Journeying overland into Colombia from Ecuador, there opens before the traveler the vast mountainous country that was once the ancient kingdom of the Chibchas—the contemporary of the Inca empire, and, later the pivotal state of BolÍvar’s great confederation. Colombia occupies the extreme northwestern corner of the continent. With its 465,714 square miles of territory, it is as large as Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and Louisiana, and has a population of 4,320,000.

In this corner of the continent the Andes come to an end in a great splurge of deep-cut ridges presenting an aspect very different from the formations to the south. Here three clearly defined ranges diverge from the Ecuadorian frontier and spread northward like the ribs of a fan; the Western and Central Cordilleras merge before reaching the Caribbean Sea, and slope off into foothills and plains near the coast, and the Eastern Cordillera continues in an almost unbroken line until, as the Sierra de Parija, it plunges into the sea at the end of the bleak, forbidding peninsula (Goajira) west of the Gulf of Maracaibo. Rising from the Pacific, on the west, is an almost entirely distinct range, separated from the Andean terminals by the great basin of the Atrato River, and running along the Isthmus of PanamÁ into Central America. Just north of the Ecuadorian frontier lies the so-called “Massif,” from which branch off the three Cordilleras just mentioned and in which the four important Colombian river systems have their source; the Patia flowing westward to the Pacific; the CaquetÁ, eastward, through the Amazon, into the Atlantic, and the Cauca and Magdalena, the great highways of the country, flowing northward to the Caribbean on either side of the Central Cordillera, and joining their floods about one hundred and fifty miles from the sea in the hot, marshy plains of the Magdalena basin.

The Eastern Cordillera slopes off into the Orinoco and Amazon plains—over a territory constituting two-thirds of the republic’s area—and thus gives to Colombia the same astonishing range of productiveness that distinguishes her southern neighbors along the Andean chain. Gold is scattered literally all over the Andean ridges and is picked up along the streams that flow into the lower levels. Silver, iron and lead are almost as universally present; the platinum deposits are surpassed only in Russia; the emerald mines of Muzo, seventy-five miles from BogotÁ, have been famous ever since the brilliant stones were torn from the turban crowns of the Indian kings by the Conquistadores, and are the principal source of the world’s supply; the salt mines and pearl fisheries add largely to the republic’s revenue.

The Review Number of the Pan American Bulletin (August, 1911) says of the emerald industry:

“All, or very nearly all, the emeralds mined to-day come from Colombia. And, in spite of the supposed higher value of diamonds, the emerald is the most precious of gems. Carat for carat, a flawless emerald would bring perhaps three times the price of a flawless diamond in the jewelry market. India, the storehouse of precious stones, is credited with producing the first emeralds, but the oriental emerald is not identical with the modern gem, as it is a variety of the ruby, of a green color, and extremely rare. The stone that adorned Aaron’s armor, described in the writings of Moses, if it was a real emerald and not a carbuncle, may have come from the mines of Coptos in Egypt, which furnished the ancients with the precious green gems. Certain of these old mines are known as ‘Cleopatra’s Mines,’ because that remarkable Egyptian queen is supposed to have obtained her jewels from that source. Nero wore an emerald monocle at the gladiatorial combats that came perhaps from the mines of Ethiopia. The Museum of Naples contains fine emeralds taken from the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, some of which are carved, and the history of this gem shows that it was highly treasured from the earliest recorded times....

“Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador were ravished of their mineral wealth; so wonderful emeralds, as part of the spoil, found their way into the treasury of the Spanish kings. Pizarro and CortÉs sent the first emeralds from the New World to Spain, where they acquired the name ‘Spanish emeralds.’ Tradition has it that an Aztec gem appropriated by CortÉs was valued at forty thousand ducats. Another wonderful stone, the size of an ostrich egg, was found in the Manka Valley, Peru, where the Indians worshiped it as the Goddess of Emeralds. The Spanish conquerors opened up the mines in Colombia in 1540, enslaving the Indians to work them. The richest mineral areas were those of Muzo and Cosquez, about 75 miles north of BogotÁ, at an elevation of about 6500 feet above sea-level. A curious fact in the history of these latter mines is that they were closed and lost to the world in an enveloping forest of jungle for over a hundred years, and only rediscovered some fourteen years ago. The Government of Colombia controls the exploitation, leasing the mining districts to the working companies.

