At Calamar, about seventy-five miles from the mouth, the traveler may exchange the steamer for the railroad to the port of Cartagena, or continue down the Magdalena, now greatly increased in volume by the confluence of the almost equally large river Cauca, to the two important Caribbean ports at the mouth, Barranquilla and Sabanilla. The first part of the trip from Bogotá to Girardot reminds one of the mountain scenery over the Oroya road up into the Andean plateau from Lima. Constantly before him, in the distance, are the lofty frozen peaks of Tolima, San Ruiz, and Herveo, towering above their fellows in the Central Cordillera. On either side of the Magdalena, the slopes of the two ranges in their lower reaches are dotted with coffee plantations; above them, reaching to the altitude of the paramos, the mountain sides are thickly overgrown with forests, and down in the river basin, in the hollow of the broad valley, the brilliant green of varied tropical vegetation continues, on past the point where the Central and Western Cordilleras merge in the llanos, down to the Caribbean coast plains; here the Magdalena basin spreads out over a vast area of barren waste.
Barranquilla, Sabanilla, and Cartagena are the important commercial centers of the republic on the Caribbean, the last-named being one of the oldest and most interesting of the historic old ports. Founded in 1533 by Don Pedro de Heredia, this port was the most glorious monument to Spain’s military genius in the new world, and was properly looked upon as the key to her great treasure house. Spain spent over $60,000,000 on its fortifications, a fabulous sum in those days, but an expenditure which for over two hundred years secured to her the mastery of the Indies. To-day these fortifications—the citadel within the landlocked harbor, the two castles dominating the narrow entrance, the tremendous walls and ramparts—stand without question as the most picturesque and characteristic survival of Spain’s colonial splendor. Not even the perfectly preserved walls of Manila are more impressive. The visitor who walks to-day through the narrow, Moorish streets comes with memories of the fabulous wealth and the violent scenes of siege and bloodshed culled from romances of the days of the buccaneers that “sailed the Spanish Main.” He will, however, search in vain for the evidences of the rich traffic once centered here that gave to Francisco Pizarro the inspiration for his conquest of Peru.
A POSADA, OR COUNTRY INN, ON THE ROAD TO BOGOTÁ.
BATTLEMENTED WALL, CARTAGENA.
Cartagena, “The Heroic City,” from its very beginning was the objective of every expedition undertaken to wrest from Spain her rich domain in the Indies; its fortifications stood as a perpetual challenge to the freebooters who pillaged the Spanish Main in the days of the galleons. This challenge was accepted more than once to Cartagena’s heavy cost. Sir Henry Morgan, Robert Vaal, Martin Cote, Du Casse, Sieur des Pointes, and Sir Francis Drake sacked the town, and later it was the object of the most important attack made against Spain in the new world prior to the nineteenth century, when, in 1741, the English Admiral Vernon undertook his memorable campaign on the Caribbean. He assembled at Jamaica 29 ships of the line and nearly 100 transports, carrying a total force of 27,000 soldiers and sailors. His siege of Cartagena began on the 4th of March and lasted two months, and was attended by enormous losses. The event is peculiarly interesting to North Americans because of the fact that the land forces, under General Wentworth, contained a contingent drawn from the thirteen English colonies in North America, and that the commander of this contingent was Colonel Lawrence Washington, elder brother of the immortal George. It was through admiration for Admiral Vernon’s brilliant but unsuccessful action that Washington gave to his Virginia estate the name of Mount Vernon.
“Cartagena de Indias,” as the old kings of Spain loved to call their “very royal and loyal city,” ranks third in point of age in the new world, and still retains more of its early characteristics than any of the others. Its antiquity is everywhere in evidence. Like the battlements and castles at its entrance, the city seems to have been built of the yellow-white coral laid in concrete, which seems to be indestructible. If one could fly over it in an airship, and look down upon its closely massed, red-tiled houses, and, beyond, upon the deep green of the country-side, with the exquisite blue effects of the Caribbean and the tropic sky, the city would seem gemlike in its romantic beauty. The narrow streets of rough stone are overhung at frequent intervals with the protruding windows and balconies familiar to visitors in Lima and others of the older Spanish cities, yet there is an individuality about the houses here that is far more fascinating, and facing the parks are many fine examples of the old churches and convents which constitute the distinctive architecture of the colonial régime. Surrounding these buildings are luxuriant gardens, presenting a riot of color, in which the peculiarly refreshing green of the hot countries predominates.
Among the many substantial dwellings occupied by the wealthy is one that was the seat of the terrible Inquisition which sat here from 1610 until 1821. San Felipe de Barajas, an old castle and fort lying on a low hill overlooking the city, is full of interesting underground passages, as are many of the fortifications, and although utterly abandoned and falling into decay, is still a forceful and grim reminder of the mediæval period of storm and stress. On the top of another hill, called “La Popa,” lying back of the town, still stands the ancient convent of Santa Candelaria, serving as a landmark to mariners passing that way, its white or light yellow buildings being visible for many miles out at sea. Here the visitor is shown where a buccaneer amused himself on the occasion of one of the raids by hurling the nuns over the edge of the perpendicular cliff on which the convent stands.
Cartagena in the old days surpassed Mexico, Lima, Panamá, and Havana in importance, and stood forth as the commercial giant of Spain in America; it represented, as did no other American city, the pomp and magnificence of her sixteenth and seventeenth century imperialism. Now all this is past; even as the natural gateway for Colombia’s productiveness, she has lost her position, the North American-built railroad connecting the port with the Magdalena River, at Calamar, having proved powerless to restore even a small measure of her prestige against the rising commercial importance of Puerto Colombia and Barranquilla. The latter port has now become the entrepôt of commerce with the interior by the great waterway of the Magdalena.