Page:In the wilds of South America; six years of exploration in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil (IA wildsofsouthamer00mill).pdf/23



voyage from Panama to Buenaventura, the more northern of Colombia’s two Pacific seaports, requires but two days’ time. Owing to numerous reefs and rocks that render navigation perilous along the coast of northwestern South America, it is necessary for ships to sail far out into the Pacific. Banks of low-hanging fog, encountered at frequent intervals, add further to the skipper’s difficulties.

The captain of the Quito followed a simple plan for finding port. It was his custom to steam in a southerly direction about forty-eight hours, and then head toward the coast. Once in sight of land, there was little difficulty in getting his bearings, although it frequently meant steaming back a distance of ten or fifteen miles.

At noon on the second day out we entered what might be called the belt of perpetual rain, and for three hours water fell in such torrents that it seemed a solid wall. When the deluge had ceased and the last wisps of blue-gray vapor melted into oblivion, the shore-line, dim and distant, could be discerned. The faint outline of a rugged coast became gradually sharper; jagged rocks, frowning precipices, and dark, gloomy forests slowly unfolded themselves to the vision. The magnitude of it all was most impressive.

Then followed a ten-mile sail through the placid water of Buenaventura Bay. Numberless brown pelicans fished in the shallows while others, in long files, alternately sailed and flapped through the air on their way to some isolated nook among the mangroves. The dark, hazy shore-line at the head of the bay gradually dissolved itself into lines