From the wool of their own sheep, many of the natives spin and weave the blankets that serve as coats by day and as bedding by night. The houses, which are built of stones and mud, have grass roofs and earthen floors. Often there is not a single nail used in mak ing the house. The people produce their food, which is chiefly corn, beans, vegetables, and meat. Their plow is still a crude wooden pole, drawn by oxen to whose horns the pole is tied with rawhide thongs.
The mountains make this region so hard to reach that in all its great length there are but few mutes to the outside world.
842. Venezuelan routes to the plateau.— The Venezuelan part of the plateau, which was described in the last section, has the best chance for trade because the plateau is lowest there, and because this section reaches the coast.
The produce of western Venezuela in the region of Merida goes down by mule and rail to the shore of Lake Maracaibo. The lake is really an arm of the sea, whence coasting steamers take freight around to La Guaira, and to Curacao, a little island owned by the Dutch and visited by many steamers.
843. Colombian routes into the northern Andes.—As in Venezuela, most of the people in Colombia live on the highlands. It is much harder to reach these highlands than those of Venezuela. If a, traveler wants to go to Bogota, the capital of Colombia, he must go by steamer to Cartagena or Puerto Colombia; then go by railroad across to the Magdalena River; then by river steamer to La Dorada, 617 miles from Puerto Colombia; then seventy-two miles by railroad around a series of rapids; then fifty-eight miles more by another steamboat to Girardot. The journey thus far takes about a week. From Girardot a railroad, with rails only three feet apart, climbs up to Factativa, which is on the edge of the plateau, 9990 feet in altitude. It takes eight hours to travel over the twenty-five miles between these cities. At Factativa one must change to another rail road whose rails are only thirty-nine inches apart. Soon the train reaches Bogota, 8600 feet above the sea, and with snow peaks in sight. After traveling for days in the wilder ness, a fine city like Bogota surprises one greatly. It is as large as Des Moines, Iowa, with a cool, bracing climate. It has Paris styles, electric lights, trolleys, and beautiful parks, and claims to be the literary center of South America. The national library here has over one hundred thousand volumes.
On the plateau west of the Magdalena valley is Medellin. This old city is nearly a mile above the sea, but for three hundred years people and freight have taken a two days' trip by mule up and down the moun tains to the boat landings on the Magdalena.
844. Freight and costly it is to send freight by such routes! Clearly the things sent out must be of great value. Gold, in which the Medellin district is rich, is its chief export. The thousands of gold diggers can get no machinery except that which they themselves make, or bring in in pieces on the backs of mules.
845. Up to Quito.—Quito used to be as hard to reach as Bogota, but the trip by the new railroad from Guayaquil now takes only two days.
Quito boasts a climate of eternal spring. The city is only fourteen miles from the equator; but as it is nearly ten thousand feet above the sea, the thermometer goes down to 50° every night. By day the sun shines bright and warm. One month is no warmer or cooler than another; so the farmer plants his crop whenever he wishes.
846. The Cerro de Pasco fourth important railroad into the northern Andes starts from Callao and goes through Lima, the capital of Peru, a city perched upon the dry foothills. Up, up, up, higher than the top of any mountain in the United States, goes the railroad. It then goes along the plateau to the famous mining town of Cerro de Pasco, 14,280 feet above the sea. It was at this place that, in 1630, an Indian shepherd happened to amy a lump of silver in the ashes of his campfire. He began to dig the precious metal. Other Indians came and a city grew. Engineers now know that there are two thousand veins of ore contain ing copper, gold, and silver. Men have dug here for nearly three centuries, but there is still an immense amount of ore in the ground. An American company has great smelters and employs thousands of Indian workmen. (Fig. 599.) The best machinery is used, because the railroad can bring it in.
847. The Indian's pack Cerro de Pasco, as at Quito, Bogota, Caracas, dnd many smaller places, one sees the plateau Indian with his llamas or his pack mules. The animals are burdened with wool, sheep skins, cowhides, valuable ores, and even with rubber, secured in trade from some lowland tribe to the eastward. This Indian may have come two hundred miles, sleeping at night by the campfire. The Indians hobble their beasts, by tying their feet with a soft rope of llama wool so they can only walk a little. The animals then pick their living by brows ing wayside herbage. After an absence of weeks or even of months, the Indian gets back to his distant village with a year's supply of white men's factory-made goods.