by Santiago Pérez Triana · 1902
Memoir · Classics · History
A Colombian writer and diplomat tells of a river journey down the Orinoco, from the Andes toward the sea, with an introduction by R. B. Cunninghame Graham.
Content note: Written long ago, this book reflects the attitudes and language of its time, including views of other peoples that are outdated and offensive today.
The hour was about ten one evening in December, which in equatorial Andine latitudes is a month of clear skies, cold winds, and starry nights. The moon shone brilliantly, casting upon the ground shadows as clear as those caused by a strong electric light. Truly, the local poet who said that such nights as these might serve as days in other lands was right.
We came out—three of us, Alex, Fermin and I—through an old Spanish gateway, a rectangular structure of adobes, or sun-burnt bricks, capped with a slanting roof of tiles, dark-reddish and moss-covered, with a swinging gate of cross wooden beams, held together by iron bolts. This was the gateway of the 2 hacienda of Boita, about thirty miles north of the city of Bogotá, in the South American Republic of Colombia. We passed into the open road, and turned our horses and our minds northwards.
From south to north, as far as eyes could see, stretched the road, an old Spanish causeway, bordered on either side by low-lying stone fences, in front of which were ditches filled with water and covered with vegetation.
The ground was hard with the consistency of baked clay. As no rain had fallen for weeks, the dust was thick, and the horses’ hoofs rang like hammer-strokes upon muffled or broken brass.
