The Mountains

The colony is partially separated in two by a mountain range which, going further south beyond the colonial borders, reaches only ever higher. Here, it is not yet as tall, but it provides an obstacle and a boon to transport, in varying ways at the same time. As the elevation rises, the woods grow thinner and trees shorter, until they stop altogether. It is a cold clime, the more so when contrasted with hot humidity below. If a road is run through high meadows, it provides for a convenient route for those willing to pass it, but only in a few places it can be followed smoothly. In some places, rope pulleys and bridges allow for contact over gorges and between peaks. Small shrines to all kind of saints and deities and spirits of the land dot the fog-covered landscape, enough to serve as a guiding measure for travellers.

People who live here are not as numerous as those in territories to the south, beyond the borders, but are a faithful and honest lot, ready to work hard, some of them native, many other recent arrivals. The former live mostly off animal husbandry, not cattle as upon the plains, but woolen animals, and travel often between the peaks alongside their herds. Of the rest, many hail not from warm Metropole, but other nations, lying further where the weather is harsher and the soils less forgiving, for whom mountains resemble home more than ever would the lowlands. The Vice-regents encourage this, in hope that loyalty the arrivals provide will be unmarred by ties to natives and other colonials. Often, they receive it.

“Hut in a mountain landscape, Galipan”, by Camille Pissarro (1854).

There is a wealth to develop for sure, for the mountains hide ores much desired by industry, even when they are not of precious metals. By official policy, cheap land is offered for those who would come and develop it. Indeed, small settlements abound. Of these some, where the native people were accommodated, look as a lively eclectic mix of the local and the distant, many other as if the viewer was suddenly transported thousands of miles away. More often than not though, and not without quiet approval of officials up to the Vice-Regent himself, these grants of land seem to go to those who are great landowners already. Often only then is the land re-sold or lent out, for the settlers to learn of it only after their arrival. But it also happens that a merchant company opts to develop the land in their own fashion, setting up towns according to the plans of company engineers, and only then settled by hired laborers.

The newcomers are not all menial labor, though. Mavericks come of curiosity, refugees arrive to leave their old life behind. There are educated people amongst them, doctors to administer to the crowds, experts to study the land. A traveller in remote corners may stumble upon a study of a wizard from a distant land, wishing to find privacy in remoteness and peace to research upon domains which others would prefer left be.

Talking about wizards and mavericks, the Knoche Mausoleum in Venezuela. Nothing like a reclusive German zombiemancer and his bird-talking witch assistant to spice up your colonial setting.

On the western side, the mountains roll down back into the jungle, lower and swampier than it was to the east. There, though, is a boon less common on higher ground, for the swamps abound in tar pits. But the western regions are their own thing.