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

Woe unto the iuCkless Traveller who
is compelled 10 stay over night in
Sabanilla's so-called hotel, If his YES
sci arrive too late in the day for
train Barranquilla. he will do we'll %
remain on board until the morrow; or
if her commander canot be induced to
risk a "nOuherner' for the accomm0-
dation Of his passengers, the latter
would far better " alk the sixteen miles
that intervene between the coast and
civilization. In this desperate COM
munity of caTgadores, who never draw
strictly sober breath from year TO
year. fighting is the chief amusement,
varied by murder and robbery. Even
were the Sa banillans angels in dis
guise the place would be iutolerable on
account of excessive heat and swarm
ing fieas. Were it not for the ocean
breeZes that constantly sweep across
the desolate sand-spit-blOwing up the
sand in binding clouds. each grain of
sand laden with its small but eX-
tremely active flea-no human being
could abide thereon. At every step in
the unpaved streets you sink ankle
deep in the burning sand. In about one
minute your hose and garments are
literally bIackened, inside and out, by
the tiny insects, whose bite is like the
puncture of a red hot needle, and in
five minutes you are tattooed from top
to toe like a South Sea Islander.
Barranquilla is by all odds the most
modern town of Colombia-unless it
may be Aspinwall-having many hand
some houses and a considerable for
eign colony. Some of the principal
merchants of the Republic live here,
most of them Germans, who maintain
considerable style and entertain with
hospitality. Strange to say, living is
extremely expensive here, probably be-
cause nothing in the line of edibles is
grown or raised in the vicinity. Com
handing, as it does, the only outlet
from the interior, Barranquilla poses
as the New York of the Caribbean
coast, of greatest consequence from a
military as well as commercial stand
point. 1t is the Capital of the De
partment" formerly state) of Sabanil-
la and the seat of a considerable gar
rison. Unlike most South American
ports, Barranquilla has an excellent
wharf, owing to the several foreign
steamsip companies which run vessels
on the Magdalena-that is when revo-
lutions allow. Now and then all the
river boats are tied up by the govern
ment, or seized by insurgents and con-
verified into men-of- war; be covering
their sides with corrugated iron,
mounting any old guns that can be laid
hands on, and filling the cabin with
sharp-shooters.
From Barranquilla to ColOmbia's is
a journey of only about three hundred
and fifty miles-but it frequently takes
month to accomplish it. You go 2S0
miles by river boat to Honda, near the
head of navigation, the trip occupying
from ten to thirty days, according to
the time of year. 1t is about eighty
miles between Honda and Bogata, as
the crow flies, but ten times that dis
lance up and down the steep trails that
lead over and around sky-piercing sier-
ras. During the long slow days of Voy-
aging up the Magdalena. passengers
must possess their souls in patience as
best they can, with nothing to do but
fight mosquitoes and keep as cool as
circumstances will allow. Male pas
sengers vary the monotony a little by
shooting at the alligators that in some
places Utterly line the banks. A school
of them is always following the boat,
probaly in hope of a human meal. The
= gator" is by no means frisky
creature, as those who are acquainted
with his habits may know, but he is
not to be trusted, even in his hours of
apparent oblivion. With his nose to
the river, his small eyes closed and
great jaws half open, he seems to be
sound asleep, and looks the most harm
less of creatures. but let naked pic
ininny come within range, or VEN
turesome swimmers leg, and in the
twinking of an eye snap go the jaws,
like a mammoth rat-trap, and a red
stain upon the water tells the rest Of
the story,
For the first two hundred miles above
Barranquilla one sees little, at this
time of year, but continuous sWamps
on either side. The river itself, direct
ly at it's mouth, is fully mile and
half wide and it's lower valley is one
vast alluvial plain, which, like the Nile
region, is subject to periodical over
flow. For three hundred miles the
most magnificent grazing lands stretch
away to the north and the south, COW
cred with cattle most of the year-un-
til Just before the floods that follow
the rainy season, when they are driven
up into the mountains. Wherever the
land has been cultivated it shows sur
prising fertility, and the overflow
might easily be controlled and turned
into a blessing, by system of dykes
similar to those In use on the lower
Mississippi. Years ago there were
profitable plantat lions, worked by ne
groes, all up and down the middle val
ley of the Magdalena; but after the
slaves were emancipated, (which took
place. in Colombia in 1885, / believe),
the estates rapidly went to ruin and
were finally abandoned by their own
ers. 1t seems that Spaniards and In
dams cannot endure hard labor in this
climate, and neither love nor lucre can
induce the eX-slaVes to do a stroke of
it and to-day the once rich plantations
show no traces of having even been
cultivated, being completely over-run
with riotous vegetation of the tropics,
while the negroes themselves have re-
lapsed into a state of semi barbarism.
Since nature has provided generously
for all the black mans simple needs
and he has no ambition to crafty. why
example of the lilies which toll not