\ aTY^ . 
 
 Oi\ tKe 
 
 Magdalena River 
 
 The Woma.n*s Boacrd of Foreign Missions 
 
 of the 
 
 Presbyteriatn Church in the U. S. A. 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City 
 
On the Magdalena River 
 
 Seen on a trip from Barranquilla to Bogota, Colombia 
 Ellen A. Tompkins 
 
 O UR first stopping place after leaving Barranquilla on November 29th, 
 ■was at Calamar, a quaint little country town. All along the banks were 
 drawn up queer, old fashioned river-rafts. The roofs over these are 
 thatched with cattail rush, and the river man and his family live here. The 
 next morning we passed a great stretch of what looked like a giant corn- 
 patch. It proved to be a banana field. We saw them loading wood at a little 
 village ; it was cut in kitchen stove lengths, and the wood-boys from the boat 
 ran down the gangplank with gunny-sacks fastened on their heads, at one 
 end like a monk’s hood, and the other hanging down long behind. They 
 were loaded up with great piles of wood, which came up over their heads and 
 which were fastened with a strap at one end and the loose end of the sack 
 at the other. It was feat of balancing to keep it from falling down. 
 
 On December 11th the blue mountains of Antiochia came into view. Anti- 
 ochia is a prosperous state. The houses are all tiled, not thatched. The cows 
 are all white, because there is an insect here that attacks dark cattle. It 
 is a splendid grazing country, and many cattle and horses feed. Medellin is 
 situated in a cup between hills on every side ; we arrived there safe and sound, 
 and after the meeting we took a long trip to Amaga on the railroad, straight 
 up into the mountains. There are many coal mines, and the mining is done 
 by the women. When they pick out the coal they fill great gunny-sacks, 
 and fasten them about their heads with bands of sacking or coarse rope, and 
 tug with them up the hill to the railway station. 
 
 We left Medellin in time to get to Puerto Berrio for Christmas. There is 
 no railway over the high part of the mountains, and this trip is worth remem- 
 bering. The auto road winds until you can see yourself coming back. We 
 passed two women who were evidently lepers. They were shut up in a 
 pen just off the roadside, and fenced in with barbed wire. Here they begged 
 alms. They may have been professionals, but they looked like lepers. Some- 
 times they are given a choice between a leper home and being penned up 
 away from others. They were wretchedly loathsome creatures. 
 
 We set sail from Puerto Berrio on a ship called the “Barranquilla,” and 
 had a wonderful two days’ trip, through jungles more tropical than ever. We 
 left this boat at La Dorado, and took the railway to Beltran, where we changed 
 to an upper river boat, as the rapids had been passed by our trip by rail. 
 This trip up the upper river was wonderful. 
 
 The river is very narrow, and the mountains are very near. At a most 
 lonely spot in the river’s bend, just at dusk, we spied a white flag waving 
 against the dull gray sand, a child and a woman, and lo, the man! He was 
 
going away in all his glory, with loads of hides, and a set of oars, and a 
 host of bundles, and a tiplee (kind of guitar), headed for goodness knows 
 where, but out for a lark. One wondered about the woman and the child. 
 Do they ever leave the place? Probably not. The Colombian man is monarch 
 of all he surveys. He eats his meals in peace and alone, and the women and 
 children can only eat after he is finished. The child is probably as wild as 
 the wild birds, and as shy. There are countless such. 
 
 And now began our steady climb to Bogota. At a little distance from 
 La Esperanza, but much higher, is the town of Cach-a-py, in English “Catch- 
 a-pie.” There were no pies, but more pineapples than I ever saw before in 
 my life. It is a queer little town, with a church built after the manner of 
 the mission chapels in California. It is very old. The priest has a small 
 mansion next door, and was sitting out enjoying the excitement of the train 
 arrivals. The Andes are here in earnest, and gave an impression of climbing 
 straight up. And yet, on looking back we saw great vistas of plain and moun- 
 tain peak, and it seemed as if we were not on an incline at all. We wound 
 round and round the mountain, and one vista is like nothing so much as 
 pictures of the Colorado Canyon. It lies to your right, tier on tier of moun- 
 tain peaks rising one behind another, and so broad that you cannot trace 
 it all from end to end. On we sped, past vales and hills where cattle browsed, 
 and now and then a house with a homey little garden reminded one that to 
 some this is home. At Facatativan (where we changed cars) the stubbornness 
 and lack of cooperation on the part of mankind was revealed. The track from 
 here on is a different gauge and the broad gauge could not go on up the moun- 
 tain, so it necessitated change of freight and passengers, and a double set 
 of cars and engines. 
 
