176 HONDA. 



have repaid us the hire of the champan. 

 The temperature of this place is hot, but 

 not unhealthy ; the air is agreeable ; and 

 this province produces maize, sugar, and 

 tobacco in abundance, and most of the 

 fruits of warm and temperate climates. . 

 The convents and churches are now in a 

 dilapidated and impoverished state ; a soli- 

 tary tower only to be seen here and there. 

 The population, which is said to have 

 amounted to ten thousand souls, now 

 scarcely exceeds three thousand. 



Honda is built on a rising ground, con- 

 nected with another and more consider- 

 able eminence, on which stands a little 

 suburb, by a wooden bridge of one arch, 

 in a very precarious state; below which, 

 at the depth of sixty or seventy feet, 

 rushes a foaming torrent called Guak, 

 which descends from the neighbouring 

 mountains of Mariquita. We crossed the 



