In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

The ruins about San Agustin possess none of the ornate massiveness of those found in Guatemala and Yucatan, but rather has the work been executed along severe lines and in bas-relief; nor are they nearly so well preserved, which might tend to show that they date back to an earlier period. Hieroglyphics are almost wholly wanting. Doctor Karl Theodor Stoepel, who spent some time in San Agustin previous to our visit, has traced a similarity between one of the monoliths and an example found in Pachacama, Bolivia. In one or two instances the work resembles that of the Aztecs.

Just how to account for the advance of civilization to a point where art and architecture were encouraged, and which supported a well-organized form of government, and then to explain its complete extinction, is a question on which students of the subject are at variance. Religion in some form or other has always wielded a powerful influence upon the life and customs of primitive nations; one evidence—almost invariably the deities and the temples erected for their veneration represent the supreme efforts of the ancient artists and alone have withstood the weathering of ages. This points strongly to the supremacy of a sacerdotal order; but whether the reigning classes who withheld their knowledge from the common people for selfish purposes were annihilated by an uprising of the servile hordes or by an outside invasion, or whether some great cataclysm of nature extinguished the progress of ages at a stroke, may forever remain a secret.

The bird life around San Agustin was varied and abundant. Trees were in blossom, especially one with a feathery, pinkish flower (Mimosa), and to this scores of hummers came. One species had a slightly curved bill and was green in color, with a patch of deepest purple on the throat; another of a blue color had tail-feathers six inches long. In the ravines there were many chachalacas that kept up a demoniacal cackling. The bushes were full of finches and lovely velvety red tanagers, while honey-creepers came to our table daily and gorged themselves on sugar. In the forest we saw many large, woolly monkeys, some bluish, others silvery gray. There were kinkajous, agoutis, and peccaries. The two-toed sloth was abundant; the flesh of all these animals was greedily eaten by the natives. Numbers of large lizards or iguanas prowled about the town and feasted on the tiny chickens and ducklings. A flight of locusts covered the entire upper Magdalena, and for days the air was black with the pest; millions would rise from the ground in a steady cloud in front of us as we walked along through the fields. In a few days not a speck of green remained. The hungry, insatiable hordes moved on, but behind them remained a wide, brown desert, filled with sorrow and desolation, for the crops of corn, yuccas, and bananas had been destroyed and there would be famine for many months to come.

A mountain stream, such as the Rio Naranjos, where the cock-of-the-rock spends its existence.

We scouted the forests daily, confining our search to the untrodden ravines of the Rio Naranjos, a turbulent, wicked stream that joins the Magdalena a short distance below. Great precipices flank its sides and the water rushes through dark, narrow gorges. Everywhere the river-bed is dotted with great boulders against which the water dashes with a force that sends clouds of spray into the air. The slopes of the mountains and ravines are covered with a dense palm jungle, the trees laden with bunches of purple berries. It is in places such as these that the cock-of-the-rock spends its existence. After several weeks of the most strenuous work our efforts were rewarded: we came suddenly upon a flock of male birds in the top of a palm, the bright scarlet color of the wonderful creatures flaming among the deep-green fronds in a dazzling manner as they flitted about, and with outstretched necks and raucous “eur-rr-ks” surveyed the disturbers of their time-honored solitude. We were the first human beings to penetrate their jungle fastness and excited curiosity rather than fear. The mere sight of these beautiful birds in their wild surroundings was worth all the discomforts of the long journey. In size they are no larger than domestic pigeons, but the color is of a most intense and brilliant scarlet, with wings and tail of black; the upper wing-coverts are of a light shade of gray, and the eyes and feet are golden yellow; a flat crest an inch and a half high completely covers the head and hides the yellow bill. The female is of a dull shade of brown.

We wanted to find their nests and to study their home life, of which little was known; also to secure material for the museum group. With the aid of Indians, and ropes made of creepers, we began to explore the face of the cliffs, some of which were a hundred feet high. On many of the steep slopes the palms grew so close together that we utilized them as ladders. As it rained nearly every day the footholds were very slippery, and many times one or another of the party fell, being saved from being dashed on the rocks far below only by the rope that bound us together.

One day, as we crept along slowly and painfully, we flushed a bird of sombre brown from a great boulder that rose from the centre of the stream. We waited breathlessly while she fluttered about in the palms and then returned to the rock. She flew many times back and forth, carrying food in her bill, and at last I discerned a dark object against the face of the rock upon which the bird centred her attention. There was no longer cause for concealment, so we moved to the edge of the torrent and saw the grass and mud nest plastered against the face of the rock; below raged a whirlpool, and on each side there was a waterfall. A more inaccessible spot could not have been chosen by the bird, whose haunts had never been violated.

After a consultation the Indians decided to build a raft, and accordingly cut down trees and lashed the trunks together, but no sooner had the craft been launched than it was caught by the raging swirl and spun about until the creepers parted and we found ourselves struggling in the whirlpool. A great liana which had been securely tied to the raft and fastened on the bank swept past, and this proved to be our salvation.

A tall tree was now felled, and its course so directed that the top should fall across the inaccessible rock island, but it fell several yards short and again we were outwitted.