The whole of this extensive country is very thinly peopled. The Portuguese have built three towns on the banks of the Maranon, Macspa, Paru, and Panxis, but there are very few of the European race -settled around them, nor have the cities, as they have been denominated, risen to splendour or opu -lence. The soil and climate are well calculated for the growth of cotton, and the few plantations that have been established have been principally destined to that purpose. Some sugar has been cultivated, but not to an extent that has yet admitted of any moderate exportation. In its present state, with few white inhabitants, negros recently brought from Africa, and native Indians, whom it is attempted to reduce to the condition of labourers, the principal exertions are directed to the production of provi sions, which consist principally of manioc, rice, and maize. The inhabitants of all descriptions, includ ing the half reclaimed Indians, who have been col lected around the religious missions, are not estimat ed at more than 86,000, but• the number is doubtful as all accounts are very contradictory. The soil, climate, and natural productions, differ so little from those of Berbice, Dementia, and Cayenne, as not to demand a special notice.
The most remarkable object in the country is the Maranon, the largest river in the world, which dis charges itself, within its limits, into the ocean. It rises in the lake of Lauricocha in Peru in the lla of south latitude, and crossing the whole of South America, empties itself into the South Atlantic, by both sides of the Island of St John. During its course it receives the waters of sixty rivers, many of which supply as much water as the Danube or the Wolga discharge into the sea. The largest of these on the right bank are the Ucayle, Yvari, Yutai, Yurba, Purus, Madeira, Tapajos, and Zingu, and on the left bank the Napo, Ica, Yupura, and Negro. It becomes navigable for barges at the-junction of the Madeira, where it is nearly five miles m breadth; but the passage from thence is so intercepted with islands, and has such rapids as render its navigation dangerous till the mouth of the Tapajos, which can be reached by ships. The deficiency of productions on its banks has, however, prevented it from being navigated by any vessels from the ocean above Paru. Macapa is in 8' north latitude, and 51°.8' west longitude. Paru in 1° 25' south latitude, and 52° 15' west longitude. a This extensive, but thinly peopled province, com prehending a circuit of more than 8000 miles, was but little known to the European world, till the late journey through it by Baron Humboldt, and had scarcely excited any interest since the ex peditions undertaken to discover its mines by Sir Walter Raleigh. It has, of late, drawn general attention from being the country where, after his expulsion from New Granada and Caraccas, Boli var, the chief of the insurgents, concentrated his forces, and rested to collect, from the disbanded war riors of Europe, an army sufficiently powerful to at tempt the conquest of the countries from which he had retreated.
It is separated on the north by the extensive plains of St Juan and Quixos from the Spanish province of Caraccas, and bounded on the west by the Ori noco and the viceroyalty of New Granada. On the south it touches the British dominions in Guiana, and on the east the sea is its boundary. Before late events had made it the theatre of military operations, it only contained 84,000 inhabitants. Of these, 8000 were Spaniards, or rather descended originally from them, but mixed with the Indian and Negro tribes, so as to have acquired almost wholly their complexions. The remaining 26,000 are the various Indian nations, some collected into communities un der the Catholic missionaries, and others still in the nomadic state. The country is watered by the vast river Orinoco, and its various tributary streams, es pecially the copious rivers Apure, Arauca, Campa naro, Sinaruco, and Meta. The plains on the bor ders of these streams are overflowed during the rainy season, so as to be scarcely habitable by human be ings ; but as soon as the waters have subsided, a most abundant herbage springs up, and millions of wild cows, of the race originally introduced from Europe, cover the flat country, and find abundant pasture. By moving to higher grqund during the Inundations, they find subsistence, and have thus multiplied to their present extent. This abundance of animal food seems to have perpetuated the origi nal indolence Cf the Indian tribes, who seldom culti vate much land for sustenance. Around the missions the monks have induced the converted Indians to la bour in the cultivation of gardens, in which are pro duced all the vegetable luxuries of the tropical cli mates; and some of the tribes buried in the depth of the forests, where the foot of a European has scarce ly ever penetrated, and to whom such abundance of cattle have not extended, cultivate casava and plan tains for their subsistence at those seasons when the chace affords them insufficient food.
The Spaniards have made a nominal division of this country into two provinces, denominated Upper and Lower Guiana. The upper province contains neither cities nor towns, but a number of forts, or missionary establishments, to which the natives have been attracted or driven, and where they were form ed into communities under the government of the monks. This province terminates to the southward, at the mission of St Carlos, on the river Negro, in 1° 58' of north latitude. The Lake of Parima, the supposed scite of the fabulous El Dorado, lies to the eastward of this station, surrounded by ranges of mountains, which are inhabited by a tribe of Indians called Guayecas, who, though of a low stature, have always evinced so much ferocity as to prevent any attempts to survey the lake from being successful. These Indians have hitherto resisted all the seduc tions and the threats of the monks, and still defend the entrance to their territory, so that Baron Hum boldt, who wished to have penetrated to the lake, was compelled by them to abandon the attempt. The number of this nation is unknown.