[11] The route followed by Quesada from the Magdalena to the plateau of Bogotá has remained impassable for horses since the time of the conquest. To one familiar with the difficulties of the way, it seems impossible that so small a body of soldiers should ever have been able to take sixty horses with them and bring them all, with a single exception, in safety to the plains above. It may be safely doubted if such a feat could be accomplished now. But “there were giants in those days.” [↑]
[12] The fact that the Spaniards found potatoes here on their arrival, and the further fact that there was never any communication, so far as known, between New Granada and Chile before the conquest, would seem to indicate that the Solanum tuberosum may have been, contrary to the opinion of Humboldt and De Candolle, indigenous to Colombia. [↑]
[13] Op. cit., Dec. I, Book X. [↑]
[14] Quesada’s infantry received as their share of the spoil, which had been secured, the equivalent of about $1,000. The cavalry received twice this amount. [↑]
[15] In the province of Sinu the amount of treasure in gold and jewels secured in one day amounted to $300,000. Not without reason, then, was this part of the New World designated by the early geographers, Castilla del Oro—Golden Castile. [↑]
[16] The Republic of Colombia, p. 59, London, 1906.
Nothing is farther from my mind than to call in question the veracity of distinguished naturalists and travelers regarding any statements they may have made concerning the vast numbers of animals and birds seen by them in the equinoctial regions of South America. But my experience proves at least one thing and that is that one may travel a long time in the very heart of the tropics, and see very little of its fauna, even in those parts in which it is generally supposed that there are always representatives of many kinds and that, too, in great numbers. [↑]
[17] The following sentence affords an interesting commentary on the occasional rarity of certain animals which are usually supposed to be always visible in large numbers, especially in the Magdalena.
“I have read much of the number of alligators on the Magdalena, but have not seen one.”—The Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela and Colombia, p. 264, 1906–7, by Hiram Bingham, New Haven. 1909.
Raleigh says he saw in Guiana thousands of these “vglie serpants” called Lagartos. [↑]