474 



COMMERCE. 



bians have organized the system of the custom- 

 house, the people of the interior are less in- 

 clined to go there.* It is true that Santa Mar- 



* " The department of the Magdalena comprehends the 

 provinces of Rio Hacha, Santa Martha, and Carthagena. 



" The provinces of Rio Hacha and Santa Martha, being 

 separated by no mutual boundary or characteristic, we shall 

 consider as one tract of country. It occupies about two de- 

 grees of longitude, and one and a half of latitude ; is bound- 

 ed to the west and east by the rivers Magdalena and Rio 

 Hacha, and to the north and south by the ocean, and that 

 part of the chain of the Andes which traverses the province 

 of Ocana. It is, besides, intersected by the beautiful and 

 lofty ridge, called the Sierra Nevada, or Snow Mountains of 

 Santa Martha, whence descend numerous streams which 

 water it in every direction. It is on these streams, several of 

 which are navigable for some distance, and betwixt this ridge 

 of mountains and the sea, a foreign settlement might, in my 

 opinion, be most advantageously established ; the lands are 

 unoccupied, with the exception of two small villages of 

 peaceful and inoffensive Indians : they are eminently fertile, 

 and capable of producing abundantly cocoa, coffee, cotton, 

 sugar-cane, indigo, rice, tobacco, maize, and all kinds of 

 fruits and vegetables. There are large tracts of pasture 

 lands, of excellent quality, for raising cattle. The climate 

 is healthy, and the settler has the advantage, by ascending 

 into the mountains, of choosing a temperament congenial to 

 his constitution, and affording him every production of the 

 temperate zone. The sea abounds in fish, and the woods 

 with game and wild fowl. The city and port of Santa Martha 

 are on the left, the village of Camerones and port of Rio 



