252 ELUOT'S PROPOSED EXPLORATION [Jan. 12, 1857. 



par un canal artificiel, fixeront les yeiix de I'Europe commercialc. Le Cassi- 

 aqiiare, large comnie le lihin, et dont lecours a 180 mi lies de long, ne formera 

 plus en vain un ligne navigable entre deux bassins des rivieres qui ont une 

 surface de 190,000 lieues carrees. Les grains de la Nouvelle Grenade seront 

 port 6s aux bords de Rio Negro ; des sources de Napo, et de I'Ucayle, des 

 Andes de Quito, et du Haute Pe'ru, on descendra en bateau aux bouches de 

 I'Orinoque, sur une distance qui egale celle de Timbuctu a Marseilles ; un paj^s 

 neuf, a dix fois plus grand que I'Espagne, et enrichi des productions les plus 

 varices, navigable dans tons les sens par I'intermede du canal naturel du 

 Cassiaquare, et du bifurcation des rivieres. Un phenomene, qui sera un jour 

 si important pour les relations j)olitiques des peuples, me'rite, sans doute, d'etre 

 examine avec soin." 



In the Atlas accompanying the narrative, pnblislied by Humboldt 

 at Paris in 1814, lie gives a map of tlie course of the Apnre, from 

 its headwaters to its confluence with the Orinoco, and it is impossible 

 to peruse his account of the countries, and the rich and varied 

 products attainable through that line of navigation, without re- 

 cognizing the force of his reiterated notice of the prospective value 

 of that stream of trade and intercourse. But he presses still more 

 urgently on the importance of the navigation of the Meta, which he 

 compares with the Danube not in length, but in volume of water ; 

 and he also furnishes a map of this river in the Atlas. He describes 

 it to have a navigation of at least 400 miles from its confluence with 

 the Orinoco to its connection with the streams which descend from 

 the table-lands of Santa Fe de Bogota, and all the richest regions of 

 New Grenada. From the Embarcadero on the river San Juan, 

 falling into the Meta, the distance to Bogota by the valle^^s of 

 Apiay and Caqueza does not exceed 10 leagues. In point of short- 

 ness of land-travel, between navigation and the tableland and all 

 other conveniences of trade, there seems reason to think that the 

 route to Bogota by the Meta would soon displace that by the 

 Magdalena, the basin of which is comparatively of very inferior 

 importance. 



When the Orinoco and its affluents, especially the Meta, are well 

 opened up by steam navigation, it is in the highest degree probable 

 that Humboldt's view respecting the wheat supply of the continental 

 shores and the islands of the Caribean Sea will prove to be correct. 

 They will easily draw that supply from Cundinamarca and the 

 rich tablelands of New Grenada. Indeed, in years of comparative 

 scarcity in Europe and the northern parts of America, these great 

 streams may be freighted with heavy supplies of corn destined for 

 these shores, and for those of the United States of America. In 

 those surprisingly fertile soils and genial climates, men reap at the 

 seasons when we sow, taking off two crops annually, of weight per 

 acre almost, if not quite equal, to the best cornlands of Europe ; 



