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All the Nats everywhere seem to have been distressed at our arrival, to hate our presence, and to earnestly desire our absence. They are the spirits of the country and of the people, and they cannot abide a foreign domination. But the greatest place for Nats is the Popa Mountain, which is an extinct volcano standing all alone about midway between the river and the Shan Mountains.
But unfortunately, in many instances, the want of a thorough knowledge of the Spanish language and the little care taken to acquire the names of places, rivers and tribes, have occasioned extraordinary mistakes. During the six days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter commands the town and a very extensive view.
Beyond the influence of the hot smoky glare, the glorious planet reassumed her sway in the midst of her attendant stars, and the relieved eye wandered forth into the lovely night, where the noiseless sheet lightning was glancing, and ever and anon lighting up for an instant some fantastic shape in the fleecy clouds, like prodigies forerunning the destruction of the stronghold over which they impended; while beneath, the lofty ridge of the convent crowned Popa, the citadel of San Felipe bristling with cannon, the white batteries and many towers of the fated city of Carthagena, and the Spanish blockading squadron at anchor before it, slept in the moonlight.
Popa mountain detaches itself from surroundings, thirty or forty miles to the east; it is faint violet and rises from a slightly undulating wooded plain. It is a great place for game and nats. Most powerful nats or spirits live there, and if you go shooting you get nothing, unless you offer some of your breakfast as a peace-offering to these spirits in the morning.
The effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole scene city, and batteries, and Popa being reflected in the calm smooth sea, as distinctly as if it had been glass; so clear, in fact, was the reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the reality.
He conquered the city of Bayeux and slew its ruler, Count Berenger, whose beautiful daughter, Popa, he married. Instead of organizing mere plundering expeditions, Rollo gradually changed his tactics and took permanent possession of the towns that fell into his hands.
How long exactly no one can say, but not so long that the details of the story have become at all clouded by the mists of time. They were brother and sister, these Popa Nats, and they had lived away up North. The brother was a blacksmith, and he was a very strong man.
Probably it was the denseness of its forests, the abundance of water, and its central position, more than its guardian Nats, that made it for so many years the last retreating-place of the half-robber, half-patriot bands that made life so uneasy for us. But the Nats of Popa Mountains are very famous.
I was assured that sometimes from the windows of the convent and even in the open sea, before the fort of Boca Chica, the snowy tops of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are discernible. The distance of the Horqueta to the Popa is seventy-eight nautical miles.
A gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton and mimosa covers the barren declivity of Cerro de la Popa. In herbalizing in those wild spots, our guides showed us a thick bush of Acacia cornigera, which had become celebrated by a deplorable event.
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