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year either silk or woollen clothes may be indifferently worn; but they cannot deny that the variations of weather are so rapid and sensible as to cause frequent complaints. They peculiarly dread the west wind: it never blows without leaving traces of its malignity.

At some distance from the city are plantations of sugar, cacao, and coffee, the quality of which is superior to the same commodities raised in any other part of the province. All the environs of Merida are covered with the provisions of the country, with fruits, pulse, such as maize, beans, pease of every sort, potatoes, cassada, wheat of the finest quality, barley, &c. All these articles are consumed on the spot, and are so abundant, that the poorest people have always more food than is necessary for their subsistence. The butcheries of Merida supply Varinas and Pedraza. Excellent meat is purchased at a very moderate price.

Agriculture, the raising of cattle, or the ecclesiastical state, are the career of the whites. Persons of colour apply themselves to useful occupations, which at once proves their understanding and industry. They fabricate different articles in cotton and wool, the cheapness of which makes them preferred to our linens of Europe. Among these fabrics are carpets of the wool of the country, one ell long by rather more than half an ell wide, ornamented with flowers, and dyed on the spot with indigenous

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plants, whose red, green, blue, and yellow, are as bright, and continue as lastingly lively, as those of our most famous manufactures. To mention the local industry of the place is to say, that there reigns in the city an ease which does not allow of any poor or wretched beings.

This city, at the period when the late dreadful earthquake overwhelmed the city of Caracas, shared the same fate, and was nearly destroyed, but has since been rebuilt, and become more populous than before.

1. PAMPELUNA, or PAMPLONA, is another town of the province of Merida, towards its southern boundaries, in 6° 30′ north latitude, and 71° 36′ west longitude. This place is 170 miles north-north-east of Santa Fé de Bogota.

In its neighbourhood some gold is occasionally found.

2. SAN CHRISTOVAL is also another town, situated between the two latter, and nearly in the same place.

3. LA GRITA is fifty miles south-south-west of Merida, where there is a chain of mountains called by the same name.

SECTION XIX.

PROVINCE OF SANTA MARTA.

THE province of Santa Marta is divided from that of Carthagena by the great river Magdalena. It is bounded on the north by the Spanish Main, or Caribbean Sea; on the east, by Maracaibo, and the Rio de la Hacha; on the south, by Santa Fé; and on the west, by Carthagena. Its extent is about 300 miles, whilst its breadth is only 200.

The great features of the province of Santa Marta are the enormous height of its mountains, the most elevated of which is 16,000 feet above the level of the Caribbean Sea, from which it is visible. It is said to discharge streams of boiling sulphureous water from the crevices in its sides. Long and very narrow vales, covered with thick forests, are formed by the Cordillera of Santa Marta. These vales usually run from north to south. At Cape Vela the mountains divide into two parallel ridges, forming three other valleys ranging from east to west, and appearing to have been the beds of ancient lakes. The northern of these two ridges is the continuation of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta; and the southern, that of the snowy summits of the province

of Merida. They are again united by two arms, which prevented, to all appearance, the issue of the waters in their vicinity. These three valleys extend to an immense distance, and are remarked for rising like steps one above the other, and for their elevation above the sea; that of Caracas, the most easterly, is the highest, being 2660 feet; the next, or basin of Aragua, being 1530; and the third, the reedy plain of Monai, or the Llanos, being only 500 or 600 feet above the level of the sea. The water of the lake of the plain of Caracas has been drained through a cleft or crevice, called the Quebrada of Tipe; and the lake of Aragua appears to have gradually evaporated, leaving only ponds charged with muriat of lime, and small insulated masses of land.

The Rio Grande de la Magdalena is a majestic navigable river, of which at present very little is known; for although M. Bouguer, the celebrated mathematician, travelled along the greater part of its banks, he has left a very imperfect memorial on the subject. It is said to rise about thirty miles east of Popayan, near the sources of the Cauca, in eight degrees south latitude; and, after a northerly course of immense length, receives the latter river, with which it has flowed in nearly a parallel line on the opposite side of the same chain of mountains. The river Funza, or Bogota, after quitting the fall of the Tequendama, rushes with

impetuosity through a long course into the bosom of this fine river, which also receives many others, and, united with the Cauca near Mompox, pours the confluent waters into the Caribbean Sea by several branches, the great or main channel being in 11° north latitude, and 74° 40′ west longitude.

The Magdalena is subject to overflow in the month of December, at which time it rises thirteen or fourteen feet above the usual level at its mouth, and inundates and fertilizes the adjacent lands. Thus the country near the ocean is a succession of extensive marshes, famous for the fine cacao produced in them.

The mountains bordering this river near Honda, are remarkable for the horizontal situations of their strata, which are clearly seen, on account of the faces of the rocks being so perpendicular as to resemble walls. When any of these hills are insulated, they form such a regular cone, and the strata are so uniformly and cylindrically disposed, that they seem rather the work of art than of nature. One of these exists about a league from Honda, on the road to Mariquita, and is of such an extraordinary shape, and so symmetrical, that M. Bouguer forbears describing it minutely, for fear of being thought to take the usual liberty imputed to travellers. Other mountains in the vicinity of this river assume the shapes of ancient and sumptuous edifices-of chapels, domes, castles,

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