158 



COLOMBIA. 



The desolation was, in some respects, as com- 

 plete as that of Conception, described in Chapter 

 VII. The slow, though sure, results of national 

 decline are visible in one place- — the rapid effect 

 of war in the other — in both the withering conse- 

 quences of misgovernment are distinctly to be 

 traced. 



On my return, I fell in with one of the mer- 

 chants of the place, who insisted upon taking me 

 home with him to breakfast. His wife did th§ 

 honours, and made tea in the English fashion, 

 but she did not carry her complaisance so far as 

 to drink any of it herself. Her husband was a 

 very intelligent person, who had studied particu- 

 larly the question of cutting a passage across the 

 isthmus; and had actually examined several of the 

 proposed lines. He seemed to consider the pas- 

 sage at the narrowest point, which on the map 

 looks so tempting, as by no means the best. In 

 the meantime, he was of opinion, that an immense 

 and immediate advantage would be gained by 

 making a good road from sea to sea across the 

 isthmus ; which might be done very easily, and 

 at an expence incalculably less than a canal could 

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