Falling asleep in a half-dream!
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.”
The following morning—our last day on the Magdalena—found us at Calamar. Here some of our fellow-passengers disembarked to take the train to Cartagena, sixty-five miles to the westward. From Calamar to Barranquilla, the chief northern terminus of river navigation, is sixty-six miles. This distance we expected to make in a few hours, but for reasons presently to be given, we were unexpectedly delayed within sight of Barranquilla, the goal that marked the completion of another important stage in our journey.
Our last day on the Magdalena was a bright balmy one in June. We spent the entire time on the forward part of the upper deck, fanned by the delightful breezes that were wafted from the Caribbean. The river here has about the same width as has the Mississippi at New Orleans, but the scenery is far more attractive. It flows through a broad, level, grass-covered savanna, which extends beyond the limits of vision, and which is dotted here and there with small villages and flourishing haciendas. Some of the houses near the river banks have a most cozy appearance. They are almost embowered in a mass of flowers of every hue, and surrounded by lofty palms whose lovely emerald coronals were each a picture of rarest beauty.
“These princes of the vegetable world” always had a peculiar fascination for us, no matter where we saw them. And during our long journey from the delta of the Orinoco they were never absent from view even for a single hour. When one species disappeared it was replaced by another, and thus they followed us from the Atlantic wave to the lofty crest of Suma Paz. The ocean-loving cocoa gave place to the moriche, and this was in turn succeeded by the corneto of the llanos and the wax palm of the Sierras.[22]
It is quite impossible for the inhabitants of our northern climes to have anything approaching an adequate conception of the grace and beauty and surpassing loveliness of the omnipresent palms of the equatorial world. Away from heat and sunshine, they are quite devoid of the luxuriance and stateliness that characterize them in the tropics. In Europe, for instance, there is but a single palm that is indigenous—the Chamærops humilis. The date palm was introduced from the East. In the tropics, however, about eleven hundred species of palms are known, and there is reason to believe that, when this part of the world shall have been thoroughly explored, many new species shall be discovered.
The habits as well as the habitats of palms were a source of unfailing interest to us. Some are solitary and are rarely found forming groups with other trees of their species. Others, like the date palm, are quite gregarious and often form extensive clumps. Others still are said to be “social,” because they occupy extensive tracts almost to the entire exclusion of other kinds of trees. Various species of Mauritia, Attalea, Cocoa and Copernicia are social palms, and the palmares—palm groves—formed by them constitute the most attractive features of tropical landscapes.
We once saw near the river’s bank a grove of this kind composed of palms of unusual height and beauty. It had been selected as the last resting place of the denizens of a neighboring village, and was, to our mind, the most beautiful cemetery in the world. Could we have our choice, we should prefer, by far, to repose under one of those noble frond-bearing shafts to being shelved away in the costliest marble vault of Père Lachaise.
