In the Wilds of South America

by Leo E. Miller

The arrival of the steamer always causes a great deal of confusion. Debarking passengers are required to look after their own luggage, which is not a simple matter, as it is invariably covered with mountains of boxes and bags on the lower deck; and after it has been located it is necessary to secure peons to convey it ashore, the ship’s crew invariably refusing to render this service.

There is always a rush for the little hotel “Magdalena,” built on a slight bluff overlooking the river. Accommodations are limited, and those who arrive first naturally have the advantage of selecting the cooler rooms in the upper story. However, the advantages gained are partly imaginary, at best. The climate is insufferably hot in the daytime, and mosquitoes filtering through rents in the nets protecting the beds are most annoying at night. Nor is it possible to seek the cooling comfort of a bath; a small, corrugated iron building in the garden is supposed to provide for this need, but a tank containing water for the shower is placed on the roof in the full glare of the tropical sun, and the water becomes heated to such a degree that it is almost scalding.

The town of Puerto Berrio is situated a few hundred yards below the landing. It contains about a hundred low buildings, many of which are utilized for shops where merchandise and, more important at least to transients, a great variety of fruit may be had. All the buildings are low—some constructed of adobe with red tile roofs, others of nothing more substantial than bamboo, and grass or palm-leaves.

Beyond the town is a low, rambling shed used as a slaughter-house. When one tires of watching the blue tanagers, orioles, and yellow warblers quarrel in the cocoanut-palms near the hotel, he may tempt his æsthetic taste by walking to the pavilion of bovine death, and look upon the hundreds of black vultures sitting on the roof, strutting and hopping over the ground, or tearing at the hides that have been stretched out to dry. These birds are so typical a part of most towns and villages of tropical Colombia that one soon learns to accept them as a matter of course. They act as scavengers. Without them the settlements would reek with foulness.

Puerto Berrio marks the beginning of a narrow-gauge railway, and each morning at six a passenger-train leaves the station for Cisneros, covering the first stage of the journey to Medellin. Almost immediately after leaving the port, the road plunges into the finest type of Magdalena Valley forest. We therefore debarked at the first settlement, called Malena, only fifteen minutes after leaving the starting-point. My assistant on this expedition was Mr. Howarth S. Boyle, of Elmhurst, Long Island.

At Malena the tropical forest reaches the height of its development. There is a clearing large enough only to provide room for the village of some twenty houses, and the stately living wall of trees hems it in on all sides. The people are most obliging, and while there is no posada, or inn, of any kind, a Mestizo family volunteered to permit us the use of part of their dwelling.

A short tour of inspection confirmed our first impression of the region; it was a naturalist’s paradise. One had only to go to the outskirts of the town to find birds in greatest abundance. A number of tall dead trees had been left standing in the clearing, probably because it was easier to merely girdle them and let them die than to cut them down, and many blue and yellow macaws and Amazon parrots were nesting in cavities high up in the trunks. They had young at the time of our visit (March), and screamed and fluttered about the nests all day long. No one thought of disturbing them. Rough-winged swallows and martens nested in the same stubs, and apparently lived in perfect harmony with their noisy neighbors.

A shallow, narrow stream of clear water flows through the clearing, and a belt of woods and low sprouts mantles each bank with dusky green. This was the favorite resort of many small birds; oven-birds and ant-wrens ran about in the deep shade, while night-hawks, aroused from their slumbers, flapped noiselessly into the air and dropped again a few feet away. Scores of parrakeets chattered in the branches overhead, while flocks of large, spotted wrens (Heleodytes) added to the chorus with their incessant scolding.

If we remained close to the stream we were sure to surprise herons of several species, and black ibises wading in the shallow water. A species of ani (Crotophaga) fluttered in the overhanging bushes; they were awkward though beautiful creatures, the size of a blue jay, with brilliant, black iridescent plumage; the mouth was pure white, while the eyes were of a pea-green color.

If our tramp led to the heavy forest, the character of the birds changed. Giant orioles (Ostinops), grackles, and chachalacas always remained near the border of the taller growth, and toucans in flocks seemed to prefer the protection of the more inaccessible cover.