175 



as Jujuy, Salta, and Tucuman, belong to Buenos Ayres, 

 properly so called. The limit of Upper Peru is now, on the 

 east, only an imaginary line traced across uninhabited sa- 

 vannahs. It cuts the Cordillera of the Andes at the tropic of 

 Capricorn, and thence crosses, first, the Rio Grande, 26 

 leagues below San Yago de Cotagayta ; then the Pilcomayo, 

 22 leagues below its confluence with the Cachimayo, which 

 flows from la Plata or Chuquisaca ; and, finally, the Rio Pa- 

 raguay, in the 20° 50' of south latitude. If the basin of the 

 lake of Titicaca, and the mountainous part of Upper Peru, 

 where the language of the Inca prevails, were to be re- 

 united to Couzco, the plains of Chiquitos and Chaco might 

 still form a part of the government of the Pampas of Buenos 

 Ayres. 



Chili. The limits of Chili on the north are the desert of 

 Atacama, on the east the Cordillera of the Andes, where the 

 road of the couriers passes between Mendoza and Valpar- 

 aiso, at the height, according to barometric measures taken 

 in 1794 by M. d'Espinosa and Bauza, of 1987 toises* above 

 the level of the sea. I took for the southern limitf the en- 

 trance of the gulf of Chiloe, where the fort of Mauilin 

 (lat. 41° 43') is the most southern possession of Spanish 

 America on the continent. The bays of Ancud and Relon- 

 cavi no longer present any fixed settlements of European 

 colonists ; there begin the Juncos, who are independent, not 

 to say wild Indians. From these statements it results, that 

 the European settlements extend much farther to the south, 



* This is, however, 440 toises less than the culminant 

 point of the road of Assuay, between the towns of Quito 

 and Cuenca, of which I took the level in 1802. See my 

 Obs. astron. Tom. i, p. 312, No. 209. 



+ Political Essay on New Spain, vol. i, p. 0 j vol. iv, 

 p. 285. 



