224 POUT OF CARTEAOEITA. 





landscape scenery remarkable for beauty ; they have fur- 

 nished information respecting the inhabitants, and the 

 different modes of travelling in barks, on mules, or on men's 

 backs. These works, several of which are agreeable and 

 instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World 

 with those of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and 

 Chili as far as Zacatecas and New Mexico. But unfor- 

 tunately, in many instances, the want of a thorough know- 

 ledge of the Spanish language, and the little care taken to 

 acquire the names of places, rivers, and tribes, have occa- 

 sioned extraordinary mistakes. 



During the six days of our stay at Carthagena, our most 

 interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill 

 of Popa ; the latter commands the town and a very extensive 

 view. The port, or rather the bahia, is nearly nine miles and 

 a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near 

 the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of 

 Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru, 

 south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach 

 the opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of 

 the small island of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a 

 neck of land of the continent, and on the south, with a cape 

 of the island of Baru, the only entrances to the Bay of 

 Carthagena ; the former is called Boca Grande, the second 

 Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the land haa 

 given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely 

 contradictory respecting the defence of a place, which, next 

 to the Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important 

 of the main land and the West Indies. Engineers dif- 

 fered respecting the choice of the opening which should be 

 closed ; and it was not, as some writers have stated, after 

 the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea was 

 first conceived* of filling up the Boca Grande. The English 

 forced the small entrance, when they made themselves 



* Don Jorge Juan, in his Secret Notices, addressed to the Marques de 

 la Ensenada, says : " La entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que 

 llaman Boca Chica ; de resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y 

 impassable la Boca Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola." 

 [The old entrance was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but 

 after this invasion, it was determined to close up the Boca Grande, and fcf 

 open the ->ld passage, fortifying K] Seer. Not. vol. i, p. 4* 



