Note 11 — Chapter X · THE ATHENS OF SOUTH AMERICA

But anticipation is not fruition. This the Spaniards soon learned to their sorrow. Like Quesada and Federmann and their followers, Belalcazar and his men had to endure frightful hardships during the long and painful march of many months from Quito to the plateau of Bogotá. According to Castellanos, who wrote while many of these adventurers were still living, and who had received from them directly an account of their privations and sufferings and the countless obstacles that at times rendered progress almost impossible, their journey was made through mountains and districts that were inaccessible and uninhabitable, through gloomy forests and dense, tangled underbrush; through inhospitable lands and dismal swamps, where there was neither food nor shelter for man or beast.11