"two golden figures as large as life." A Spanish soldier who first wandered to the place, cut off one of the fingers, when he was attacked by the natives, wounded, and with difficulty made his escape. Having related what he had seen, a strong party proceeded to the spot, but no figures were to be found, nor could they discover the entrance to the cave! From this spot there is a magnificent view," verdant plains stretching at your feet, various collateral ridges of mountains in parallel lines appearing to the westward, and the rear closed by the Andes themselves." At the village of Yousa, distant a day's journey, are two salt springs: the waters from the evaporation of which the mineral is obtained, come from the direction of the famous rock-salt mines of Zipaquira. Both these springs and the salt mines were about to be worked by Col Johnston and Mr Thompson, under whose management they were expected to be rendered extremely profitable. Fine emeralds have been found in this neighbourhood.* At the village of Muniquira, near the small town of Liva, are copper mines, which, Captain Cochrane thinks, might be rendered very valuable. The ore is rich, yielding from sixty to seventy per cent. It is about three days' journey from Bogota. Not far from Liva is the celebrated church and monastery of Chiquinquira, round which a small town has sprung up, with a population of 1,000 souls. The church is a handsome building, but inferior to the cathedral of Bogota. The miraculous

*The emerald mines of Muso have been granted by Government on lease to Senor Rivero. "Small emeralds," Captain Cochrane says, "are so plentiful, that it is a common thing to purchase poultry, merely to kill them in search of emeralds, which they are fond of: several are often found in the entrails of a large fowl, and sometimes in a very pure and perfect state, though most generally flawed and very small, consequently of no intrinsic value."

VOL. I.

27*

picture of the Virgin, which is the object of devotion. to pilgrims, is a very bad painting, stuck over with a profusion of very small emeralds and some still smaller diamonds. It is concealed by a rich veil, which is drawn up with much ceremony to gratify the eyes of pilgrims. By this craft, the friars are said to gain immense wealth in presents of jewels, which, as trustees for the Virgin, they convert into cash as soon as they can, taking care to save appearances, by sending them for sale to some distant province. The hall of the monastery is hung around with some fifty or sixty small paintings, representing miracles performed by Our Lady of Chiquinquira. On leaving this place, Captain Cochrane had proceeded about a league, when he met several persons dismounted and on their knees, their faces turned towards the towers of this famous sanctuary. He was told that it was customary for pilgrims to dismount at every mile, after coming in sight of it! A fine plain, about twenty leagues long by five broad, commences at this distance from Chiquinquira, the greater part of which is occupied by a shallow lake, called the Lake of Foucany, which it is proposed to drain and cultivate.

NATURAL BRIDGES OF ICONONZO.

66

At two days' journey from Bogota, in the road to Popayan, are the famous natural bridges of Icononzo, described by Humboldt in his Picturesque Atlas. This spot was visited by M. Mollien. The road, which lies in a S. E. direction, is one of the most difficult and least frequented in the whole country. The traveller," says M. Humboldt, must feel a passionate enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, who prefers the dangerous descent of the desert of San Fortunato, and the mountains of Fusagasuga, leading towards the natural bridges of Icononzo, to the usual road by the Mesa de Juan Diaz, to the banks of the Magdalena."

Climbing, after much fatigue and difficulty, the Alto de Honda, M. Mollien arrived, at the end of two days, at the village of Mercadillo (or Pandi), founded a few years ago for the purpose of attracting thither the scattered Indian population of these burning valleys. In an hour from this place, he reached the bridge; but we must take our description of it from Humboldt.

