Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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: La
entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que llaman Boca Chica; de
resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y impassable la Boca
Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola. [The old entrance
was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but after this invasion
it was determined to close up the Boca Grande and to open the old
passage, fortifying it.] Secr. Not. volume 1 page 4.) The English
forced the small entrance when they made themselves masters of the
bay; but being unable to take the town of Carthagena, which made a
gallant resistance, they destroyed the Castillo Grande (called also
Santa Cruz) and the two forts of San Luis and San Jose which defended
the Boca Chica.
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