“The Muzo group, from which the finest emeralds come, has an estimated yearly output of 262,548 carats of the first class, 467,690 of the second, 22,700 of the third, and 16,000 of the fourth class. The Coscuez group, named for an Indian princess, which produced a variety of emerald called canutillo, one of the most valuable stones, is now in the category of lost mines. The Samandoco or Chivor group, not now being worked, is supposed to possess a matrix that would yield half a million dollars worth of emeralds a year.... It was” (in the Muzo group) “that the most valuable single emerald in the world was found. It belongs to the Duke of Devonshire and is a perfect, six-sided crystal that weighs 8 ounces 18 pennyweights, is two inches in length and measures across its three thicknesses 2-1/2, 2-1/5, and 1-7/8 inches. Another fine stone is the Hope emerald, weighing 6 ounces, which was also found in Colombia. There can be no doubt that this source of wealth will be greatly augmented in the future, when improved transportation facilities shall make it possible.”

A wealth of agricultural products, typical of nearly every clime, lies in the great river basins and on the eastern slopes and plains in the Orinoco and Amazon regions. In the river basins and part of the way up the mountain sides are great forests, so dense as to be almost impenetrable, but abounding in nearly every species of cabinet and dye woods and nearly every medicinal plant known to science. In altitudes of from two to four thousand feet the coffee plant thrives; the berries from the celebrated Chimbi estates are said to produce the most delicately flavored coffee in the world. But little of it ever reaches the United States. In the tierras calientes, or “hot lands,” the fragrant tonka beans, that have the sweet odor of new-mown hay and are used in some blends of tobacco to give it a bouquet and in the manufacture of soaps and perfumes, and cacao, bananas, yuccas, arracha, sugar, indigo, tobacco, vanilla and rice are among the staple products. The soil of this region is of a rich, black, deep-lying loam, well watered and capable of a greater productiveness than the plains of Louisiana or Texas. In the intermediate areas the culture includes wheat, barley, oats, potatoes and other cereals and vegetables common to the temperate zone. Along the Sinu River is a great cattle belt. This is also the source of the cedar and mahogany, of which Colombia is one of the chief exporters.

It follows naturally that, as in Ecuador, the diversity in altitude that accounts for this varied productiveness gives to Colombia—a wholly tropical country—a range in climate that makes it one of the world’s most attractive abiding places. Von Humboldt is quoted as saying that the traveler here needs but “a thermometer and a mule to find any climate desired within the compass of a few leagues.” When one tires of the torrid heat of the valleys, the frozen sierras are just in sight. When the perpetual spring of the table-land palls upon him, he can by a few hours’ ride find autumn on the steppes above or summer in the plains below. If he is a sportsman, he can find his game among many species of the fauna of three zones: the jaguar, sloth, armadillo, tapir, the red deer, black bear, and panther, and in the jungles of the Amazon region, the tiger.

The overland route to BogotÁ from Quito lies over a well-built highway which, in the not distant future, will be paralleled by Colombia’s and Ecuador’s contributions to the long-heralded Pan-American railway from New York to Buenos Aires. Up to the present time Colombia has had but six hundred miles of railways: the little system radiating from the capital and connecting it with the Magdalena River, and, through that natural highway, with the Caribbean ports, and the short lines that run inland from the ports of both oceans; for Colombia is the only country in South America that borders on both the Pacific and the Atlantic.

