We soon began to see the foot-hills of the eastern cordillera of
Colombia. For nearly six weeks we have been on the plains out of
sight of the mountains. It gave one a thrill of pleasure to see a hill,
even five hundred feet high, in the distance, and it seemed as though
it must be a mirage.
About three o'clock we crossed the river San Ignacio, which has
a good sandy bottom, but such very steep banks that we had some
difficulty in getting the loaded animals down and up again. The
water was not over four feet deep and the current not strong. Then
we entered the most magnificent savanna that we have seen. It was
about five miles across, almost perfectly flat, covered with bunch
grass and little mounds of earth. From here we got our first ghmpse
of the peaks of the Andes over the tops of the foot-hills. As was to
be expected, the country here looks very much like that near Barinas,
and it bears the same relation to the mountains and the plains.
There are more scattered clumps of palms and more evidences of
frequent rains. There is certainly much vegetation that cannot be
accounted for by the overflowing of the rivers.