 Tired, cold and hungry, we arrived in Bogota at eight o’clock. At seven 
 A. M. coffee was served us in bed, a Bogota custom. It seems very invalid- 
 like, but in Bogota, custom is custom, and law is law, and custom is law, 
 and law is custom. Men kiss each other when they meet on the street, trains 
 and street cars wait for farewells to be said, you are deliberately hugged by 
 your enemies as well as your friends, for convention’s sake, and everything 
 one does is a glitter and show of sentiment, a sentiment that does not exist 
 at all. SHAM ! SHAM ! Imagine asking a storekeeper for permission to 
 leave his store, even though I knew he had skinned me and it was high 
 time I was getting out. Imagine a man refusing to tell a customer he had 
 not paid the whole of his bill, “Because it would not have been polite to 
 have told you, Senor !” Imagine standing on a street corner for ten minutes 
 to go through the formula of greeting that does not mean a whit more than 
 our daily “How-do-you-do.” And you always embrace the women to whom 
 you are introduced, and if you meet a man for the first time, he puts himself 
 entirely at your orders. 
 
 December 31. This is a great place. The home of the Presbyterian Girls’ 
 School in Bogota. Last night we imagined the stealthy tread of priestly in- 
 
truders ! An ancient convent frequented by the ghosts of departed sisters ! 
 What a place to sleep ! This convent is built right on the side of a church, 
 and there are secret passages between. One part, that opens right on to 
 the girls’ patio, has a sleeping room for student priests built on top of it, 
 and they put out the window lights to gaze into the patio. The lower part 
 is joined to the Presbyterian property, and belongs to the church, so they 
 had, according to Colombian law, a right to build on top of it. There is also 
 a roof garden on the opposite side, and from this all of the girl’s school can 
 be seen. It is a hard place to keep discipline. Another queer thing is 
 a pile of loose brick, which partially conceals a large hole between the building 
 proper, and a large alcove behind an archway in the church. For what was 
 this used? No doubt as a place for the sisters to sit during service, as they 
 could not enter. This was a nunnery from which there was no getting out 
 after you once got in. Another hole was discovered, which led from the 
 servant’s quarters into the church. There had been some sort of communi- 
 cation, but the servants, upon being questioned, feigned ignorance of the 
 very existence of the hole. Up in the left is a direct entrance way to the 
 priests’ quarters. It supposedly has iron bars at the nether end. One night 
 this year a terrible commotion was heard above. The next morning, plaster 
 was found to have fallen on the floor in all the rooms beneath this attic 
 passageway. The police were called, and found bars broken from the en- 
 trance, and while claiming it had not been opened, said that the stairway 
 from the attic to the third story should be closed on this end next to the 
 girls’ property, to be quite sure of safety. How much sleep do you think 
 one would get while running a girls’ school in this convent. There are no 
 outside windows except those opening on the patio, which is in the shape 
 of a parallelogram. Many are the curious little rooms, and spooky are the 
 low-ceilinged dormitories. What a place for an Edgar Allan Poe to wield 
 his pen ! . . . 
 
 On a trail in the mountains we found a mudwalled house. A little girl 
 bade us enter. In one corner was a rude shape of a bed made of rough sticks, 
 the covering was an unspeakably filthy blanket, and it was not spread, but 
 piled, upon the bed. The little girl was proud of the house. She said it was 
 new. We looked at the dingy dirt walls, and dingy dirt floors; at the little 
 pile of bricks on which a fire lay in one corner, at the black iron pot in which 
 a meal was boiling. We spied a dirty circle of pineapple on a saucer. Over 
 in the place of honor on the side wall, hung th^ Virgin Mary. What scenes 
 the Virgin Mary must look upon! She is everywhere! Deep down in the 
 bowels of the earth, on the highest hill, and in the homes and hovels of the 
 rich and poor. Then our thoughts come back to the little girl, not more than 
 ten years of age, who is so proudly showing us her home. She can neither 
 read nor write, and is guiltless of brush, comb, or soap. 
 
 There is nothing like such a trip for an eye-opener of the heart of fanat- 
 ical Colombia. 
 
 Price 3 cents 
 
 1922