The traveler who enters the country in the saddle over the route mentioned will profit more than by sailing up the Pacific coast from Guayaquil and entering through the port of Buenaventura. The journey along the lofty heights and down through the lovely green valleys will not only give him much more of the inspiring Andean scenery, but will make him acquainted with the country and village life which he could not see at close range otherwise. But he will have to sacrifice many familiar comforts on the altar of education. The posadas, or village inns, at which he must stop are mere adobe huts with dirt floors, and none but rawhide cots are offered for his rest. The few dishes served at these primitive hostelries are plentifully seasoned with garlic, saffron, and morones, or red peppers. The early hours of the journey will bring the traveler in conflict also with the all-pervading philosophy of maÑana (to-morrow), and his progress will be slow. However, the unfailing good humor of his muleteer will do much to dispel his exasperation at delays, and he will find himself more and more repaid for his discomforts by the splendor and beauty and strangeness through which he is making his way.

Passing over the bleak, frozen paramos, or mountain deserts, wrapped in awful stillness by the great peaks rising above them, the scene suddenly changes as the road descends along the heavily wooded slopes and the country becomes alive with verdure and the sounds of birds. Below, in a still more summery clime, lies, perhaps, a beautiful little lozenge-shaped valley fringed about up the sides of the mountains with coffee plantations and groves of bamboo, or some other scene even more picturesque—and then, over equally sudden changes and different pictures of native life, the traveler goes on until there begin to appear extensive plantations with well-built houses and farm machinery, and, finally reaches the railway, which takes him, not unregretfully, from his guide and carries him up into the lofty sabana—the great altaplain on which BogotÁ, the capital, is located. This plateau is a level plain, about seventy miles long by about thirty in width, containing some two thousand square miles of cleared, arable land. It lies 8700 feet above the sea in the very heart of the Eastern Cordillera, just below the fifth degree of north latitude, and ranges in temperature from fifty-nine to sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit the year around. From this plateau the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have administered the country since 1538. The sabana is now covered with prosperous plantations belonging to rich BogotaÑos.

BogotÁ lies on the eastern border. When Quesada, its founder, set foot on the sabana, he was struck by its resemblance to the broad plain of Santa FÉ, in his native Granada, on which the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella encamped during the siege that was to put an end to the power of the Moors in Spain. He therefore called the new capital Santa FÉ de BogotÁ, and New Granada became the name of the northern viceroyalty which was carved out of the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1717. Both names have disappeared. The capital has reverted to its ancient Indian name of BogotÁ, and the name of Granada, perpetuated until 1861 in the name of the Republic of New Granada, was succeeded in that year by that of the present Republic of Colombia.

The site of the present city, some twelve miles southeast of the ancient Chibcha capital, was the location of the little Indian village of Tensaquilla, the pleasure resort of the Zipas, nestling, like the Spanish city of Granada, at the foot of two mountains—Monserrate and Guadelupe. Down these mountains tumble the little streams that make up the near-by Funza River, which spreads out over the plain and then plunges down into the upper waters of the Magdalena. On the far side of this great river runs the Central Cordillera, some ninety miles west of the capital, and on clear days the giant white-topped volcano, Tolima, 18,400 feet high, and the Mesa de Herveo, but sixty feet lower—constituting the culminating points in Colombia—are plainly visible.

The traveler’s first impressions of BogotÁ are those of surprise and admiration—surprise at finding so large a city (150,000 in population) perched high up in the Andes, fully “six hundred miles from anywhere;” and admiration of the surpassing natural beauty of its locality. His next impression is that it is one of the most conservative, quiet and restful places on earth—conditions greatly to be appreciated after his long, eventful journey. The discovery is soon made that BogotÁ possesses a climate that is simply perfect, and a highly educated and accomplished society, that boasts for the capital the appellation of “the Boston of South America.” Like Quito, BogotÁ is old, and being so far inland and inaccessible, its Tibet-like seclusion for centuries has bred within its higher circles an aristocratic caste, somewhat arrogant but always suave, kindly, and hospitable. In this eddied fragment of the old-world Spain, the old ceremonious forms of address—“Your servant who kisses your hand,” and that hospitable assurance, “Aqui tiene su casa,” with which even the chance acquaintance is made to feel at home, as in his “own house”—do not seem incongruous, as they would in Spanish cities in closer contact with the outer world.

