567 



traders, who devoted themselves to this inland 

 commerce, attacks were made from time to time 

 from the Castillo or fort of Carichana, on the 

 Guahiboes. 



The same means, that favoured the sale of the 

 productions of New Grenada, having* served to 

 introduce a contraband trade on the coasts of 

 Guyana, the merchants of Carthagena have in- 

 duced the government to put heavy shackles on 

 the freedom of commerce on the Meta. The 

 same spirit of monopoly has shut up the Meta, 

 the Rio Atracto, and the river of Amazons. 

 Strange policy that, which teaches mother-coun- 

 tries to leave those regions uncultivated, where 

 nature has deposited all the germes of fertility ! 

 The wild Indians have every where availed them- 

 selves of this want of population. They have 

 drawn near the rivers, they molest the passen- 

 gers, and attempt to reconquer what they have 

 lost for so many ages. In order to hold the 

 Guahiboes in awe, the Capuchin missionaries, 

 who succeeded the Jesuits in the government of 

 the missions of the Oroonoko, formed the pro- 

 ject of founding a city at the mouth of the Meta, 

 under the name of the Villa de San Carlos. In- 

 dolence, and the dread of tertian fevers, have 

 prevented the execution of this project ; and all 

 that has ever existed of the city of San Carlos, 

 is a coat of arms painted on fine parchment, 

 with an enormous cross erected on the bank of 



