In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

The Valle de las Papas is a great level stretch of marshy land covered with a growth of tall grass and small clumps of forest, between ten thousand and eleven thousand feet up. The tops of the ridges hem it in on all sides and somewhat protect it from the icy winds. It is said that the ancient Indians cultivated the potato in this valley; hence its name—“The Valley of Potatoes.” An elaborate network of canals or drains runs through the valley, but the climate and soil are such that I doubt if cultivation could be carried on to any great extent. Often, for many days at a time, rain and hail fall steadily and the mist is so thick that one cannot venture far on the treacherous boggy soil. Yet, strange to say, cattle thrive wonderfully on the high plateau, and their rearing is the occupation followed by the few Indian families who live on these heights. Beautiful orchids abound in the trees, especially in the forest that reaches up to the valley; we saw many of yellow, purple, and snowy-white. Some of the trees are of the evergreen family, including a kind of holly. There were many indications of deer and tapirs, although we shot none. Large snipe and ant-thrushes were plentiful, and on the streams we saw a number of peculiar little torrent-ducks, or merganettas; large white gulls, which the Indians say are old birds that come up from the sea to die, soared high overhead.

At one end of the valley lies a small lake, of which we had an occasional short view when the clouds drifted up the slopes. All about grew clumps of frailejones. Two streams leave the grassy borders of the lake, mere rivulets ten or twelve feet wide, through which we waded daily; one flows down the extreme eastern slope and develops into the mighty Caquetá that helps to swell the yellow flood of the Amazon; the other breaks through the ridges to the northeast, and dashing down the mountains in a series of rapids and cascades forms the Magdalena, which empties into the Caribbean many hundreds of miles away.

Allen was suffering considerably from the fever contracted in the Chocó four months before. Instead of being benefited by the high, cold climate as we had hoped, his condition grew steadily worse, so we found it necessary to continue our journey sooner than we had anticipated. I hastened back to San Sebastian to engage Indian porters, as mules are unable to carry packs beyond this point, and was assisted in my mission by the schoolmaster, who took a sympathetic interest in our undertaking. He was a pathetic example of a man who might have accomplished great deeds had the opportunity presented itself. One of his most highly cherished possessions was an old magazine containing illustrations of an aeroplane and an article on wireless telegraphy.

With a great deal of difficulty I succeeded in arranging with a dozen Indians to carry our luggage across the cordillera the following week. They were of splendid physique and as fine a looking lot as I had ever seen. The price agreed upon was about seventy-five cents per arroba of twenty-five pounds, each man carrying from two to four arrobas. The journey would require five days, and each man was to carry his own food for the trip in addition to the pack. The charge was high, judged by local standards, but on account of the rainy season the trail was all but impassable; also, it was the Semana Santa, one of the greatest fiestas of the year, when all good Indians should roam the streets, dulling their senses with an excessive use of coca leaves and guarapo, and fighting, while the women spent the greater part of the days in church acquiring grace for themselves and their delinquent husbands. A small advance was made to each man to enable him to purchase a supply of ground corn, cane-sugar, and coca. Acceptance of this advance is considered equal to signing a contract, and they rarely, if ever, go back on the deal.

On Wednesday, April 3, the day set for our departure, the men appeared, each provided with a board and strong cords. The packs, consisting of boxes, steamer trunks, and bags, were tied to the boards which fitted the men’s backs; a broad band was passed over the forehead and two bands across the chest. Each man carried in his hand a forked stick, or “mula,” as a means of aiding him in going up and down the slippery inclines and in walking the logs that crossed the streams.

After a short, steep climb we were out on the bleak paramo, in the midst of the rain, hail, and mist. The wind blew a gale and the cold was intense. Through an occasional break in the banks of fog we had glimpses of the valley on each side filled with dense clumps of frailejones. We continued on in the face of the blinding storm for several hours, but with the coming of darkness the trail left the wind-swept zone and started downward, winding along the canyon of the Magdalena; in the failing light the scenery was bewitchingly beautiful. High, rugged peaks, sheer cliffs, and black masses of forest towered above the sparkling stream that bounded from rock to rock in a succession of falls. Allen and Lloyd had gone on ahead, and after dark I came upon them camped in a unique spot. They had thrown their blankets on a ledge in the face of a cliff that towered several hundred feet above them. A tiny waterfall dashed over the edge of the precipice, cleared the ledge, and joined the greater torrent below. The regular night’s stopping-place is known as Santa Marta, which the Indians reached at nine that night.

Immediately after arriving at the camping site the porters boiled corn-meal, which they ate with brown sugar. Each man had brought a sheepskin to use as a bed, and these were dried beside the fire while their food was cooking. Before starting in the morning they had another meal of mush and sugar. During the gruelling day their mouths were kept well filled with coca and lime, and the apparent amount of sustenance and endurance derived from the herb is extraordinary; nor does it seem to have any bad aftereffect, though in Almaguer I saw a number of shaky old women with bloodshot eyes and blackened lips and teeth, said to be due to the result of excessive indulgence in coca.

The second night we failed to catch up with the men who had gone on ahead. We had waded streams and knee-deep mud the greater part of the day as the result of the steady downpour which rendered the trail indescribably bad; everything was drenched and it required more than an hour of hard work to start a small fire. However, the day dawned bright and sunny, and we lingered to watch the tribes of feathered folk that began feeding and chattering in the tree-tops. The ripening fruits had attracted great black guans, trogons with rose-colored breasts and metallic green backs, and wonderful curve-billed hummers with long white tails. Along a stretch of bamboo we saw scores of large, pearly butterflies flapping about lazily, the iridescence of their wings flashing like bits of rainbow in the sunlight; but not a glimpse did we have of the main object of our long wanderings—the rare and elusive cock-of-the-rock.

In the afternoon the rain again fell in unrelenting torrents, and we camped beneath a wall of rock hundreds of feet high, which the Indians called the Peña Seca, or dry stone. Great vines with bunches of scarlet flowers drooped a hundred feet below the top, like gigantic serpents, but not a drop of all the downpour reached us. The base of the cliff was blackened from the numerous camp-fires kindled by Indians on their way to Tolima in quest of salt. By way of divertisement our Indians gathered incense, which is a kind of gum that collects on certain trees, and which they intended to take home with them for use in the santa iglesia. I watched the social bees that live in company with termites building tubular entrances that may extend out eighteen inches or more like a coiled pipe-stem to their apartment in the nest; apparently the two different inmates of the common domicile never clash.

The third night we reached the hut of an old Indian who called himself Domingo, and who was as surly a creature as ever walked the earth. As he refused us the hospitality of his hut, we camped outside his gate.