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7

Mosquera. We three had coffee and talked over my plans in the lounge, while Clara wrote letters upstairs. Later she came down, we talked more, and invited them to lunch. Murillo declined because of the illness of his wife, Lehmann accepted and took us to walk first. We went as far as the Biblioteca Nacional (on Calle 24) and Parque Independencia.

[[image - B&W photograph of a woman (standing in the middle) and two men on both sides of her (one in suit, one in white lab coat) in front of a building wall; with caption]]
Murillo, Clara, Lehmann.

After lunch Murillo came back and we all took a taxi to the Policía. Clara and I sat and watched while the others talked with the officials and found that our diplomatic passports were sufficient without other papers. From there we walked to the observatory; it is a copy of the Greenwich observatory and is dedicated to José Celestino Mutis. We sat in the library, dark and opulent looking, with massive tables and chairs, and talked with Dr. Jorge Alvarez Lleras, president of the Academia Colombiana de Ciencias. He is interested in the effect of actinic light on plants. He thinks we should not forget that the colonial period had its good points; that generous encouragement was given to science and that México was allowed to have better universities than Spain. Before leaving, I was presented with some of the back numbers of the Revista of the Academia. Carlos Lehmann left us outside of the observatory and we took a taxi to the Ministerio de Educación. The offices opened from a large hall on the second floor which looked out on the patio. The room was crowded with anxious looking women, and a few men --- teachers looking for jobs. December and January were vacation; the new term opened on February 10. After much maneuvering we were admitted to the office of the Ministro, and presented to Germán Arciniegas, who was standing at one side of the large room talking with a novelist, Osorio ?, and the editor of El Tiempo, Roberto García Peña. The Ministro spoke with us briefly in excellent English.
We three went back to the Granada by taxi (not realizing how near it was). In the shadowy lounge we talked with a reporter from El Tiempo; he took notes, and then set up his camera and took a picture of the three of us. Another taxi took us to the Ministerio de Economía Nacional. We waited a few moments in an empty white anteroom with a bright green rug and then were admitted and presented to Dr. Marco Aurelio Arango. He was alone, asked us to sit down and he put some