Aside from the Humboldt oak, with its majestic crown of ever-green foliage, and the ubiquitous Eucalyptus, there are no trees of any magnitude in the Sabana. Its flora, however, is particularly rich in shrubs and plants. Among them were the beautiful passion flower, Passiflora Antioquensis, blossoming the year round, and a peculiar species of blackberry—Rubus Bogotensis—ever clothed with a vari-colored mantle of snow-white bloom and ripening fruit, realizing Shelley’s idea of the millennium, where
“Fruits are ever ripe, and flowers ever fair.”
The meadows are carpeted with various species of clover and succulent grasses, and, along the hedges and walls, one finds an endless variety of fuchsias, verbenas, mallows, asters, buttercups, lupines, lilies, lobelias, irises, morning-glories and passion flowers. The last two plants and certain varieties of roses are great favorites in the garden and around the house, as are also violets, pinks, jasmines and heliotropes. We observed several habitations, some of them the humble cots of poor Chibchas, that were almost concealed in magnificent bowers of climbing clematis, passion flowers and morning-glories.
On the eastern slope of Suma Paz, we frequently had occasion to admire the wealth and brilliancy of bloom around some of the homes which we passed, or when we enjoyed the hospitality of their courteous inmates, but nowhere did we see more beautiful floral exhibits than greeted us on the Sabana de Bogotá.
Much, however, as we were interested in the fauna and flora of this region, and the people who now inhabit it, we found our minds constantly reverting to pre-Colombian times, and picturing to ourselves the condition of this plain and its inhabitants at the period of the arrival of the conquistadores.
When Quesada and his intrepid followers reached this beautiful plateau, they found it inhabited by a tribe of Indians to whom they gave the name Muiscas, because they frequently heard them pronounce this word, or Moscas, a Spanish word, similar in sound, signifying flies, because they said these Indians were as numerous as flies.[4]
They occupied the tablelands in the central part of New Granada. The territory under the jurisdiction of their zipas—chiefs—was elliptical in form and equaled in area the kingdom of the Netherlands. They numbered about one million inhabitants, and, according to the early chroniclers, they counted no fewer than a hundred and thirty thousand warriors. The number of fighting men was doubtless far below this figure. It seems certain, however, that at the date of the arrival of the Spaniards they were in the apogee of their power, and were making progress towards a condition of culture approaching that of the Aztecs and Incas.
The dominions of the last zipas of Bacatá extended from Simijaca to Pasca and from Zipacon to the llanos. Although united by ties of language and beliefs, customs and laws, similar in character and revealing a common origin, they formed an aggregation of small states, generally independent, rather than a compact and well-organized commonwealth.
The Chibchas, or Muiscas, were preëminently an agricultural people. They had no domestic animals, except the dog—not even the llama. Their chief articles of food were maize, potatoes[5] and quinoa, which the natives of Colombia have long since discarded for rice. Besides these staples they had many other vegetables peculiar to the country and a great variety of luscious and wholesome fruits. They also had game in abundance.