320 PLATEAU OF CAXAMATICA. 



attention once again to the circumstance that the shortest 

 way to the shores of the Pacific, which was shown by 

 the natives to Alonso Martin de Don Benito, is in the 

 eastern part of the Isthmus, and led to the Golfo de San 

 Miguel. We know that Columbus (Yida del Almirante por 

 Don Fernando Colon, cap. 90) sought for an " estrecho de 

 Tierra firme" ; and in the official documents which we possess 

 of the years 1505 and 1507, and especially 1514, mention is 

 made of the desired " opening" (abertura), and of the pass 

 (passo), which should lead directly to the " Indian Land of 

 Spices." Having for more than forty years been occupied 

 with the subject of the means of communication between the 

 two seas, I have constantly, both in my printed works and 

 in the different memoirs which with honourable confidence 

 the Free States of Spanish America have requested me to 

 furnish, urged that the Isthmus should be examined hypso- 

 metrically throughout its entire length, and more especially 

 where, in Darien and the inhospitable former Provincia de 

 Biruquete, it joins the continent of South America ; and 

 where, between the Atrato and the Bay of Cupica (on the 

 shore of the Pacific), the mountain chain of the Isthmus 

 almost entirely disappears. (See in my Atlas geographique 

 et physique de la Nouvelle Espagne, PL iv. ; in the Atlas de 

 la Relation historique, PL xxii. and xxiii. ; Yoyage aux 

 Regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, T. iii. p. 117- 

 154 ; and Essai politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle 

 Espagne, T. i. 2de edit. 1825, p. 202-248.) 



General Bolivar at my request caused an exact levelling of 

 the Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio 



