298 SPANISH SETTLEMENTS. 



Although the independence of the American states 

 has now been confirmed, and their political relations 

 entirely changed since the time our author was there, 

 the aspect of nature continues the same in those ex- 

 tensive regions ; and as we have less to do with 

 their history and national circumstances than with 

 the discoveries of the learned traveller, we shall 

 follow, as heretofore, his descriptions of the coun- 

 tries examined by him in the relations in which they 

 then stood. 



The Spanish settlements in the New Continent 

 formerly occupied that immense territory comprised 

 between 41° 43' of south latitude and 37° 48' of north 

 latitude, equalling the whole length of Africa, and 

 exceeding the vast regions possessed by the Russian 

 empire or Great Britain in Asia. They are divided 

 into nine great governments, of which five, viz. the 

 viceroyalties of Peru and New Grenada, the capi- 

 tanias-generales of Guatimala, Porto Rico, and Ca- 

 raccas, are entirely intertropical ; while the other 

 four, viz. the viceroyalties of Mexico and Buenos 

 Ayres, and the capitanias-generales of Chili and Ha- 

 vana, including the Floridas, are chiefly situated in 

 the temperate zones. Mexico was the most im- 

 portant as well as the most civilized of the whole, and 

 was long considered as such by the court of Madrid. 



The name of New-Spain was at first given in 1518 

 to the province of Yucatan, where the companions 

 of Grijalva were astonished at the civilization of the 

 inhabitants. Cortez employed it to denote the whole 

 empire of Montezuma, though it was subsequently 

 used in various senses. Humboldt designates by it 

 the vast country which has for its northern and south- 

 ern limits the parallels of 38° and 16°. The length 

 of this region from S.S.E. to N.N.W. is nearly 1678 

 miles ; its greatest breadth 994 miles. The isthmus 

 of Tehuantepec, to the south-east of the port of Vera 

 Cruz, is the narrowest part ; the distance from the At- 

 lantic Ocean to the South Sea being there only 155 



