His heart stands still, and listens with his ear.
The guide, as if he heard a death-bell toll,
Crosses himself, and whispers, ‘A Lost Soul.’”
Some of their stories, however, seem to have some foundation in fact. Almost every paramero—inhabitant of the paramo—has a story to tell about seeing lightning or hearing thunder issue from certain lakes or wells as he was passing by on a clear night when there was not the slightest indication of rain or storm. At such times the waters of the lake may become violently agitated without any apparent cause. One’s vaqueano, on being asked the reason of such a phenomenon, simply replies, “Está brava la laguna,” or “Truena la laguna—the lake is disturbed, or thunders.”
The Indian’s answer explains nothing, but the phenomenon seems to lend itself to an explanation which is as simple as it is natural. If we suppose these lakes, as we well may, to be in the craters of extinct volcanoes, in the bottoms of which, owing to slight earth tremors, rents are made in the rocks that permit the escape of imprisoned gases, the mystery is at least partially solved. The escape of gas, in large quantity under great pressure, would account for the violent agitation of the water. If these gases should become ignited by the action of the electricity with which, as we have learned, the summits of the mountains are often very highly charged, we should have in the flash of the ignited gas what the Indian takes to be lightning, and in the resulting explosion what he thinks is thunder.
I suggest this view merely as a tentative one, and hope that the phenomena in question, like those referred to in chapter nine regarding the luminous displays in the mountain summits, may eventually receive an explanation that men of science will accept as conclusive. But while awaiting the final word of empirical science regarding these, and similar mysterious manifestations of nature, we may, with the simple Indian, give free rein to our fancy and people the cascades and lakes, caverns, forests and colossal rock masses with all kinds of preternatural beings and invest them with the most extraordinary powers.
To be frank, we were not sorry to get away from the atmosphere of science, and find a land where the legends and traditions of the people were akin to those that were the delight of our childhood. For, much as we love science, we have never been willing to renounce the pleasure of indulging our imagination, as we did in years long gone by, when the fairy tale and the myth so captivated our youthful mind. We confess it freely, we were glad to be among the simple, primitive people of the Andes, and were deeply interested in their peculiar folklore. It afforded us, in another form, the pleasure we derived from our first acquaintance with the creations of Homer, Hesiod and Ovid; and with such productions as the Niebelungen Lied, Sakuntala, the Knights of the Round Table and Cid Campeador. All the science, history and philosophy in the world could not diminish the pleasure we still find in these creations of fancy. We cherish them as much, if not more, to-day, as we did when they first became a part of our intellectual life. For this reason, if for no other, the reader will conceive our unalloyed delight in being beyond the reach of the reports of physical and psychological laboratories, wherein nothing is admitted that has not the imprimatur of Baconian science or Comtian philosophy, both of which lay an absolute interdict on all the most charming creations of poetry and romance.
The vista towards the east, as we finally drew near the cumbre—the long desired summit of the Andes—was beautiful in the extreme. Below us, to the right and to the left, were a succession of mountain ridges, some still forest-covered, while others exhibited the smiling gardens, verdant pastures and humble dwellings of the inhabitants. Here and there was a picturesque little village of white-washed stone houses in place of the bamboo dwellings of the llanos and foothills. On all sides were multitudinous streams and torrents, that had their birth in the snow fields and ice pinnacles of the highest points of Sumapaz, and which were vying with one another in their long race for the broad emerald plains of Casanare and San Martin.
Above was the clear sapphire-blue sky, save where it was flecked by fantastic fleeces of glimmering clouds that floated voluptuously among the lofty peaks of the Cordilleras, and mantled them, in passing, with their quivering vapors. Then, as if by enchantment, all was changed with a suddenness that was positively startling. We had reached the limit of the alisios—trade winds—for the Andes form a rampart which they never pass. Here they are forced to part with the last drop of the moisture that they have brought from the distant Atlantic. But, on the occasion of our passage, they seemed determined to make one last desperate effort to cross the rock-ribbed barrier. As if marshaled by Æolus himself, the bright, white, cumulous clouds, those fair flocks of the west wind, were in a moment transformed into dark, ominous nimbi.