[1] “Hail, hail, majestic river!... Contemplating thee, adorned by the eldest of Earth’s sons; full only of thee, I feel my soul carried on by the foam of thy waves, which in deep whirlpools roar, absorbed in the giant works of that Being which embraces the infinite.” [↑]
[2] The reader will be surprised to learn that the aggregate capacity of all the boats—champans included—at present plying on the Magdalena—proudly named by the people the Danube of Colombia—is not more than eleven thousand tons, about half the tonnage of one of our great transatlantic steamers. [↑]
[3] Op. cit., 3a Noticia, Cap. IX. [↑]
[4] The first mention, apparently, of the Magdalena, as distinguished from the Rio Grande, occurs in Benzoni’s work, already cited. [↑]
[5] Called by the natives Cabeza de Negro—Negro-head—from the globular form of the spathe enclosing the nuts. [↑]
[6] The introduction of the steamboat on the Magdalena will soon suppress the rude yet picturesque craft known as the champan. With it will disappear that interesting type of negro known as the boga. The boga is tall and robust, with the habits of a savage. He spends the greater part of his time in the champan, and his life as a punter is a strenuous one and full of danger. He speaks a barbarous jargon—currulao—composed of Spanish and of certain African and Indian dialects. His ideas of honor and honesty are not unlike those of similar people in other parts of the world. One can safely trust him with money and clothing, but, if the traveler have liquor of any kind with him, the boga will be sure to purloin it at the first opportunity. He is simple, frank, and brave. He sings during good weather, even while struggling against the current or fighting caymans, but he swears like a trooper during rain and thunder storms, especially when the lightning strikes near him. For him death is a very simple matter. A dead man to him is like a champan damaged beyond repair—something to be carried away by the all-devouring river. [↑]
[7] The exact altitudes of the points named are as follows:—Cumbre Pass, between Chile and Argentina, 12,505 feet; Crucero Alto, between Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, 14,666 feet; Galera Tunnel, 15,665 feet. At Urbina, on the recently-completed railroad between Guayaquil and Quito, the height above sea level is 11,841 feet. [↑]
[8] In Colombia, the white race, composed of the descendants of the conquistadores, most of whom have intermarried with the indigenous tribes, constitutes fifty per cent of the population. The negroes compose thirty-five and the Indians fifteen per cent. In Venezuela the descendants of Europeans are in the minority, while in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia the indigenes make up nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants. La Republique de Colombie, p. 44, par Ricardo Nuñez et Henry Jalahay, Bruxelles, 1898. [↑]
[9] Albert Millican, Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter, p. 118, London, 1891. [↑]
[10] The noted English botanist, Spruce, expresses a similar idea when he writes, “I like to look on plants as sentient beings, which live and enjoy their lives—which beautify the earth during life, and after death may adorn my herbarium.”—Notes of a Botanist, and the Amazon and Andes, Chap. XXXIX, by Richard Spruce, London, 1908. [↑]