Al contemplar tu frente coronada
De los hijos mas viejos de la tierra,
Lleno solo de ti, siento mi alma
Arrastrada en la espuma de tus olas,
Que entre profundos remolinos braman,
De aquel gran ser que el infinito abraza.”[1]
—Manuel M. Madiedo.
While in Guaduas we met a Scotch engineer, who was superintendent of a gold mine in the mountains west of Honda. Desiring to know the truth about the excessive temperature of this place, about which we had heard so many reports, we asked him if it was really true that the heat in Honda was as intense as represented.
“You will,” he said, “find it the hottest place you have ever visited. It is certainly the most torrid place I know, and I have been something of a globe-trotter in my time. Hades, if I have caught the meaning of the word, as used in the Revised Version, is quite temperate in comparison with it. Business frequently calls me to Bogotá, and, on my way thither, I must necessarily pass through Honda, but I never stop there longer than is absolutely necessary, and I always try to avoid being there in the daytime. If I must stop there for a few hours, I time my journey so as to arrive there at night, and make it a point to leave before morning. Hot? I think it is the hottest and most suffocating spot on earth. It has always been a mystery to me how people can live there at all. I know of nothing to compare it with except one of the burning pits of Dante’s Inferno.”
Had we not learned by long experience how to discount such statements, the prospect of spending some days in a town with such a reputation for grilling the stranger within its gates, would have been anything but inviting. But we had heard similar reports about the llanos and the valley of the Orinoco, and had found, on arriving in these regions, that the temperature said to prevail there had been greatly exaggerated. The same we found to be true of Honda. During our sojourn there, our thermometer never registered more than 86° F. in the shade. Of course, around midday it was uncomfortable in the sun, but I have been in many places in the United States where I suffered more from the heat than I did in Honda.