RELIGIOUS MUMMERY.

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opened a breach in it, which they are continually extending.

The insalubrity of Carthagena, which has been exaggerated, varies with the state of the great marshes that surround it. The Cienega de Tesca, which is upwards of eighteen miles in length, communicates with the ocean; and, when in dry years the salt-water does not cover the whole plain, the exhalations that rise from it during the heat of the day become extremely pernicious. The hilly ground in the neighbourhood of the town is of limestone, containing petrifactions, and is covered by a gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton, and mimosa. While the travellers were searching for plants, their guides showed them a thick bush of acacia cornigera, which had acquired celebrity from the following occurrence: A woman, wearied of the well-founded jealousy of her husband, bound him at night with the assistance of her paramour, and threw him into it. The thorns of this species of acacia are exceedingly sharp, and of great length, and the shrub is infested by ants. The more the unfortunate man struggled, the more severely was he lacerated by the prickles, and when his cries at length attracted some persons who were passing, he was found covered with blood, and cruelly tormented by the ants.

At Carthagena the travellers met with several persons whose society was not less agreeable than instructive; and in the house of an officer of artillery, Don Domingo Esquiaqui, found a very curious collection of paintings, models of machinery, and minerals. They had also an opportunity of witnessing the pageant of the Pascua. Nothing, says Humboldt, could rival the oddness of the dresses of the principal personages in these processions. Beggars, carrying a crown of thorns on their heads, asked alms, with crucifixes in their hands, and habited in black robes. Pilate was arrayed in a garb of striped

272

VILLAGE OF TURBACO.

silk, and the apostles, seated round a large table covered with sweetmeats, were carried on the shoulders of Zambos. At sunset, effigies of Jews in French vestments, and formed of straw and other combustibles, were burnt in the principal streets.

Dreading the insalubrity of the town, the travellers retired on the 6th April to the Indian village of Turbaco, situated in a beautiful district, at the entrance of a large forest, about 174 miles to the south-west of the Popa, one of the most remarkable summits in the neighbourhood of Carthagena. Here they remained until they made the necessary preparations for their voyage on the Rio Magdalena, and for the long journey which they intended to make to Bogota, Popayan, and Quito. The village is about 1151 feet above the level of the sea. Snakes were so numerous that they chased the rats even in the houses, and pursued the bats on the roofs. From the terrace surrounding their habitation, they had a view of the colossal mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, part of which was covered with perennial snow. The intervening space, consisting of hills and plains, was adorned with a luxuriant vegetation, resembling that of the Orinoco. There they found gigantic trees, not previously known, such as the Rhinocarpus excelsa, with spirallycurved fruit, the Ocotea turbacensis, and the Cavanillesia platanifolia; the large five-winged fruit_of which is suspended from the tips of the branches like paper lanterns. They botanized every day in the woods from five in the morning till night, though they were excessively annoyed by mosquitoes, zancudoes, xegens, and other tipulary insects. In the midst of these magnificent forests they frequently saw plantations of bananas and maize, to which the Indians are fond of retiring at the end of the rainy

season.

The persons who accompanied the travellers on these expeditions often spoke of a marshy ground

VOLCANCITOS OF TURBACO.

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situated in the midst of a thicket of palms, and which they designated by the name of Los Volcancitos. They said that, according to a tradition preserved in the village, the ground had formerly been ignited, but that a monk had extinguished it by frequent aspersions of holy water, and converted the fire-volcano into a water-volcano. Without attaching much credit to this tradition, the philosophers desired their guides to lead them to the spot. After traversing a space of about 5300 yards, covered with trunks of Cavanillesia, Piragra supurba, and Gyrocarpus, and in which there appeared here and there projections of a limestone rock containing petrified corals, they reached an open place of about 908 feet square, entirely destitute of vegetation, but margined with tufts of Bromelia karatas. The surface was composed of layers of clay of a dark-gray colour, cracked by desiccation into pentagonal and heptagonal prisms. The volcancitos consist of fifteen or twenty small truncated cones rising in the middle of this area, and having a height of from 19 to 25 feet. The most elevated were on the southern side, and their circumference at the base was from 78 to 85 yards. On climbing to the top of these mud-volcanoes, they found them to be terminated by an aperture, from 16 to 30 inches in diameter, filled with water, through which air-bubbles obtained a passage; about five explosions usually taking place in two minutes. The force with which the air rises would lead to the supposition of its being subjected to considerable pressure, and a rather loud noise was heard at intervals, preceding the disengagement of it fifteen or eighteen seconds. Each of the bubbles contained from 12 to 14 cubic inches of elastic fluid, and their power of expansion was often so great that the water was projected beyond the crater, or flowed over its brim. Some of the openings by which air escaped were situated in the plain without being surrounded by any promi