After a short, steep climb we were out on the bleak paramo, in the midst of the rain, hail, and mist. The wind blew a gale and the cold was intense. Through an occasional break in the banks of fog we had glimpses of the valley on each side filled with dense clumps of frailejones. We continued on in the face of the blinding storm for several hours, but with the coming of darkness the trail left the wind-swept zone and started downward, winding along the canyon of the Magdalena; in the failing light the scenery was bewitchingly beautiful. High, rugged peaks, sheer cliffs, and black masses of forest towered above the sparkling stream that bounded from rock to rock in a succession of falls. Allen and Lloyd had gone on ahead, and after dark I came upon them camped in a unique spot. They had thrown their blankets on a ledge in the face of a cliff that towered several hundred feet above them. A tiny waterfall dashed over the edge of the precipice, cleared the ledge, and joined the greater torrent below. The regular night’s stopping-place is known as Santa Marta, which the Indians reached at nine that night. Immediately after arriving at the camping site the porters boiled corn-meal, which they ate with brown sugar. Each man had brought a sheepskin to use as a bed, and these were dried beside the fire while their food was cooking. Before starting in the morning they had another meal of mush and sugar. During the gruelling day their mouths were kept well filled with coca and lime, and the apparent amount of sustenance and endurance derived from the herb is extraordinary; nor does it seem to have any bad aftereffect, though in Almaguer I saw a number of shaky old women with bloodshot eyes and blackened lips and teeth, said to be due to the result of excessive indulgence in coca. The second night we failed to catch up with the men who had gone on ahead. We had waded streams and knee-deep mud the greater part of the day as the result of the steady downpour which rendered the trail indescribably bad; everything was drenched and it required more than an hour of hard work to start a small fire. However, the day dawned bright and sunny, and we lingered to watch the tribes of feathered folk that began feeding and chattering in the tree-tops. The ripening fruits had attracted great black guans, trogons with rose-colored breasts and metallic green backs, and wonderful curve-billed hummers with long white tails. Along a stretch of bamboo we saw scores of large, pearly butterflies flapping about lazily, the iridescence of their wings flashing like bits of rainbow in the sunlight; but not a glimpse did we have of the main object of our long wanderings--the rare and elusive cock-of-the-rock.