A CITY IN THE CLOUDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1897, 12 June 1890, Page 35

A CITY IN THE CLOUDS.

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA'S CAPITAL. This city occupies a little detached plateau of the Andes, 8750 ft above the level o£ the sea. Away up here, half a mile higher than the very top of Mount Washington, one can almost imagine one's self in the north temperate zone, so thin, pure, and cool is the atmosphere. Though only a few degrees from the equator, the temperature averages 50deg Fahr., and most of the northern products are found, flourishing amid a surprising profusion of tropical fruits and flowers. The inhabitants of Bogota seem a totally different people from any we have previously met in Colombia ; possessing a deal more energy and a disposition to keep up within hailing distance of the times, Here agriculture and the useful arts are at least a century ahead of their practice in the torrid valleys and along the burning coast. The wooden shovel and clumsy forked stick have given place to the iron spade and patent plough ; and the quintets (farms) inclosed within substantial walls of stone or adobe, have spacious houses that wear an air of palatial elegance compared with the mud and bamboo huts along the great rivers. Mr Scruggs, late consul from the United States to Colombia, says that, though pure and exhilarating, this climate is not conducive to longevity or to mental activity. He adds : " A man, for instance, who has been accustomed to eight hours daily labour in New York. or Washington will here find it impossible to apply himself closely more than five hours each day. If he exceed that limit ominous symptoms of nervous prostration will be almost sure to follow." I have myself observed the same thing in other high altitudes of the far South, that people of ordinarily calm temperament when in the North, speedily find themselves mere bundles of nerves, strung to such tension as to induce excessive irritability, insomnia, and mental exhaustion, even without any especial strain, mental or physical. A GLIMPSE AT OLD BOGOTA. This old Bogota somehow presents an appearance of unusual picturesqueness though in a land where all things are as quaint as was Egypt in the days of Moses. Its narrow streets, winding up-hill and down, are paved with the sharpest of small stones, that make pedestrians feel like penitential pilgrims on the way to Mecca with peas in their shoes ; and in the middle of each street is cut a deep ditch or channel, through which the melted snows of the near-by mountains dance in noisy rivulets. The city has a population of something over 100,000, and in many respects is quite modern, in others fully 200 years behind the times. Its white-walled casas are mostly of one storey, with projecting roofs of red tiles, and green painted windows, latticed like those of prisons, between whose bars one sees peering eyes, the beautiful, dark eyes of Colombian women, full of wondering curiosity at sight of " los estrangeres Americanas." Though built of adobe and unprepossessing in outside appearance, there are many elegant homes in Colombia's capital, spacious and wellfurnished. The prevailing style of architecture is, of course, that which the Moors bequeathed to the early Spaniards, every house like a forfc, its bare, blank walls, built flush with the pavement, carefully concealing from the passer by every trace of home life, while within are bloom and beauty, sunshine and cheerfulness. Those casas that exult in the luxury of a secondstorey — and thereare more of them in Bogota than one often finds in a Spanish- American city— have no windows on the ground floor, the rooms fronting the streets being used for shops, warehouses, and stables, for the proprietors and their families always prefer to lire above. UP-HILL CIVILISATION. There are telegraphs and telephones, electric lights, street cars and newspapers away up here ; and yet every bit of freight has to be laboriously lugged over the Sierras on the backs ot men or mules. On this poiut let us again quote Mr Scruggs. He says : " None of the commodious coaches and omnibuses and not one of these agricultural implements were manufactured here, nor anywhere else in Colombia. They have all been imported from the United States and England — brought to Konda by the river steamers, then repacked into small sections and carried, piece by piece, over the mountains. One peon will carry a wheel, another an axle, a third a coupling-pole or single-tree, while the screws and bolts, packed in small boxes, are toted by the cargo mules. The upper body of the vehicle is likewise taken to pieces and packed in sections. One man will sometimes be a month in carrying a waggon wheel frcm Hondo to Bogota, his method being to tug it from 50 to 100 paces and thon bit down for a long rest, barely making two mileb a day . When all the dismembered vehicle finally reashes its

destination the pieces are collected and put together by some smithy, who may have learned his art from an American or English mechanic. One scarcely knows which ought to be the greatest marvel, thejfailure to manufacture all these things in a country where wood and iron and coal are so abundant, or the obstacles that are overcome in their successful transportation from foreign countries."

Notwithstanding the enormous cost of constructing street-car lines in this isolated place — each rail being the load of half a dozen men during several days of difficult climbing — they have proved a very profitable investment to the company of New York capitalists who own them. There are few carriages in Bogota, not only because the stony streets would soon wreck the strongest vehicle, but on account of the great expense of bringing them here. Therefore, everybody patronises the horse-cars, and the tariff charged for a ride, whether it be for five miles or a block, is a Colombia real, a coin which equals in value about 10 cents American money. — Correspondent Philadelphia Record.