When all are clean and
dry, he fixes them with copper wire on sticks, which are nailed across
boxes for transport. Long experience has laid down rules for each
detail of this process. The sticks, for example, are one inch in
diameter, fitting into boxes two feet three inches wide, two feet deep,
neither more nor less. Then the long file of mules sets out for Bogota,
perhaps ten days' march, each animal carrying two boxes--a burden
ridiculously light, but on such tracks it is dimension which has to be
considered. On arrival at Bogota, the cases are unpacked and examined
for the last time, restowed, and consigned to the muleteers again. In
six days they reach Honda, on the Magdalena River, where, until lately,
they were embarked on rafts for a voyage of fourteen days to Savanilla.
At the present time, an American company has established a service of
flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus
reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still
terrible. Not a breath of wind stirs the air at that season, for the
collector cannot choose his time. The boxes are piled on deck; even the
pitiless sunshine is not so deadly as the stewing heat below. He has a
store of blankets to cover them, on which he lays a thatch of
palm-leaves, and all day long he souses the pile with water; but too
well the poor fellow knows that mischief is busy down below.
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