The streets of the city run eastward up the slopes of a wide avenue cut along the sides of the mountain, and are crossed at right angles by others running north and south. The blocks thus formed rise one above another like the benches of a great amphitheater, overshadowed by the peaks of Monserrate and Guadelupe. On the crests of these peaks stand two massive cathedrals. One wonders why great temples were built in such inaccessible locations, and why, with over thirty more cathedrals and churches in the city, they were needed at all. They can be reached only by pedestrians, and then only after some three hours of hard climbing; no one ever lived near them, and the bleak, icy paramo beyond is uninhabitable. Like the cross, however, their presence is objectively effective in this very religious community.

The city is now well lighted by gas and electricity and is beautified by three large plazas and many smaller parks, in nearly all of which the BogotaÑos have erected handsome bronze statues to the soldiers and statesmen of the republic. The great central plaza bears the name of BolÍvar, and on a high pedestal in its center stands a bronze figure of the Great Liberator, his sad, thoughtful face turned as if in mute reproach toward the old executive mansion, where, for a brief reign, he ruled the destinies of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador, then united in his ill-starred Colombian confederation. From a window in that mansion he once leaped, at midnight, to escape the hand of an assassin, raised against him because the people distrusted his rule and permitted themselves to forget his inestimable services to the country.

On the north side of the plaza stands the new capitol building, a plain but well-proportioned structure of white granite; on the east is the fine old metropolitan cathedral, and adjoining it, on the same side, is the ancient palace of the Spanish viceroys, now, however, used for shops and offices. Near the western outskirts of the city is the extensive Plaza de los Martiros, so named in commemoration of the patriots executed on its site by the royalist general, Morillo. Although beautifully laid out and made into an attractive pleasure ground, it has always been shunned by the people, for it was a veritable Golgotha during the revolution, and was used as the execution ground until the early sixties, when capital punishment was abolished in Colombia. Not a great way from the tragic spot is another noted place now called Ninguna Parte (literally “Nowhere”). It is rather a disreputable part of the city in these days, but, when General William Henry Harrison resided there as United States Minister, in 1827, it was a fashionable district. The old house in which he lived is still pointed out, as is the still older, and, if possible, still more dilapidated, house occupied by Baron von Humboldt during his year’s sojourn in BogotÁ. On the northern side of the little Plaza de las Nieves stands the city’s oldest landmark—the house built by Quesada.

It would be idle to attempt to enumerate the grand old monasteries and convents of the city. Many of them occupy entire squares. Since the political upheaval of 1860, generally known as the “Mosquera Rebellion,” these edifices have ceased to be church property. Some are now used as schools or hospitals, others as hotels, armories, and barracks; many are now occupied as government offices—the National Mint, the National Military Academy, the Post Office, the War and Navy Departments, and the noted Rosario College.

The traveler’s descent from the BogotÁ sabana to the Magdalena on his departure from the country, will store his memory with vistas of grandeur and beauty that will never be effaced, for the Upper Magdalena valley is one of the most beautiful in the world. By the old mule path to Honda, the head of navigation for big steamers on the Magdalena, by way of La Mesa, Tocaime, and Jirado, one will be traveling over a route that for centuries was the great thoroughfare for peon or viceroy, and is to-day practically unchanged in the scenes that make it interesting. But one can now go by rail from BogotÁ to Girardot on the Magdalena, some eighty miles above and south of Honda, thence by small steamer to Arrancapluma, where a short railway trip is made around the Honda Rapids to La Dorada, about twenty miles north of and down the river from the town of Honda. At La Dorada the five hundred mile journey northward down the Magdalena to the Caribbean is made in one of the regular steamers that cover this service. The river trip is full of interest, for the wild stream, nearly as large as the Mississippi, flows with great rapidity throughout its course, and has a most varied aspect. For miles it spreads out in a calm, placid sheet of water several miles in width, then whirls over a series of rapids, or forms into whirlpools, or later races through a narrow mountain gorge; and, in consequence of its eccentricities, the channel is constantly changing, to the great inconvenience of pilots.

