age, and where the air seems loaded to suffocation with floral perfumes.

Agualarge is just below the outer edge of the great savannah of Bogotá. Twenty-five years ago there was nothing there but a dirty little posada which was chiefly remarkable for its fleas and vermin. It is now a neat little village of well-built houses, the site of a new steam tannery and shoe manufactory.

The transition from the intense heat of Villete to the damp and penetrating winds of this elevated region has been a journey of less than four hours, and one feels the effects of the change very keenly. The ears and fingers fairly ache with cold, and a strange feeling of numbness creeps over every limb. Thick flannels and overcoats, such as are worn in Washington in December, are now very comfortable, although it is midsummer and we are under a tropical sun.

As we pass over the crest of the sierra to the edge of the great alta-plain, we are greeted by a climate of perpetual spring. Here the mercury seldom rises above 65° or falls below 60°; and whether the time is December or May, we see ripening wheat-fields and green pastures, all fringed with wild primroses, geraniums, and other perennial flowers. We can hardly realize that we are not somehow in the north temperate zone; or that the people we meet on the wayside are of the same race and nationality as those of Panama and the lower Magdalena valley. We note that agriculture is in a somewhat primitive state, but it is at least a half century in advance of anything we have hitherto seen in the Republic. The enclosures are of stone or adobe, and the spacious farmhouse, or quinta, has an air of palatial elegance compared with anything hitherto seen in the country. The people have a fair and ruddy complexion, at least as compared with those

of the lower valleys; and their dialect is a near approach to the pure Castilian. We observe a number of fine omnibuses and coaches; the ox-cart has supplanted the traditional pack mule; and we occasionally see the patent plough, the neatly painted harrow, the steel spade, the patent reaper, and other evidences of modern agricultural ndustry.

But none of these implements were made in Colombia. Even the coaches and omnibuses have been imported from abroad, and transported in sections over the mountains we have just crossed. One man will carry a wheel, another an axle, a third the couplingpole, a fourth will carry the bolts and screws, some half-dozen others will carry sections of the body, and so on, comprising the entire outfit, often including the harness itself. When all the pieces reach a common destination on the edge of the plain, they are carefully collected and put together by some native smithy, whose very anvil, hammers, tongs, and bellows have been carried over the mountains in the same way. One hardly knows which is the greater marvel, the failure to manufacture such things here, where the raw materials are so abundant and convenient, or the almost insurmountable obstacles overcome in their importation.

I have referred, incidentally, to the tropical flea. We first make his acquaintance at Guaduas, soon after bidding adieu to the mosquito and the sand-fly of the Magdalena. Our relations with him become more intimate at Chimbi and Agualarge; and by the time we reach the towns and cities of the great plain we have him for an inseparable companion. It has been well said that "he is no respecter of persons; neither is there any cadishness about him." Cleanliness affords no immunity from his familiarities. Strip and bathe, sweep and dust never so often, he still insists upon

keeping you company. Quaint old Tusser has somewhere said, that if,

"While wormwood hath seed,

You take a handful or twaine

To save against March

To make flea to refraine,

“ And chamber be sweeped,
And wormwood be strewn,
No flea for his life will

Dare abide to be seen."

But this was not written of the ubiquitous Colombian flea. With respect to him, Tusser's remedy is worthless. However, after we are here for a while we will notice the nuisance less. Whether this is because we have got used to it, or whether it is because the little pest considers us naturalized, and therefore entitled to the same immunities as the natives, I know not; but it is a notable fact that natives seldom complain of fleas.

At Manzanas, near the western edge of the plain, we dismiss mules and muleteer and make the balance of the journey to the capital in omnibus or coach, leaving trunks and luggage to be leisurely carted across the plain in clumsy two-wheeled vehicles drawn by oxen.1 The oxen are of gigantic size, and are hitched to the vehicle in a most singular manner. A heavy beam of wood is lashed to the horns of the beasts and rests across their foreheads. The tongue or pole of the cart is then fastened to this cross beam or yoke; so that the weight of the massive pole and a part of the cart-bed and its contents rest on the front part of the oxen's heads instead of upon the backs of their necks. In other words, the team pushes rather than draws the

1 This was the case till a very few years ago. There is now a railroad across the plain to the city.

burden. The contrivance seems a little barbarous, but it is the uniform custom of the country, and no amount of persuasion or remonstrance can induce the cartman to change it. He uses neither line nor whip, but trots along before his team and prods back at them with an ox-goad or rude spear, Asiatic fashion.

There is a peculiarity also about the coach or omnibus. The horses are wiry and vicious-looking little animals which seem never to have been groomed. Their natural gait is either a sort of amble or else a full gallop. They cannot be made to trot. The driver makes no effort to check or regulate their speed, because that would result in a full stop, and he knows the difficulty in getting them started again. When they take the sulks and refuse to move on, a boy rides before and pulls them along by a raw-hide lasso fastened to the pommel of his saddle. As soon as the balky team begin to feel the tension of the lasso they move forward at a full gallop; and as the boy goes bobbing up and down, pounding his rough wooden saddle with his posteriors, you naturally wonder what the little fellow is made of that he is not soon mauled into a jelly.