Note 4 — Chapter X · THE ATHENS OF SOUTH AMERICA

Standing in front of the church of Guadalupe, we have before us the beautiful Savanna of Bogotá4—a fertile plain, nine hundred square kilometers in area. Humboldt, whose opinion has been adopted by many subsequent writers, regarded this level stretch of land as the bottom of a lake that formerly existed here, but recent investigators have called this view in question. Strangely enough, the Chibcha Indians, at the time of the conquest, had a tradition that the Savanna was at one time occupied by a lake, but that Bochica, child of the sun, drained its waters by giving them an exit through the celebrated falls of Tequendama.5 The general appearance of the plain, as well as certain geological features, seemed to confirm this tradition, and it was not until quite recently that any one ventured to express a doubt about the tradition, or the long-accepted opinion of the great German savant.