Note 11 — Chapter IX · IN CLOUDLAND

From the spot where we halted to pluck a few flowers at the mouth of the Boquerón, as a souvenir of our first passage of the Andes, we could almost catch a glimpse towards the northwest, of the churches and public edifices of Colombia’s capital. There was one of the celebrated camping-grounds of some of the most noted of the Conquistadores and thither we would hasten with the minimum of delay. We loved to think that Federmann had crossed the Cordilleras just where we did. It is certain that, if he did not cross them at this point, it was not far distant from it.11 All the way from Villavicencio we felt that we were following in his footsteps, as we had been following in the footsteps of other conquistadores from the time we had trod the romantic soil of Tierra Florida. We had, near the foothills of the Cordilleras, in the neighborhood of Buena Vista, crossed the path of Hernan Pérez de Quesada, who almost made the circuit of New Granada in his memorable quest of El Dorado, and we were likely to cross it again before reaching Bogotá, for on his return from his expedition, he, as well as Federmann, must have entered the city near where we did ourselves.