The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1902-12-06

Especial Correspondence Of the Journal
and Courier.)
BarranquilIa, Colombia, NOV, 9.
Though this northern most Republic
of South America is only about two
thousand miles from New York, it's in
terror is less known to us than that of
Africa; and its three-century cid CAPT
tai is almost as diffiC ult OF access. In
deed, but for the much-talked-of canal
project, and perpetually recurring rev
Olutions that threatens to interfere
with our traffic across the Isthmus, We
of the older sister republic would hard
ly hear of Colombia at all, or care par
ticularly if it were stricken off the map
of the world. Until recently there has
been no regular communication be-
tween the ports of the United States
and those of Colombia, its nearest
neighbor; and to this day there is no
direct way OF reaching them. A few
years ago an English company estab-
lished line of steamers between New
! York and the mouth of the Magdalena
river-the great fiuvial highway to CO.
lombias interior-by which two trips
per month are made; but the vessels
so first to several West Indian ports,
consuming fifteen days in the voyage
to Colombia. Three times month the
Pacific Mail steamers leave New York
for Colon, or Aspinwall; and at the
last named place one may always find
steamer, under almost any flag but
the Stars and Stripes, which will stop
at various Caribbean ports, including
two or three of COlombia:s, on their
way to Europe. But when you have
reached a port on the border of this
great, wild country, the journey to its
Capital has hardly begun. Though
with such superb stretch of seacOast,
Colombia possesses not a single harbor
worthy the name-thOse of Colon and
Panama being the best. Besides the
latter insecure and rocky port there is
but one other on the Pacific side-that
of Buenaventura, which has recently
been brought into some degree of
prominece. On the Atlantic coaster
more correctly speaking, on that of the
Caribbean Seattle only available ship
ping place for Colombian commerce is
Sabanilla; both Colon and Panama be-
ing merely ports of transient trade,
with so little of local industry that
primeval forests crowd close upon
them. Sabanilla itself is the most
desolate and dirty of fishing villages,
of no consequence whatever except for
it's bay, which, though totally inacces-
sble to large vessels, has been made
to answer the purpose of seaport by
company of enterprising Germans
hirfHy o.
men from Bremen put a few steam
tugs and lighters on Sabanilla Bay
for the benefit of larger vessels that
could not get into it, and laid line of
railroad from the coast to the old
Spanish town of Barranquilla, sixteen
miles inland. The consequence was
that the insignificant village of hardly
twenty houses, suddenly blossomed out
into the most important city of Colom-
bia, commercially speaking, with a
population of twenty-five or thirty
thousand land still growing), far
eclipsing the older historic cites of
Carthagena and Santa Marta lying on
either side of it. The customs house is
now located at BarranquilIa (pro-
nounced as if spelled Bar-ran-keel-
chandise and passengers bound up
river" as the passage of the Magdalena
is invariably referred to, or coming
down from Colombia's interior to the
outer world. Also every small steamer
and sailing vessel, which conveys the
multitudinous products of the vast,
roadless country to the coast, must
start from and return to this place,
and wait for official permission before
its cargo can be discharged.
To return to Sabanilla: The village
is not situated on the main land, but
on a long narrow sand-spit that has
formed itself at the mouth of the river.
It's bay is neither safe nor convenient
for any sort of vessels, being full of
shifting sand-bars and exposed to the
fury of tropical storms. Not a green
thing grows within sight of Sabanilla;
and nobody lives there but a miserable
colony of boatsmen and steVedores, and
a few even degraded saloonkeepers,
who absorb all the money their neigh
bors earn at their laborious calling, in
excange for the vilest native intoxi-
cants. These boatmen whose Spanish
name is Cargadores, are a people by
themselves, unlike any others on the
face of the earth. All up and down the
coasts of South America, on both sides
the continent. they are necessary evils
at every so-called port. because there
are very places where vessels can come
nearer than two or three miles from
shore. These of Colombia are mostly
Canary Islanders, with sprinkling of
Cinnamon and the lowest class of Ital-
ians. Their paint hatched huts are fiji
thy beyond comparison, but not more
so than their occupants; men and wo-
men more than half uncIothed, and
their numerous offspring entirely so.
There is not a drop of fresh water in
the place, the little that is used being
brought in canoes from a point eight
miles up the river. Though retailed by
the gourd-full, the water business is
never brisk in Sabanilla, for the cook
ing is meager and cane-rum the uni
versal beverage. Even less water is
used for lavatory purposes, fresh or
salt. The people seem to entertain q
hydrophobie terror of water in any
form. The pig-tailed Celestial who
runs the only laundry in the place,
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