Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

Such changes in the course of the river are not uncommon. They are going on all the time in some part or other of the valley. One may frequently see immense masses of earth suddenly detached, which are a serious menace to the champans[6]—large covered flat-boats—and other small craft that happen to pass by at the time. Sometimes the giants of the forest are thus wrested from their footholds, and may be seen drifting down stream together with masses of vegetation attached to them. At times, too, masses of earth, like floating islets, are visible, and may travel a long distance down stream before their course is arrested by an island or a sand bar.

Ordinarily the changes in the river bed are gradual and occasion little danger to life or property. Sometimes, however, during the rainy season, and when the flood is unusually high, widespread devastation is the result. Whole villages are swept away by the deluge; and towns, that were before important commercial centres, are suddenly isolated and left far from the navigable part of the river. Places that before were favorably situated are, after the flood, found to be in the midst of pestiferous morasses. Such has been the fate of many places along the waterways of Colombia, but more notably in the great island of Mompos, near the confluence of the Cauca and the Magdalena. Here several places that were at one time centres of industrial and agricultural activity, have long since either ceased to exist or lost entirely their pristine importance.

Champan Going Up the Magdalena.

The town of Mompos is probably the most remarkable example of this kind. Founded in 1539 by Alonso de Heredia, it is one of the oldest towns in the republic, and was for generations the most important commercial centre between Cartagena and Honda. But owing to a displacement of the main channel of the river, and the filling in of the branch of the river on which the town was built, it is now practically deprived of its former means of communication with the rest of the country, and is rapidly verging towards extinction.

The Magdalena, as a commercial highway, has been much neglected. As a consequence, no one can calculate when leaving Honda, how long it will take him to reach Barranquilla. It may require five or six days, or it may demand twice that much time. All depends on the shifting bed of the river, or the blocking of the channel by sand bars and accumulations of floating timber. By reason of these obstructions and the ever-varying depth of the main channel, navigation is usually impossible at night, except below the island of Mompos, where the volume of water is swelled by the tribute of the mighty Cauca.

If the Magdalena were under the supervision of a corps of competent engineers, having at their disposal the necessary dredges and other appliances for keeping the main channel in prime condition, a properly constructed boat would easily make the trip from Honda to the mouth of the river in two days, and traverse the same course up stream in three days at most. It is really a pity to see such a splendid water course so neglected. If cared for as it should be, it could easily be rendered an artery for inland commerce of the first importance. As it is, transportation, as now carried on, is always slow and uncertain, and never free from danger and disaster.

As a serviceable means of communication with the outside world we were constantly contrasting the Magdalena with the Meta. From our observations, we should consider the Meta, from its junction with the Orinoco to Cabuyaro or even to the mouth of the Humea, as a safer waterway than the Magdalena. Only twice did our boat graze a sand bank in the Meta, but it continued its course without a moment’s stoppage. In the Magdalena, however, we frequently ran into sand bars, or shallow water, and, on several occasions, had difficulty in extricating and floating our craft. Once we were delayed for some time, and began to fear that, owing to the falling water, we should be stranded for weeks, as other boats had been not long before.

When peace shall have been firmly established in Colombia, and its finances shall have been placed on a satisfactory basis, the patriotic and far-seeing statesmen of the republic, will, I am convinced, see the necessity of carrying out the plan of the former Archbishop and Viceroy of New Granada—Don Antonio Caballero y Gongora—and connecting Bogotá with Europe by means of the Meta and the Orinoco. It will not be a difficult feat of engineering to build a railroad from the capital to a suitable point on the Meta, and the length of such a road need not exceed one hundred and fifty miles at most. This will bring Bogatá within eight or ten hours of the head waters of navigation, and develop the most valuable and most productive grazing section of the country.

The highest point the road need reach in crossing the Eastern Cordilleras will be less than that of several passes in Colorado, where the Rocky Mountains are scaled by the iron-horse with a long train of cargo behind him. The pass of Chipaque, by which we entered the altiplanicies of Bogotá, is several thousand feet lower than the heights crossed by the railways leading from the waters of the Pacific to Lake Titicaca, and to Argentina by way of Cumbre Pass, and is nearly a mile lower than the point where the Galera tunnel pierces the Cordillera on the way from Lima to Oroya.[7]