refully, throwing away those damaged pieces which would ferment in the
long, hot journey home, and spoil the others. When all are clean and
dry, he fixes them with copper wire on sticks, which are nailed across
boxes for transport. Long experience has laid down rules for each
detail of this process. The sticks, for example, are one inch in
diameter, fitting into boxes two feet three inches wide, two feet deep,
neither more nor less. Then the long file of mules sets out for Bogota,
perhaps ten days' march, each animal carrying two boxes--a burden
ridiculously light, but on such tracks it is dimension which has to be
considered. On arrival at Bogota, the cases are unpacked and examined
for the last time, restowed, and consigned to the muleteers again. In
six days they reach Honda, on the Magdalena River, where, until lately,
they were embarked on rafts for a voyage of fourteen days to Savanilla.
At the present time, an American company has established a service of
flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus
reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still
terrible. Not a breath of wind stirs the air at that season, for the
collector cannot choose his time. The boxes are piled on deck; even the
pitiless sunshine is not so deadly as the stewing heat below. He has a
store of blankets to cover them, on which he lays a thatch of
palm-leaves, and all day long he souses the pile with water; but too
well the poor fellow knows that mischief is busy down below. Another
anxiety possesses him too. It may very well be that on arrival at
Savanilla he has to wait days in that sweltering atmosphere for the
Royal Mail steamer. And when it comes in, his troubles do not cease, for
the stowage of the precious cargo is vastly important. On deck it will
almost certainly be injured by salt water. In the hold it will ferment.
Amidships it is apt to be baked by the engine fire. Whilst writing I
learn that Mr. Sander has lost two hundred and sixty-seven cases by this
latter mishap, as is supposed. So utterly hopeless is their condition,
that he will not go to the expense of overhauling them; they lie at
Southampton, and to anybody who will take them away all parties
concerned will be grateful. The expense of making this shipment a reader
may judge from the hints given. The Royal Mail Company's charge for
freight from Manzanilla is 750l. I could give an incident of the same
class yet more startling with refere