Descending from the mountainous part of the country, we reach, to the east, that portion of Colombia situated upon the affluents of the Orinoco, a region which we may more readily consider in our description of that great river, lying mainly in the adjoining Republic of Venezuela. Here stretch the _llanos_, or plains, and the forests which are the home of the wilder tribes, for Colombia has various grades of civilization among her folk, of which the last are these aboriginals, and the middle the patient Christianized Indians, who constitute the bulk of the working classes. These last have the characteristics, with small differences, of the Indian of the Cordillera in general, of whom I have elsewhere ventured upon some study. In Colombia, although in some respects the Republic is pervaded by a truly democratic spirit as between class and class, power and privilege, land and education are in the hands of a small upper class. This condition does not make for social progress, and in the future may seriously jeopardize the position of that class. Wisdom here, as elsewhere in Spanish America, would advise a broader outlook. Political misrule in the past has been rampant, although revolutions of late years have been infrequent. There are innumerable matters in Colombia which the observant traveller will find of the utmost interest, but upon which we cannot dwell here. Our way lies back to the Spanish Main, whence we take steamer along the coast to the seaports of Venezuela. Colombia is in a unique geographical position upon the South American Continent, in that it is the only State with an Atlantic and Pacific coast; added to which is the hydrographic condition which gives the country an outlet also to the fluvial system of the Amazon, by means of the great affluents the Yapura and the Negro, as also the Putumayo--if that stream is to be regarded in Colombian territory, for the region is on the debatable ground claimed by three countries, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Indeed, this portion of South America, one of the wildest parts of the earth's surface, is of great hydrographic interest, and looking at the map, we see how these navigable streams bend north, east and south, with the peculiar link of the Casiquiare "Canal" or river, uniting the fluvial systems of the Orinoco and the Amazon. (It is--but on a vaster scale--as if a natural waterway existed between the Thames and the Severn, or the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence.) This "Canal" lies but 150 miles from the Equator, a few miles from the border of Colombia, in Venezuela. Beyond, to the north-east, is Guiana, the land of Raleigh's El Dorado. Doubtless this region, in the future--far-off it may be--will become of much importance, and what is now savage woodland and danger-haunted waterways may some day be teeming with life and activity.