Note 24 — Chapter XI · THE MUISCA TRAIL

The negroes of Colombia are often of a highly poetical nature, and, like those of our Southern states, are passionately fond of music, singing and dancing. Their voices are often marvelously elastic, expansive and harmonious. Their favorite air and dance is the bambuco, of African origin, to which Jorge Isaacs refers in his charming Caucan novel, Maria, and of which Vergara y Vergara in his valuable Historia de la Literatura en Nueva Granada (Parte primera, p. 513, Bogotá, 1867) gives us so glowing an account. It is the latter writer that assures us that if a negro were to play a marimba in the forests of the South Coast, he could be certain that wild beasts and serpents would listen to him in silent ecstasy. ↑