The good man’s explanation was quite unnecessary, as we were more than satisfied with our room. It was large and airy, and, although devoid of furniture of every kind, it had a clean board floor, and that was a great deal for travelers, who, like ourselves, had been roughing it on the Meta and the llanos.
He was much relieved when he saw how easy it was to satisfy his guests, and without more ado, he proceeded to order dinner for us without delay. While dinner was preparing we had our dufflebags brought into our apartment, and, in a very short time, our camp chairs were unfolded and our cots and bedding arranged for the night. A table was next brought in from an adjoining house, and soon a young Indian maid arrived to make the necessary preparations for our evening repast. Our meals, it had been arranged, were to be served from a restaurant a few doors away. The señora in charge, and her daughter, who belonged to an old Colombian family, now in reduced circumstances, left nothing undone to insure the most satisfactory service possible.
A bountiful dinner, such as we had not had since leaving Orocué, was soon on the table. There were meats, vegetables and various kinds of fruits and, what we found specially agreeable, good wheaten bread. Besides all these viands, there was an additional and unexpected luxury in the form of a quart bottle of generous old Bordeaux. It goes without saying that we showed due appreciation of the señora’s culinary skill. Never did the dishes of a Parisian restaurateur seem more inviting. Now came to us with special force the old saying that “appetite is the best sauce,” and that for travelers like ourselves, “Il vaut mieux découvrir un nouveau plat qu’ un nouveau planète,” it is better to discover a new dish than a new planet.
As we had resolved to remain a few days in Villavicencio before essaying the trip across the Cordilleras, we felt a sense of relief, by anticipation, in the thought that we should not, before daybreak the following morning, be obliged to hearken, as hitherto, to the usual announcement of our vaqueano, “Vamonos, Señores—Gentlemen, it is time to start.”
As we were both quite fatigued, we did not delay long in seeking repose on our ever-restful cots. And it was but a very short time before at least one of the travelers was in the land of dreams. And one of the visions that appeared to him was that of a little child in a pink frock, standing beside her mother under a totuma tree, near a crystal stream in the llanos, waving her tiny hand and lisping a sweet Adiosito to two strangers from beyond the sea, whose course was towards the western sky, where the giant Andes stood to salute the approaching lord of day.
[2] “Homo habitat inter tropicos, vescitur palmis, lotophagus; hospitatur extra tropicos sub novercante Cerere carnivorus.”—Systema Naturæ, Vol. I, p. 24.
Besides the fruit-yielding palms there are others, like the palmetto or cabbage Palm, that also afford nutritious food. “The head of the Palmito tree,” says Hakluyt, “is very good meate, either raw or sodden; it yeeldeth a head which waigheth about twenty pound, and is far better than any cabbage.”—Early Voyages, Vol. V, p. 557. Schomburgk informs us that during his exploration of Guiana it was for weeks his chief sustenance. [↑]
[3] It is surprising what erroneous notions have been and are still entertained regarding the distance of Bogotá from the head of navigation on the eastern side of the Andes. Many recent writers place the distance at twenty miles. Michelena y Rojas, in his Exploración Oficial, p. 293, makes it but four leagues. Schomburgk, in an article in the Journal of the Geographical Society, Vol. X, p. 278, assures us that by way of the Meta there is uninterrupted navigation to within eight miles of Sante Fe de Bogotá! The fact is that the nearest point to Bogotá to which vessels of even light draught may ascend by the Meta is Barrigón, more than one hundred and fifty miles from Colombia’s capital. Small flat boats and canoes may, through some of the affluents of the Meta, approach considerably nearer. During the rainy season they may even reach the foothills of the Andes at the base of which Villavicencio stands. But from here, the nearest point to the capital which even the smallest craft can reach to Bogotá, the distance is still ninety-three miles at the lowest estimate. To navigate the Rio Negro, as Rojas and others imagine can be done, from the llanos to Caquesa—thirty-seven hundred feet higher than the plains—would be no more possible than it would be to row or sail up an Alpine torrent. From Caquesa to Bogotá is not four leagues, as Michelena estimates, but full twenty-five miles. [↑]