TEBIUTOHT AND POPULATION. 135 



These two Mexican Intendencias together, are nearly a third 

 of the superficial extent of France, with a suitable popula- 

 tion (in 1S2.'J, nearly 2,800,000 souls), to prevent the 

 towns of Mexico and Puebla from having a sensible influ- 

 ence on the relative population. 



Northern part of the Province of Caracas (without the Llanos) . 208 



This table shews that those parts of America which we 

 now consider as the most populous, attain the relative 

 population of the kingdom of Navarre, of Gralicia, and the 

 Asturias, which, next to the province of Guipuscoa, and the 

 kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number ot 

 inhabitants to the square league in all Spain ; the maximum 

 of America is, however, below the relative population of the 

 whole of France (1778 to the square league), and would, 

 in the latter country, be considered as a very thin population. 

 If, taking a survey of the whole surface of America, we 

 direct our attention to the Capitania-General of Venezuela, 

 we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the 

 province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without except- 

 ing the Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of 

 Tennessee ; and that this province, without the Llanos, 

 furnishes in its northern part, or more than 1800 squares, 

 the relative population of South Carolina. Those 1800 

 square leagues, the centre of agriculture, are twice as nume- 

 rously peopled as Finland, but still a, third less than the 

 province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain. 

 We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling. 

 Such is the state to which colonial "politics and mal-adminis- 

 tnition have, during three centuries, reduced a country, 

 which, for natural wealth, may vie with all that is most 

 wonderful on earth. For a region equally desert, we must 

 look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of 

 the Alleghani mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, 

 where the first clearings have only begun within the last 

 eighty years ! 



The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the 

 basin of the lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles 

 de Aragua, contained in 1810, nearly 2000 inhabitants to the 

 square league. Supposing a relative population three times 

 less, and taking off from the whole surface of the Capitaiu'i- 

 General nearly 24,000 square leagues, as being occupied 



