Note 1 — Chapter IV · IN MID-ORINOQUIA

For several days, too, our friends and acquaintances had been endeavoring to dissuade us from what one and all pronounced a rash and dangerous undertaking. All meant well, but all were prophets of ill. No one, we were assured, had ever gone to Bogotá by the route we purposed taking,1 and we were solemnly warned time and again that we were surely risking our health if not exposing our lives. Everything, it was averred, was against the successful termination of our journey, and it would be a miracle if we ever reached Bogotá alive.