At Calamar, about seventy-five miles from the mouth, the traveler may exchange the steamer for the railroad to the port of Cartagena, or continue down the Magdalena, now greatly increased in volume by the confluence of the almost equally large river Cauca, to the two important Caribbean ports at the mouth, Barranquilla and Sabanilla. The first part of the trip from BogotÁ to Girardot reminds one of the mountain scenery over the Oroya road up into the Andean plateau from Lima. Constantly before him, in the distance, are the lofty frozen peaks of Tolima, San Ruiz, and Herveo, towering above their fellows in the Central Cordillera. On either side of the Magdalena, the slopes of the two ranges in their lower reaches are dotted with coffee plantations; above them, reaching to the altitude of the paramos, the mountain sides are thickly overgrown with forests, and down in the river basin, in the hollow of the broad valley, the brilliant green of varied tropical vegetation continues, on past the point where the Central and Western Cordilleras merge in the llanos, down to the Caribbean coast plains; here the Magdalena basin spreads out over a vast area of barren waste.

Barranquilla, Sabanilla, and Cartagena are the important commercial centers of the republic on the Caribbean, the last-named being one of the oldest and most interesting of the historic old ports. Founded in 1533 by Don Pedro de Heredia, this port was the most glorious monument to Spain’s military genius in the new world, and was properly looked upon as the key to her great treasure house. Spain spent over $60,000,000 on its fortifications, a fabulous sum in those days, but an expenditure which for over two hundred years secured to her the mastery of the Indies. To-day these fortifications—the citadel within the landlocked harbor, the two castles dominating the narrow entrance, the tremendous walls and ramparts—stand without question as the most picturesque and characteristic survival of Spain’s colonial splendor. Not even the perfectly preserved walls of Manila are more impressive. The visitor who walks to-day through the narrow, Moorish streets comes with memories of the fabulous wealth and the violent scenes of siege and bloodshed culled from romances of the days of the buccaneers that “sailed the Spanish Main.” He will, however, search in vain for the evidences of the rich traffic once centered here that gave to Francisco Pizarro the inspiration for his conquest of Peru.

Cartagena, “The Heroic City,” from its very beginning was the objective of every expedition undertaken to wrest from Spain her rich domain in the Indies; its fortifications stood as a perpetual challenge to the freebooters who pillaged the Spanish Main in the days of the galleons. This challenge was accepted more than once to Cartagena’s heavy cost. Sir Henry Morgan, Robert Vaal, Martin Cote, Du Casse, Sieur des Pointes, and Sir Francis Drake sacked the town, and later it was the object of the most important attack made against Spain in the new world prior to the nineteenth century, when, in 1741, the English Admiral Vernon undertook his memorable campaign on the Caribbean. He assembled at Jamaica 29 ships of the line and nearly 100 transports, carrying a total force of 27,000 soldiers and sailors. His siege of Cartagena began on the 4th of March and lasted two months, and was attended by enormous losses. The event is peculiarly interesting to North Americans because of the fact that the land forces, under General Wentworth, contained a contingent drawn from the thirteen English colonies in North America, and that the commander of this contingent was Colonel Lawrence Washington, elder brother of the immortal George. It was through admiration for Admiral Vernon’s brilliant but unsuccessful action that Washington gave to his Virginia estate the name of Mount Vernon.

