Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-02
THE TRIP ON MULEBACK.

| to ladies only. When making saddle jour-
| neys in any of these mountain regions, it is
we'll to be guided in the matter of dress by
the advice of the natives, who, travelling al
ways in this fashion, certainly ought to
know what they are talking about. A lady,
Ito the manner born," never burdens her.
self with too much riding skirt, but makes
inches longer than an ordinary walking
dress, and she dons pair of very wide. full
trousers, of the same material as her habit,
gathered Turkish fashion, close around the
tops of her shoes.
Gathering out of still sleeping Honda
about 3 o'clock one balmy morning (for the
seasons are reversed down here, you know,
and midsummer comes in january, our
road wound for some distance under a COM
plete arch of papaws, mangoes and fgtrees,
whose interlacing branches obscured the
sky, and rendered yet darker the silent hour
between night and dawn,
But when the stars were lost in the sea of
crimson and gold that presages the rising of
the tropic sun, Dame Nature suddenly shook
of her comatose condition, the flowers lifted
their dewy heads, birds began to twitter,
smoke to curl from housetops, and the hum
OF human activity was heard. Presently the
road became alive with Indians trudging to
market under heavy loads, barefooted women
In short calico skirts and wide straw hats,
sitting astride of mules, each beast gener-
ally carrying two persons; and donkeys and
black and white bullocks so heavily laden
as to be literally
COVERED FROM STEM TO STERN
with piles of cinchcona bark, bags of gold or
silver ore from the mines, or loads of mer-
chandise Of various Sorts The principal
towns of Colombia, scattered along the
fertile valleys lying between the spurs of the
Andes, are distant from the Magdalena
from 60 to 100 miles; and to them ali goods
must be forwarded over the rugged noun
tain pathways. Merchandise is distributed
into bales of 125 pounds each, allowing two
bales or $50 pounds to a donkey load. The
system o transit applies only to articles of
comparatively light weight, making it ut
terly impossible to forward across country
to those places where they are most needed
such heavy objects as agricultural imple-
ments, mining machinery. fire engines,
wagons, or indeed anything else weighing
more than half a ton.
Yet we are told that in Bogota every we'll
to-do family has its piano, which had to be
brought piecemeal over the Sierras at the
cost of 81 900 per piano for its transportation
alone! They have street cars, too, in Colom-
bias capital, which were also toted in Sec
tions over the mountains, as were the rails
and ties, on the backs of mules and human
beasts of burden.
Soon the road grew rough and stony, like
the bed of rocky river, winding over hills
which in some places ascended almost per-
pendicularly and III others offer so narrow a
pathway that our little beasts, ambling one
behind another. can hardly find footing.
Heaven bless the donkey, said I. Whatever
his faults, he is sure-footed and faithful, and
has borne many a traveller in safety over
perilous paths where a horse would refuse
to 60.
GOING HIGHER AND HIGHER.
As we assembled, ever higher and higher,
the air grew cooler, and at 1000 feet above
Honda the temperature was delightful.
Winding around the steep sides of the
sierras, We caught glimpses of a most won
derful panorama in the Magdalena Valley.
which, far below, looked like a gigantic
chess-board, squared off by hedge-rows in
closing cultivated fields, the pale yellow.
lsh-green of sugar-cane patches interspersed
with the dark, glossy foliage of coffee
groves, and palm-thatched huts for poems,
all environed by distant heights whose tops
were lost in the clouds. The highest point
hereabouts is known as Alto Del Raizal,
marked by little white house set against a
gigantic heap of red-gray sandstone. The
view from this place was even more glori-
Gus. Descending thence to Las Tibayes
was the most difficult task we encountered,
over a road strewn with loose flowers, so
steep and slippery that we momentarily ex-
pected to be pitched over the heads of our
mules down among the precipices.
The rest of the way was a rapid down.
hill, a regular toboggan slide, 1000 feet
20 fhn r
Villeta. To this day ! am not able to de- |
eide which is most to be dreaded, going up |
the face Of hill, fly fashion, in momentary |
peril of slipping over the donkey's tail; or |
going downward, at an angle OF 30 degrees,
with every muscle braced to prevent sliding |
over his ears. Since no beast could possibly |
go astray on a trail SO narrow that we |
bumped the wall of rock on one side. and |
stones, loosened by his feet on the brink of |
the other, dropped without a sound into an |
abyss so deep that tall trees growing at the
bottom looked like mere twigs. 1 abandoned
al responsibility, closed my eyes to the
fearful view, and clung for dear life to the
oommel.
DARED NOT TOUCH A LEAF
Rains had swollen the Rio Negro so the
'nly bridge was carried away and we had
% ford it.
The ground rises steadily from the rivers
brink, ever higher and higher; at one place
'alled "El Salitre" leading up some steep
teps like flight OF stairs cut in the face of
he mountain, which our animals unwill-
ngly climbed. As if to recompense the
raveler for that trial, the way wound next
lnder some overhanging rocks covered with
erns, MOSES, pink begonias and orchids,
vertopped with long-armed oaks and droop-
ng palms. But, like every other earthly
'aradise, the trail OF the serpent was in it,
nd the guides forbade US, at the peril of our
ives, to touch leaf or flower.
AT last, thank heaven! Alto del Roble
'as reached, one of the highest accessible
oints in the Andean chain, some 1900
let above sea level, which, the guides
olemnly assured us, was ''the very end of
p hill" A cart road. from Bogota, comes
ut pearly to the Alto; and, though horribly
ad. with deep gullies washed out by foods
hat pour down the mountain sides, we were
Pjo'ced to exchange the wild paths OF "the
and of the sky" for an unpicturesque, bar
ey-bordered highway.
FINISHED IN A COACH.
Having learned that, by telegraphing to
'ogota, a coach would come out from that
Ity, and convey US thitherward. We were
lad to pay for the % miles or
ere not to go, and lie in bed nursing
ur bruises during the following "a hours.
was by no meany brilliant party that
as finally packed into the clumsy vehicle
ciept diligencia, and was bumped over
lie bolders, big and little (every Jolt being
artyrdom), that strew the road to Colonl-
ia's capital.
Just at sunset we passed the swampy flats
nat environ Santa Fe de Bogota, black I
ith wild duck this time of year; when by a