874 nioxTiER POSTS. 



t heir neighbours. Steppes and forests nearly desert sepa- 

 rate, at a distance of one hundred and sixty leagues, the 

 cultivated part of the coast from the four missions of Marsa, 

 Tomo, Davipe, and San Carlos, which are all that the Spanish 

 Franciscans could establish along the Bio Negro. Among 

 the Portuguese of Brazil the military system, that of presides 

 and ccvpitanes pobladores, has prevailed over the government 

 of the missionaries. Grand Para is no doubt far distant 

 from the mouth of the Bio Negro : but the facility of 

 navigation on the Amazon, which runs like an immense 

 canal in one direction from west to east, has enabled the 

 Portuguese population to extend itself rapidly along the 

 river. The banks of the Lower Maranon, from Vistoza as 

 far as Serpa, as well as those of the Bio Negro from Fort da 

 Bara to San Jose da Maravitanos, are embellished by rich 

 cultivation, and by a great number of large villages and 

 towns. 



These local considerations are combined with others, 

 suggested by the moral position of nations. The north- 

 west coast of America furnishes to this day no other stable 

 settlements but Bussian and Spanish colonies. Before the 

 inhabitants of the United States, in their progressive move- 

 ment from east to west, could reach the shore between the 

 latitude 41 and 50, which long separated the Spanish 

 monks and the Siberian hiinWs,* the latter had established 

 themselves south of the Ov**"Jo River. Thus in New 

 California the Franciscan missionaries, men estimable for 

 their morals, and their agricultural activity, learnt with 

 astonishment, that Greek priests had arrived in their neigh- 

 bourhood; and that two nations, who inhabit the eastern 

 and western extremities of Europe, were become neighbours 

 on a coast of America opposite to China. In Gruiana cir- 

 cumstances were very different: the Spaniards found on 

 their frontiers those very Portuguese, who, by their 

 language, and their municipal institutions, form with them 

 one of the most noble remains of Boman Europe; but 

 whom mistrust, founded on unequal strength, and too great 



* The hunters connected with military posts, and dependent on the 

 Russian Company, of which the principal shareholders live at Irkutsk. 

 In 1804 the little fortress (krepost) at the bay of Jakutal was still six 

 hundred leagues distant from the most northern Mexican possessions. 