"The valley of Icononzo,* or Pandi, is less remarkable for its dimensions than for the singular form of its rocks, which seem to have been carved by the hand of man. Their naked and barren summits present the most picturesque contrast with the tufts of trees and shrubs, which cover the brinks of the crevice. The small torrent, which has made itself a passage through the valley of Icononzo, is called Rio de la Suma Paz: it falls from the eastern chain of the Andes, which divides the basin of the Magdalena from the vast plains of the Meta, the Guaviare, and the Orinoco. The torrent, confined in a bed almost inaccessible, could not have been crossed without extreme difficulty, had not nature provided two bridges of rocks. The deep crevice through which it rushes, is in the centre of the valley of Pandi. Near the bridge, the waters keep their direction from E. to W., for a length of between 4 and 5,000 yards. The river forms two beautiful cascades at the point where it enters the crevice on the west of Doa, and where it escapes in its descent towards Melgar. This crevice was probably formed by an earthquake, and resembles an enormous vein from which the mineral substance has been extracted. The neighbouring mountains are of grit-stone (sand-stein), with a clay cement. In the valley of Icononzo, this grit-stone is

* "Icononzo is the name of an ancient village of the Muysca Indians, at the southern extremity of the valley, of which only a few scattered huts now remain."

composed of two distinct rocks; one, extremely compact and quartzose, with a small portion of cement, and scarcely any fissures of stratification, lies on a schistous grit-stone with a fine grain, and divided into an infinite number of small strata, extremely thin, and almost horizontal. It is probable, that the compact stratum resisted the shock which rent these mountains, and that it is the continuity of this stratum which forms the bridge. This natural arch is forty-six feet in length and nearly forty in breadth : its thickness in the centre is about seven feet. Experiments carefully made, gave us 312 feet for the height of the upper bridge above the level of the torrent. The Indians of Pandi have formed, for the safety of travellers, (who, however, seldom visit this desert country,) a small balustrade of reeds, which extends along the road leading to this upper bridge.

Sixty feet below this natural bridge is another, to which we are led by a narrow pathway, which descends upon the brink of the crevice. Three enormous masses of rock have fallen so as to support each other. That in the middle forms the key of the arch; an accident which might have given the natives an idea of arches in masonry,—as unknown to the people of the New World as it was to the ancient Egyptians. I shall not attempt to decide the question, whether these masses of rock have been projected from a great distance, or whether they are the fragments of an arch broken on the spot, but originally like the upper natural bridge. The latter conjecture seems probable, from a similar event which happened to the Coliseum at Rome, where, in a half-ruined wall, several stones were stopped in their descent, because, in falling, they accidentally formed an arch. In the middle of the second bridge of Icononzo is a hollow of more than eight yards square, through which is perceived the bottom of the abyss. The torrent seems to flow through a dark cavern, whence arises a lugubrious

noise, caused by the numberless flights of nocturnal birds that haunt the crevice, and which we were led at first to mistake for those bats of gigantic size so well known in the equinoctial regions. Thousands of them are seen flying over the surface of the water. The Indians assured us, that these birds are of the size of a fowl, with a curved beak and an owl's eye. They are called cacas; and the uniform colour of their plumage, which is a brownish gray, leads me to think, that they belong to the genus of the caprimulgus, the species of which are so various in the cordilleras. It is impossible to catch them, on account of the depth of the valley; and they can be examined only by throwing down rockets, to illumine the sides of the

crevice.

"The height of the natural bridge of Icononzo above the ocean, is 2,850 feet. A phenomenon similar to the upper bridge, exists in the mountains of Virginia in the county of Rockbridge. The natural bridge of Cedar Creek, in Virginia, is a calcareous arch of fifty-six feet at its opening its height above the waters of the river is 224 feet. The earthen bridge of Rumichaca, on the declivity of the porphyritic mountains of Chumban, in the province of Los Pastos; the bridge of Madre de Dios, or Danto, near Totonilco, in Mexico; the pierced rock near Grandola, in the province of Aleutejo, in Portugal; are geological phenomena, which bear some resemblance to the bridge of Icononzo. But I doubt whether, in any part of the globe, a phenomenon has been discovered so extraordinary as that of the three masses of rocks, which support each other by fronting a natural arch."*

In travelling from Bogota to the valley of the Cauca, there are two routes; one either by the Mesa and Tocayma, or by Icononzo, traversing the valley of

* Humboldt, Researches, vol. i. pp. 53--60.