The Result Of Those Labours Of Which It Is Not For Me To Appreciate The Importance Have Long Since Been Published.

My map of the Rio Magdalena, multiplied by the copies of the year 1802 in America and Spain, and comprehending the country between Almaguer and Santa Marta, from 1 degree 54 minutes to 11 degrees 15 minutes latitude, appeared in 1816.

Till that period no traveller had undertaken to describe New Grenada; and the public, except in Spain, knew the navigation of the Magdalena only by some lines traced by Bouguer. That learned traveller had descended the river from Honda; but, being in want of astronomical instruments, he had ascertained but four or five latitudes, by means of small dials hastily constructed. The narratives of travels in America are now singularly multiplied. Political events have led numbers of persons to those countries: and travellers have perhaps too hastily published their journals on returning to Europe. They have described the towns where they resided, and landscape scenery remarkable for beauty; they have furnished information respecting the inhabitants and the different modes of travelling in barks, on mules or on men's backs. These works, several of which are agreeable and instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World with those of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and Chili as far as Zacatecas and New Mexico. But unfortunately, in many instances, the want of a thorough knowledge of the Spanish language and the little care taken to acquire the names of places, rivers and tribes, have occasioned extraordinary mistakes.

During the six days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru, south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a neck of land of the continent, and on the south, with a cape of the island of Baru, the only entrances to the Bay of Carthagena; the former is called Boca Grande, the second Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the land has given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely contradictory respecting the defence of a place which, next to the Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important of the main land and the West Indies. Engineers differed respecting the choice of the opening which should be closed; and it was not, as some writers have stated, after the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea was first conceived* of filling up the Boca Grande. (* Don Jorge Juan in his Secret Notices addressed to the Marques de la Ensenada says:

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 176 of 332
Words from 91936 to 92442 of 174507