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The stream by which we had entered the Cauca had carried us much further down the course of that river than we had intended to go; we had, therefore, now to make our way up it before we struck westward to Oro, the town at which I had arranged to meet Mr Laffan.
It is wonderful how long these Indians will go without food by chewing coca leaf, which is far more sustaining and refreshing than tobacco. "Those men would make sturdy soldiers, and fight bravely," observed Uncle Richard, as we rode away. Our destination was a small valley, through which the Rio Vinaigre makes its way towards the Cauca.
If the care of the whole Empire had been too much for Diocletian or Valentinian, Gratian's were not the Atlantean shoulders which could bear its undivided weight. In the far West, at Cauca near Segovia, there lived a son of Theodosius, the recoverer of Britain and Africa, whose execution had so foully stained the opening of Gratian's reign.
The horse stood panting for breath, its nostrils covered with foam, showing at what a rate he must have ridden. "Why does he want to see me?" I asked anxiously. "Is he ill, or my mother or Flora?" "No, no! dey all berry well; but el senor doctor got news from Cauca, and berry bad news too.
At this place we find the valley of the river Cauca, and the valley of the Magdalena parallel to each other, and also to this high plain of the Bogota.
From Quito he went to Guayaquil, from there by steamer to Buenaventura, and thence by rail, twelve miles, to Cordova. From this point he set out on foot to explore the Cauca Valley and the Cordilleras. Mr. McGowan found in these regions a great variety of bamboo, small and large, some species growing seventy-five to one hundred feet in height, and from six to nine inches in diameter.
It is remarkable that in this group, more than 30 leagues broad, without sharp summits, between latitude 5 1/4 and 7 degrees, the highest masses rise towards the west; while, further south, before the union of the two chains of Quindiu and Choco, we saw them on the east of Cauca.
I soon convinced him that we should thus only increase the risk of being arrested, and advised him at once to make his way to Honda, as we had told Murillo we intended doing. If not molested, he might thence, instead of embarking on the Magdalena, travel over the mountains westward to one of the towns on the Cauca.
In a few days we were rapidly descending, and at last found ourselves almost on a level with the valley of the Cauca, enjoying a tropical temperature, and on the borders of a dense forest. By keeping more to our left we should have continued along the road to Antioquia, but we were uncertain which party then possessed that town.
The difference of the level is very remarkable in the bottom of the two parallel basins of Cauca and Magdalena. The former, between Cali and Cantago, is from 500 to 404 toises; the latter, from Neiva to Ambalema, is from 265 to 150 toises high.
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