“Cartagena de Indias,” as the old kings of Spain loved to call their “very royal and loyal city,” ranks third in point of age in the new world, and still retains more of its early characteristics than any of the others. Its antiquity is everywhere in evidence. Like the battlements and castles at its entrance, the city seems to have been built of the yellow-white coral laid in concrete, which seems to be indestructible. If one could fly over it in an airship, and look down upon its closely massed, red-tiled houses, and, beyond, upon the deep green of the country-side, with the exquisite blue effects of the Caribbean and the tropic sky, the city would seem gemlike in its romantic beauty. The narrow streets of rough stone are overhung at frequent intervals with the protruding windows and balconies familiar to visitors in Lima and others of the older Spanish cities, yet there is an individuality about the houses here that is far more fascinating, and facing the parks are many fine examples of the old churches and convents which constitute the distinctive architecture of the colonial rÉgime. Surrounding these buildings are luxuriant gardens, presenting a riot of color, in which the peculiarly refreshing green of the hot countries predominates.

Among the many substantial dwellings occupied by the wealthy is one that was the seat of the terrible Inquisition which sat here from 1610 until 1821. San Felipe de Barajas, an old castle and fort lying on a low hill overlooking the city, is full of interesting underground passages, as are many of the fortifications, and although utterly abandoned and falling into decay, is still a forceful and grim reminder of the mediÆval period of storm and stress. On the top of another hill, called “La Popa,” lying back of the town, still stands the ancient convent of Santa Candelaria, serving as a landmark to mariners passing that way, its white or light yellow buildings being visible for many miles out at sea. Here the visitor is shown where a buccaneer amused himself on the occasion of one of the raids by hurling the nuns over the edge of the perpendicular cliff on which the convent stands.

Cartagena in the old days surpassed Mexico, Lima, PanamÁ, and Havana in importance, and stood forth as the commercial giant of Spain in America; it represented, as did no other American city, the pomp and magnificence of her sixteenth and seventeenth century imperialism. Now all this is past; even as the natural gateway for Colombia’s productiveness, she has lost her position, the North American-built railroad connecting the port with the Magdalena River, at Calamar, having proved powerless to restore even a small measure of her prestige against the rising commercial importance of Puerto Colombia and Barranquilla. The latter port has now become the entrepÔt of commerce with the interior by the great waterway of the Magdalena.

On the desolate stretch of Colombia’s Pacific coast there is but one city of importance, Buenaventura. This is the busy exchange that taps the fertile region of the upper Atrato basin, and when the PanamÁ Canal shall have been opened should spring into greater importance along with the other ports of the West Coast. In the interior Colombia possesses many cities of considerable size, ranging from thirty to sixty thousand inhabitants, which are centers for the mining and agricultural districts—Pamplona in the mountains near the Venezuela frontier, Bucarmanga, a little to the west, MompÓz, near the confluence of the Cauca and Magdalena, once a port on the latter river but now, owing to the erratic wanderings of that stream, twenty miles east of it, MedellÍn, in the Cauca valley; PopayÁn and Pasto near the head waters of that river, and La Plata on the other side of the Central Cordillera.

The Hon. John Barrett and Hon. William L. Scruggs, both former Ministers of the United States at BogotÁ, have written extensively of Colombia’s commercial possibilities and predict great strides for the hermit republic. “Colombia,” writes Mr. Barrett, “is a wonderland of opportunity. Measured by the standards of other countries it can be said without exaggeration that the Republic of Colombia, in proportion to area and population, is the richest of all in the variety and extent of undeveloped resources, fullest in promise for future growth and reward to mankind.” “Colombia,” he continues, “is at our very doors; it is nearer to the principal ports of the United States than any other South American country, and yet we have done little to study her internal wealth or to take part in her foreign commerce.” The country is only nine hundred and fifty miles away from us; from Cartagena to Tampa, Florida, the distance is less than from New York to St. Louis. The foreign trade of Colombia last year amounted to $26,000,000, in which the United States participated to the extent of only $11,000,000.

Mr. Scruggs says in closing his interesting work on Colombia: “Such is the country as nature has made it—picturesque, beautiful, and exceedingly rich and varied in undeveloped resources. As yet man has done very little for it, the greater part being still unbroken wilderness.... The commercial possibilities of the country are almost incalculable; and the time is probably not very remote when the fact will be more fully realized by the great commercial powers of the world.”