Lorica Has, Since The Sixteenth Century, Been The Principal Town Of Rio Sinu; But Its Population Which, In 1778, Under The Government Of Don Juan Diaz Pimienta, Amounted To 4000 Souls, Has Considerably Diminished, Because Nothing Has Been Done To Secure The Town From Inundations And The Deleterious Miasmata They Produce.

The gold-washings of the Rio Sinu, heretofore so important above all, between its source and the village of San Geronimo, have almost entirely ceased, as well as those of Cienega de Tolu, Uraba and all the rivers descending from the mountains of Abibe.

"The Darien and the Zenu," says the bachelor Enciso in his geographical work published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, "is a country so rich in gold pepites that, in the running waters, that metal can be fished with nets." Excited by these narratives, the governor Pedrarias sent his lieutenant, Francisco Becerra, in 1515, to the Rio Sinu. This expedition was most unfortunate for Becerra and his troop were massacred by the natives, of whom the Spaniards, according to the custom of the time, had carried away great numbers to be sold as slaves in the West Indies. The province of Antioquia now furnishes, in its auriferous veins, a vast field for mining speculations; but it might be well worth while to relinquish gold-washings for the cultivation of colonial productions in the fertile lands of Sinu, the Rio Damaquiel, the Uraba and the Darien del Norte; above all, that of cacao, which is of a superior quality.

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