Thanks to an early start on the following morning, we reached the summit of the range, or the Cordillera Occidental, as it is better known, by ten o’clock. The whole slopes are covered with the densest of subtropical jungles. A steady downpour had fallen the entire morning, against which _ponchos_ availed little. A halt of two hours was therefore called at a rather cheerless inn just beyond the pass, named San Antonio; the _señora_ who conducted the establishment was glad to see us, for Richardson had apprised her of our coming; she soon had plantains roasting on the embers, and her shop provided sardines for lunch. The descent of the eastern slope now began. The trail narrowed down and was rough; in places the decline was 45°. On both sides rose the living walls of impenetrable, gloomy jungle. One thing could not fail to impress us, and that was the great, breathless silence of the forest. Where we had expected to find multitudes of gorgeous birds, a babble of animal voices and brilliant flowers, there was only the sombre, silent mass of unvaried green. Within two hours we had left the regions of cold and penetrating mists. For the first time we beheld the beautiful valley of the Cauca far below, spread before our vision like a velvet carpet of softest green that reached the very foot-hills of the Central Range not less than forty miles distant. The steady, rhythmic skuff of bare or sandal-shod feet, mingled with the louder tramp of mules and discordant cries of the _arrieros_, now reached our ears at frequent intervals, to be followed shortly by the appearance of pack-trains heavily laden with coffee and hides as they swung around a bend in the narrow mountain trail, and we knew that the end of our journey, at least for the present, was near. Downward we rode, always downward, with the valley still several hundreds of feet below, and the mountains towering thousands of feet in the rear. Here and there a bit of humanity flashed into view near one of the lonely _haciendas_ snugly nestling in some seemingly inaccessible niche in the mountainside. To our right, a solitary monastery perched upon a barren peak, with its separate narrow trail leading from the dizzy height and winding its tortuous course along the jutting precipice until lost in the filmy haze. Ahead, a black mass that dissolved itself into one immense flock of vultures appeared on the landscape. This was their season of harvest and the quarrelsome scavengers were reluctant to leave their repast--an unfortunate burro that had been abandoned on the trail.