Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 203 of 635 - First - Home
(* These Two Intendencias Contain Together 5520 Square Leagues
And A Relative Population Of 508 Inhabitants To The Square
Sea-League.
) If the territories of Cumana, Barcelona, Caracas,
Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy
good provincial and
Municipal institutions as confederate states, they
will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six
millions of inhabitants. Venezuela, the eastern part of the republic
of Columbia, would not, even with nine millions, have a more
considerable population than Old Spain; and can it be doubted that
that part of Venezuela which is most fertile and easy of cultivation,
that is, the 10,000 square leagues remaining after deducting the
Llanos and the almost impenetrable forests between the Orinoco and the
Cassiquiare, could support in the fine climate of the tropics as many
inhabitants as 10,000 square leagues of Estramadura, the Castiles, and
other provinces of the table-land of Spain? These predictions are by
no means problematical, inasmuch as they are founded on physical
analogies and on the productive power of the soil; but before we can
indulge the hope that they will be actually accomplished, we must be
secure of another element less susceptible of calculation - that
national wisdom which subdues hostile passions, destroys the germs of
civil discord and gives stability to free and energetic institutions.
When we take a view of the soil of Venezuela and New Grenada we
perceive that no other country of Spanish America furnishes commerce
with such various and rich productions of the vegetable kingdom.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 203 of 635
Words from 55487 to 55745
of 174507
