The province of Merida to the eastward of San ta Marta, and bordering on Maracaybo, is prin. cipally composed of a chain of the Andes, whose highest elevation is 15,000 feet, and is consequently within the line of perpetual snow. On account of the inequality of its surface, the climate partakes of every degree of variation from the extreme of heat to that of cold. The far greater part of the province is uninhabited, and the whole population is not esti. mated to exceed 70,000 souls. Plantations of sugar, coffee, and cocoa, are found in the lower levels, but their principal productions are raised at the eleva. tion of from 5000 to 8000 feet, and consist of excel lent wheat, beans, peas, potatoes, and maize. The cattle are abundant, and their hides and tallow form branches of commerce. Some of the most copious rivers of South America have their sources in this province, especially the Apure, which, after water ing very extensive plains with the others, contribute to swell the stream of the Orinoco. Merida, the capital city, is estimated to contain from 10,000 to 12,000 souls: a great proportion of them are white Creoles, some few European Spaniards, and the rest mestizoes or descendants of whites and Indians. Be sides its agriculture, which is the most considerable pursuit, it has some manufactories of cotton cloth. It is a bishop's see, and has a college or seminary for the education of the clergy. The other towns are Pamplona (near which are some mines of gold), San Christoval, Grits, which are scarcely deserv ing of any notice.
The province of Antioquia equals any of the pro vinces of New Granada in the elevation of its moun tains, of which it almost wholly consists; but at the heights below the limits of congelation, some plains are found which unite fertility and salubriousness in the highest degree. The dew is not hurtful, and the climate so mild and equable, that the inhabitants can always sleep in the open air. It is rich in minerals, but from the paucity of inhabitants, and the want of capital, the mines are not worked to any considera ble extent. What silver is produced in New Gra nada is chiefly from the mines of Vega de Supia in this province. Quicksilver is produced at Santa Rosa ; gold in Buricota, San Pedro, and Arenas ; and more than 8000 negro slaves are employed in the small villages on the banks of the Cauca in wash ing the sand for gold dust. The capital town, Santa Fe Antioquia, contains but few inhabitants, though it is placed in a most healthy and fruitful spot. The rest of the population is scattered over an extensive surface, far removed from each other, and have but little intercourse with the rest of even their own pro vince.
Choco is as thinly inhabited as any part of Spa nish America, though occupying a considerable ex tent of coast on the Pacific Ocean, and extending from thence to the foot of the western ridge of the Andes. It contains no town whose name has reach ed to Europe. The heat of the climate is excessive, and its humidity makes it unhealthy. Its produc tions are those common to tropical regions. Choco is principally to be noticed as the country in which platina is exclusively found ; it is to be met with in alluvial lands in small grains, in a district between the second and sixth degree of north latitude. No mines of it have yet been discovered ; but it is high ly probable, that, at some future period, when the country is more completely explored, such mines will be found, and render that valuable metal more abun dant than it is at present. Gold is procured by wash ing the sand of the rivers at the foot of the Andes ; it is usually in grains. This province has so little connection with the rest of the world, that what is not produced within it, such as iron and wheaten flour, are sold at most enormous prices. The in
crease of navigation on the river Atrato, which, till recently, was forbidden, will throw much light on the condition of this province, and perhaps raise it to considerable distinction. We have before noticed, that this province forms the easiest communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ; and a ra vine, called Raspadura, is said to have a communica tion through it, by which the river St Juan, which runs to the South Sea, is already in some degree united to the Astrato.
The province of Santa FOB in every respect the most important of this viceroyalty. The whole of it is situated in the finest possible climate ; a perpetual verdure covers the earth and the trees ; its fertility is excelled by no soil on the globe, and it is thickly peopled. Those who have visited it have compared it to the most beautiful and most populous parts of England in the months of May and June. Wheat, barley, potatoes, apples, pears, peaches, and, in fact, all the fruits of the temperate zone, are produced with little labour, and in great abundance, at the ele vation of from 5000 to 9000 feet above the level of the sea, whilst on the less elevated spots the choice fruits of the tropics are to be found. The plain of Santa Fe is an extensive district, which surrounds the capital, and furnishes its markets with every agricultural production that is valuable to the com forts of human beings. It is surrounded with moun tains, but none so lofty as to be perpetually frozen: These supply rivulets, which water the plain in every direction ; and the soil is evidently alluvial, collected when the plain was a lake, which its appearance plain. ly proves to have been formerly the case, and which the traditions of the natives strongly corroborate. By some extraordinary convulsion of nature, the bar. rier of mountains must have been burst ; and that passage formed, by which the river that now precipi tates itself by the fall of Tequendama in its descent has drained this vast plain. #ew features of nature are more grand than the cataract of the river Funza, or Bogota, called by the inhabitants the Salta of Te quendama. The river, gentle and transparent, glides slowly along the plain, collecting in Its course the tributary rivulets, which have descended from the hills, and fertilized the plain. It is about 140 feet in breadth near the point from whence it vanishes. It becomes suddenly contracted to the breadth of thirty feet, at the entrance of the fissure by which it escapes, and then with ,violent noise and agitation suddenly precipitates itself into the plain below. The descent is 600 feet, and it plunges into a dark gulf whose bottom is always invisible. It again emerges, and forms the river Meta, which runs to the Orinoco. Though at the beginning of its descent it appears a sheet of water, in the course of its fall it is broken into small particles, and alights at the bottom in the form of an everlasting showei of thick rain, whose drops obscure the prospects, and darken the lands on which they fall. The vapours which are evolved and scattered by the fall of this vast body of waters, fer tilize the surrounding lands in a most extraordinary degree, so that the wheat grown at the farm of Ca nos, where the descent begins, is considered the best in quality, and the most abundant in produce, of any within this fertile viceroyalty. The river at one bound leaps from a temperate to a torrid region ; at the top are seen the oak and elm trees of Europe, at the bottom the sugar cane, the palm tree, and the bannanas of the West Indies.