CIIARCAS follows Potosi, from which it is separated by the river Paspaya, a confluent of the Pilcomayo, and ex tends north to the river Guapey, a branch of the Ma deira, and which separates it from Cochabamba. This province, known by the various names Charcas, Chu quisica, and La Plata, lies between 181° and 21° S. lat.; is about 400 miles long from west to east, with a mean width of 100 miles, or 40,000 square miles. This pro vince occupies a table land from which the waters of the Madeira flow northward towards the Amazon, and those of the Pilcomayo descend south-eastward towards the Paraguay. The climate has been the admiration of all travellers, and to this many incidental advantages recom mend it ; for instance, its university, the superior edu cation of its inhabitants, with their polished manners, and the rich productions of its fields and pastures.
La Plata, or Chuquisaca, the capital, stands on a branch of the Pilcomayo, at S. lat. 19° 27', about 65 miles N. E. from Potosi. It was founded by Pedro Azores, and made a bishopric in 1551, and in 1608 raised to a metropolitan city. Before the late revolution, it was the seat of a royal audience, and contained 15,000 inhabitants ; whole pro vince 30,000.
CoenAnAmnA is the first province which we have reached amongst those appertaining to Buenos Ayres, which lies entirely in the basin of the Amazon. This province was founded in 1572, and from the following account, taken from a manuscript document preserved in the public library of Buenos Ayres, containing the observations of Don Thadeus Haenke, it is very erro neously laid down in our maps.
"The territory of the province of Cochabamba forms a long and narrow strip of land, which, with hut little va riation, runs from west to east. its length is about 130 geographical leagues, (20 to a degree, we may presume, or about 3÷ English miles) more or less, supposing it a straight line; and its diameter, under the same supposi tion of a straight line, does not exceed the space of 20 or 30 leagues. Its direction is almost from north to south." From these observations, the province of Cocha bamba contains an area of about 43,000 square miles, and although in its territory gold and silver mines are not found as they are in most parts of Upper Peru, it is a country of the first importance. Its soil is proverbially
fertile, and the elevation and variety of its surface give it almost every variety of climate. The population amounts to upwards of 100,000 souls, and it is one of the best peopled provinces of the whole republic to which it be longs. The pursuits of the people may be seen from their productions for export, which are indigo, cacao, cochi neal, wools of the vicunna and of alpaca (cavia paca of Linn:cos) grains, Scc.
LA Paz terminates the republic of the United Pro vinces of Rio de la Plata. It was founded in 1548, at S. hat. 17° 20', in a ravine on one of the extreme higher sources of the Ucayale, and by any road upwards of 1500 miles N. N. W. from Buenos Ayres, and 700 S. S. E. from Lima. The provincial territory of La Paz lies in one of the great vallies of the Andes, and is drained by the Beni, a confluent of the Ucayale. It extends from S. lat. 13° to 184°, leaving the remarkable lake Chicuito or Titicaca to the westward. On the high parts the climate is cold and variable. Some of the mountains rise above the region of perpetual snow; but the vallies are warm and very productive.
We close our account of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata by the subjoined tabular summary of the ex tent of the provinces and their population in 1825. The reader must be aware, nevertheless, that the estimates are too much founded on defective data to deserve entire confidence, but we trust with all its imperfections it may serve to give a general view of this interesting coun try.
The physical extent north and south of the Republic of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata, may in gene ral terms be considered as reaching from S. lat. 13° to 40°, or through 27 degrees of latitude: in longitude from the western border of La Paz to the eastern angle of Corrientes, from 7° to 21° E. from Washington City, or through 14 degrees of longitude. Having the Andes west, Lower Peru north, the Brazillian provinces north east and east, the Atlantic Ocean south-east, and the wide and almost unexplored regions of Patagonia south.