Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

On our way to Guaduas from Chimbe, we observed a number of small plantations of sugar cane, and near by there was usually a trapiche, a primitive contrivance for extracting the juice from the cane. It consisted of a thatched shed under which was a cumbersome, creaking machine consisting essentially of three vertical cylinders of wood which were kept in motion by a span of mules or a yoke of oxen driven by a boy. The cane was fed into the machine by a couple of women, and the juice was received into a wooden trough. From this it was transferred into a boiler, if panela—crude sugar—was desired. More frequently, however, it was conveyed to a still, in order to be converted into aguardiente, a crude distillate, rich in alcohol, of which the natives, the country over, consume large quantities.

But fond as the inhabitants are of aguardiente, and guarapo, the fermented juice of the sugar cane, or a mixture of sugar and water which has undergone fermentation, the most popular drink, especially among the poorer classes, is chicha. This is to the greater part of South America what pulque is to Mexico and beer to Germany—the national beverage. It has been so from time immemorial. Chicha was as much esteemed by the Muiscas, before the arrival of the Spaniards, as it is to-day; for then, as now, no festivity or celebration was considered complete without a liberal supply of this enlivening potation.

Padre Rivero, referring to the love of drink, especially of chicha, among the Indians, says, “Drink is their life, their glory, and the acme of their happiness.” The earlier historians have much to say of the frightful orgies, as the result of over-indulgence in chicha, that obtained among all classes on the occasions of national festivals, or the celebration of a victory over an enemy. It is said to be used to excess to-day, as much as in former times, but of this I cannot speak from personal observation. All the way from Villavicencio to Honda, we saw countless estancos and estanquitos—licensed bars—of the type of our lowest dram shops, where chicha is the principal drink sold; but, although we saw many people, men and women, congregated about these places, we never saw a single case of drunkenness or any serious disturbance of any kind. This was not because no one had been drinking while we were present. All had been imbibing more or less freely, but they seemed so accustomed to the use of their favorite beverages that they were no more affected by them than are the people of France and Italy by the drinking of the wines of their respective countries.[15]

From what, the reader will ask, and how, is chicha prepared? It is made from Indian corn and by an extremely simple process. It is, indeed, the same method as was employed before the conquest.

First of all, the grains of maize are moistened by water and allowed to sprout, just as barley is treated in the manufacture of beer. After this the product is dried and roasted in a large earthen jar. Then by means of a piedra de molar—a kind of crude mortar—like the metate, which the Mexican uses for reducing maize to meal, the grains are ground, and then put into hot water and allowed to ferment. As a result of germination and the action of hot water, the starch of the maize is converted into sugar. This, by fermentation, is next changed into alcohol, which gives to chicha its intoxicating property. This is less noxious than that which is produced by boiling the maize and adding to the chicha thus obtained a certain amount of panela, or molasses.[16]

When properly prepared, it is an agreeable and wholesome drink, not unlike cider or light beer. I have frequently seen it used at meals by the best families—people who would never think of serving at their table a harmful or intoxicating beverage. Bürger, I know, condemns it, because he asserts it is rich in fusel oil, and because, he maintains, it has a brutalizing effect on those who use it as a beverage. Not having seen a reliable chemical analysis of chicha, I am not prepared to accept his view of the subject. The same writer, it may be remarked, decries cassava bread, because, he will have it, it is composed for the most part of cellulose.

On our way from Villeta to Guaduas, we were obliged to pass two lofty mountain crests, El Alto del Trigo and El Alto del Raizal. It was then again for the hundredth time that we admired the sagacity of the mule, and the importance of having one that is familiar with service in the mountains. If the camel deserves the epithet—“ship of the desert,” the mule is entitled to being considered the aeroplane of the mountains. For the way he scales the highest peaks, almost rivaling the condor in the altitudes he is capable of attaining, and the manner in which he, with perfect security, glides along the narrow, dizzy paths of the precipitous mountain slopes, is a matter of ever-increasing wonder. We never, I confess, became quite reconciled to the habit all mules have of keeping on the side of the path next to the precipice—except when they meet animals coming from the opposite direction, when they instinctively crowd closely to the over-hanging mountain—but we soon learned that the mule had as much care for his safety as we had for our own, and then the danger, we at first so much dreaded, became more apparent than real. It is curious, but a fact, that a mule left to himself will almost always follow in the footsteps made by his predecessor, and no persuasion can induce him to deviate from the beaten path. So regular and so constant is his pace that one could almost determine in advance the number of steps he will make from one point to another.

He rarely stumbles and still more rarely does he fall. And no matter how deep may be the chasm along whose brink he carefully feels his way, he never suffers from vertigo nor makes a false step. Certain travelers tell us blood-curdling stories about their mules losing their balance and plunging headlong into dark, deep ravines, but during all my travels among the Andes, I never heard of such a thing and, from what I know of the supreme carefulness of the mule when in dangerous places, such an accident seems most unlikely. If he is overloaded, he files a protest by lying down and refusing to rise until relieved of a part of his burden. Occasionally, too, when he reaches a suitable level spot, he may take it into his head to have a roll, and he incontinently proceeds to gratify this inclination before his rider is aware of his intention.

I recall particularly how disconcerted and disgusted C. was on one occasion, when his mule, on arriving at a specially dusty place in the road, lay down without giving the slightest notice of his purpose and proceeded to take a roll, before his rider was able to extricate himself from his uncomfortable position. For a proud caballero who, when he happened to be the cynosure of a group of admiring señoritas and faded dames of quality, would fain pose as a scion of Castilian nobility, this was an indignity that merited condign punishment. The consequence was that whenever, thereafter, C. noticed a suspicious movement in his mount, he forthwith proceeded to ply him with a tough, pliable rod from a coffee bush, which had the effect of distracting, at least temporarily, the mule’s attention to matters of greater moment.

Among the many objects that were to us a source of constant wonder and delight in the tropics were the butterflies. We met them in countless species in the most unexpected places, especially during our journeyings in the lower altitudes. Here we found them of the most brilliant hues and of every color of the spectrum. In some districts, as for instance between the Nevada de Santa Marta and the sea, there are at times clouds of them, and their number is then comparable only with the millions of medusæ that people certain parts of the ocean. At times owing to their prodigious numbers and their gorgeous colors, one could, without a great stretch of the imagination, fancy one’s self gazing at fluttering bits of a shattered rainbow. The largest and most beautiful is the Morpho Cypris, having an expanse of wing of fully six inches, a bright cobalt-blue above, and ocellated underneath.