While still several miles distant from Popayán we began to meet small parties of Indians that dotted the trail, slowly wending their way toward the Mecca of the Upper Cauca. By the time we had reached Belen, a settlement of about twenty houses, the trail had widened into a beautiful thoroughfare and was crowded with oncoming hordes. These Indians are probably descendants of the ancient Guanacas, while some are doubtless the offspring of the tribe of Paeces which inhabits the Cordillera Central to the north. Many, no doubt, still preserve the original purity of the old stock, but the vast majority have mingled and intermarried with the native Colombians until one finds every possible stage of intergradation. Before us passed the motliest crowd imaginable, each bearing the fruit of his toil, to be appraised and sold in the public plaza. There were small family parties, the man leading a decrepit mule that threatened to collapse at every step, laden with fruit and vegetables, fire-wood, hemp ropes and bags, calabashes, pottery, or any one of a hundred different things. The wife, acting as auxiliary beast of burden, carried the surplus. A band passed over the forehead supported the heavy pack; usually a small child was carried in a sling at her side, while several larger children clung to her skirt or trudged behind. As she walked she worked, spinning from a bunch of wool or cotton tucked under her arm, the spindle, a sharpened stick with a potato stuck on the end, dangling from her hands. The most characteristic occupation of the women is the making of small fibre bags, or _muchilas_, from hempen cord. They are meshed entirely by hand as the overburdened worker trots along, and when completed somewhat resemble a lady’s shopping-bag. If the meshes are close it requires weeks to finish one which would fetch forty or fifty cents. The men are dressed in loose white-cotton trousers that come below the knee; then there is the inevitable square of homespun woollen cloth, usually brownish, gray, or blue, called _ruana_; the head is thrust through a hole in the centre so that it drapes down to the waist, the corners often touching the ground and giving the same effect as the toga of a Roman senator. At night the _ruana_ takes the place of a blanket under which the whole family sleeps. A broad-brimmed, high-crowned straw hat completes the outfit. The women are fond of dark-blue skirts (also the product of their industry), pink waists, and shawls of almost any color so long as they have fringes. Their hats are similar to those worn by the men. The feet of both sexes are, of course, bare. Half an hour after leaving Belen we were cantering across the great brick bridge that spans the Cauca and forms the entrance to Popayán. This bridge is really a marvel of ancient Spanish architecture, five hundred feet long, forty feet wide, and supported by a series of arches.