“One peon will carry a wheel, another an axle, a third a coupling-pole or single-tree, and the screws and bolts are packed in small boxes on cargo mules. The upper part or body of the vehicle is likewise taken to pieces and packed in sections. One man will sometimes be a month in carrying a wagon-wheel from Honda to the plain. His method is to carry it some fifty or a hundred paces and then rest, making sometimes less than two miles a day. [Illustration: SABANA OF BOGOTA.] “When the vehicle finally reaches the plain, the pieces are collected and put together by some smithy who may have learned the art from an American or English mechanic. One scarcely knows which ought to be the greatest marvel, the failure to manufacture all these things in a country where woods and coal and iron ore are so abundant, or the obstacles that are overcome in their successful importation from foreign countries. “At the time of the Spanish conquest, in 1537, the inhabitants of this region were the Chibchas, who, according to Quesada, numbered about three-quarters of a million. Their form of government was essentially patriarchal, and their habits were those of an agricultural people given to the arts of peaceful industry. Their religion contained much to remind us of the ancient Buddhists. It imposed none of those revolting sacrifices of human victims which marked the rituals of the Aztecs. They had their divine Mediata in Bohica, or Deity of Mercy. Their Chibchacum corresponded to the Buddhist god of Agriculture. Their god of Science, as represented by earthen images which I have examined, was almost identical with the Buddhist god of Wisdom, as represented by the images in some of the Chinese temples. They had also a traditional Spirit of Evil, corresponding to Neawatha of the ancient Mexicans and to the Satan of the Hebrews. And connected with their flood myth was a character corresponding to the Hebrew Noah, the Greek Ducalaine, and the Mexican Cojcoj. “The capital of the Chibchan empire was Bocata, of which Bogota is manifestly a mere corruption. It was situated near the site of the present Colombian capital. But their most ancient political capital was Mangueta, near the site of the present village of Funza, on the opposite side of the plain. Near the site of the present grand cathedral, in the heart of the present city of Bogota, was a temple consecrated to the god of Agriculture. Here the Emperor and his cacique, accompanied by the chief men of the country, were wont to assemble twice a year and offer oblations to the deity who was supposed to preside over the harvests--a ceremony not unlike the ‘moon feasts’ celebrated to-day in many of the interior districts of China.