344 SPANISH SETTLEMENTS. 
litical Essay on New Spain, served to dispel in 
some measure the darkness ; and since the period of 
Humboldt’s visit numerous travellers have contri- 
buted so materially to our acquaintance with Mexico, 
that it no longer remains among the least known of 
those remote countries of the globe over which the 
power of Europe has extended. 
Although the independence of the American states 
has now been confirmed, and their political rela- 
tions entirely changed since the time our author was 
there, the aspect of nature continues the same in 
those extensive 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 
countries 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 Af- 
rica, and exceeding the vast regions possessed by 
the Russian empire or Great Britain in Asia. 
They were divided into nine great governments, of 
which five, viz. the viceroyalties of Peru and New 
Grenada, the capitanias-generales of Guatimala, 
Porto Rico, and Caraccas, are entirely intertropical, 
while the other four, viz. the viceroyalties of Mex- 
ico and Buenos Ayres, and the capitanias-generales 
of Chili and Havannah, including the Floridas, are 
chiefly situated in the temperate zones. Mexico 
was the most important, as well as the most civilized 
of the whole, and was long considered as such by 
the court of Madrid. 
