At last we were getting back—I will not say to civilization—but to where the material evidences of civilisation were more numerous than they had been anywhere on our journey since we had taken our departure from the Port-of-Spain. As we got still nearer the city, we met a cavalcade of horsemen who were out for their evening ride. It was here that we saw, for the first time in Colombia, a thoroughfare worthy of the name. Our bonny steeds, trusty and true, seemed to appreciate the improvement in the road as much as we did ourselves. And, as if put on their mettle by the curveting steeds we had just passed, they, like the fleet mules of Nausicaa, “gathered up their nimble feet,” and almost before we realized it we were in the streets of Bogotá.
It was then a matter of only a few minutes to our hotel, where we found comforts and conveniences to which we had long been strangers. It was just eight hours since we had left our modest posada in Caqueza, with its simple fare and hard board cot, and now we suddenly found ourselves installed in richly furnished apartments, with brilliant electric lights and an excellent cuisine. The sudden change in our environment seemed like an incident in the Arabian Nights rather than a reality in which we were personally concerned.
“How were you ever able to make such a trip?” queried a German traveler, shortly after our arrival. I had made all arrangements to go with a friend from Bogotá to Ciudad Bolivar, but after all was ready, I was dissuaded by my friends from undertaking a journey on which I had so long set my heart. They assured me that the trip would be so difficult and beset with so many dangers of all kinds that I would run the risk of losing health, and even life, if I persisted in my purpose. Only at the last moment, when they told me that the roads were absolutely impassable at this season of the year, did I give up a project that I had so long cherished. How I envy you. But it is too late now for me to reconsider my plans, as I must return to Germany in a few days, and with the knowledge that, against my better judgment, I was forced to forego the most interesting part of my itinerary.”
Yes, we had indeed been fortunate in our wanderings. In the expressive language of a West Indian negro servant, whom we had for a while in Venezuela, we had always been “good-lucky, never bad-lucky.” We had no adventures to record and never once felt that we were in presence of danger. We never carried weapons of any kind and at no time was there any need for them. During our entire journey, through plains and among mountains, we felt quite as safe as if we had been taking a promenade down Broadway or Fifth Avenue, New York. Roughing it agreed with us perfectly and, far from suffering from exposure or fatigue, we found ourselves in the enjoyment of better health at the completion of our journey than at the beginning. Despite all predictions to the contrary, we had escaped all
“The ministers of pain, and fear,
And disappointment, and mistrust and hate,
And clinging crime.”
and had reached Colombia’s capital, ready, after a few days’ rest, to enter upon even a longer and a more arduous journey than the one that we had just so happily terminated.
“But did you not fear sickness on your way?” asked another German, who had gone over some of the ground we had just traversed, and who seemed to entertain anything but pleasant recollections of his experience. “When I traveled in the interior, far away from doctors and medical assistance of every kind, I was continually haunted by the thought of contracting fever or some other dread tropical disease. What would you have done if you had been stricken with the vomito or berriberri or the bubonic plague?” Modesty forbade us replying to this question by saying that “The Lord takes care of his own,” so we answered in the words of Lucan,
“Capit omnia tellus