another wonderful stone, the size of an ostrich egg, was found in the Manka Valley, Peru, where the Indians worshiped it as the Goddess of Emeralds. The Spanish conquerors opened up the mines in Colombia in 1540, enslaving the Indians to work them. The richest mineral areas were those of Muzo and Cosquez, about 75 miles north of Bogotá, at an elevation of about 6500 feet above sea-level. A curious fact in the history of these latter mines is that they were closed and lost to the world in an enveloping forest of jungle for over a hundred years, and only rediscovered some fourteen years ago. The Government of Colombia controls the exploitation, leasing the mining districts to the working companies.
“The Muzo group, from which the finest emeralds come, has an estimated yearly output of 262,548 carats of the first class, 467,690 of the second, 22,700 of the third, and 16,000 of the fourth class. The Coscuez group, named for an Indian princess, which produced a variety of emerald called canutillo, one of the most valuable stones, is now in the category of lost mines. The Samandoco or Chivor group, not now being worked, is supposed to possess a matrix that would yield half a million dollars worth of emeralds a year.... It was” (in the Muzo group) “that the most valuable single emerald in the world was found. It belongs to the Duke of Devonshire and is a perfect, six-sided crystal that weighs 8 ounces 18 pennyweights, is two inches in length and measures across its three thicknesses 2-1/2, 2-1/5, and 1-7/8 inches. Another fine stone is the Hope emerald, weighing 6 ounces, which was also found in Colombia. There can be no doubt that this source of wealth will be greatly augmented in the future, when improved transportation facilities shall make it possible.”
A wealth of agricultural products, typical of nearly every clime, lies in the great river basins and on the eastern slopes and plains in the Orinoco and Amazon regions. In the river basins and part of the way up the mountain sides are great forests, so dense as to be almost impenetrable, but abounding in nearly every species of cabinet and dye woods and nearly every medicinal plant known to science. In altitudes of from two to four thousand feet the coffee plant thrives; the berries from the celebrated Chimbi estates are said to produce the most delicately flavored coffee in the world. But little of it ever reaches the United States. In the tierras calientes, or “hot lands,” the fragrant tonka beans, that have the sweet odor of new-mown hay and are used in some blends of tobacco to give it a bouquet and in the manufacture of soaps and perfumes, and cacao, bananas, yuccas, arracha, sugar, indigo, tobacco, vanilla and rice are among the staple products. The soil of this region is of a rich, black, deep-lying loam, well watered and capable of a greater productiveness than the plains of Louisiana or Texas. In the intermediate areas the culture includes wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and other cereals and vegetables common to the temperate zone. Along the Sinu River is a great cattle belt. This is also the source of the cedar and mahogany, of which Colombia is one of the chief exporters.
It follows naturally that, as in Ecuador, the diversity in altitude that accounts for this varied productiveness gives to Colombia—a wholly tropical country—a range in climate that makes it one of the world’s most attractive abiding places. Von Humboldt is quoted as saying that the traveler here needs but “a thermometer and a mule to find any climate desired within the compass of a few leagues.” When one tires of the torrid heat of the valleys, the frozen sierras are just in sight. When the perpetual spring of the table-land palls upon him, he can by a few hours’ ride find autumn on the steppes above or summer in the plains below. If he is a sportsman, he can find his game among many species of the fauna of three zones: the jaguar, sloth, armadillo, tapir, the red deer, black bear, and panther, and in the jungles of the Amazon region, the tiger.
The overland route to Bogotá from Quito lies over a well-built highway which, in the not distant future, will be paralleled by Colombia’s and Ecuador’s contributions to the long-heralded Pan-American railway from New York to Buenos Aires. Up to the present time Colombia has had but six hundred miles of railways: the little system radiating from the capital and connecting it with the Magdalena River, and, through that natural highway, with the Caribbean ports, and the short lines that run inland from the ports of both oceans; for Colombia is the only country in South America that borders on both the Pacific and the Atlantic.
The traveler who enters the country in the saddle over the route mentioned will profit more than by sailing up the Pacific coast from Guayaquil and entering through the port of Buenaventura. The journey along the lofty heights and down through the lovely green valleys will not only give him much more of the inspiring Andean scenery, but will make him acquainted with the country and village life which he could not see at close range otherwise. But he will have to sacrifice many familiar comforts on the altar of education. The posadas, or village inns, at which he must stop are mere adobe huts with dirt floors, and none but rawhide cots are offered for his rest. The few dishes served at these primitive hostelries are plentifully seasoned with garlic, saffron, and morones, or red peppers. The early hours of the journey will bring the traveler in conflict also with the all-pervading philosophy of mañana (to-morrow), and his progress will be slow. However, the unfailing good humor of his muleteer will do much to dispel his exasperation at delays, and he will find himself more and more repaid for his discomforts by the splendor and beauty and strangeness through which he is making his way.
Passing over the bleak, frozen paramos, or mountain deserts, wrapped in awful stillness by the great peaks rising above them, the scene suddenly changes as the road descends along the heavily wooded slopes and the country becomes alive with verdure and the sounds of birds. Below, in a still more summery clime, lies, perhaps, a beautiful little lozenge-shaped valley fringed about up the sides of the mountains with coffee plantations and groves of bamboo, or some other scene even more picturesque—and then, over equally sudden changes and different pictures of native life, the traveler goes on until there begin to appear extensive plantations with well-built houses and farm machinery, and, finally reaches the railway, which takes him, not unregretfully, from his guide and carries him up into the lofty sabana—the great altaplain on which Bogotá, the capital, is located. This plateau is a level plain, about seventy miles long by about thirty in width, containing some two thousand square miles of cleared, arable land. It lies 8700 feet above the sea in the very heart of the Eastern Cordillera, just below the fifth degree of north latitude, and ranges in temperature from fifty-nine to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit the year around. From this plateau the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have administered the country since 1538. The sabana is now covered with prosperous plantations belonging to rich Bogotaños.