250 



pica, Oti the coast of the South Sea,, and the Rio 

 Naipa, which empties itself into the Atrato, fif- 

 teen leagues above its mouth. A biscayan 

 pilot, M. Gogueneche, called the attention of 

 government to this point in the year 1799. Per- 

 sons worthy of credit, who had made the pas- 

 sage with him from the Pacific Sea to the Em- 

 barcadere of Naipi, assured me that they saw 

 no hill in that isthmus of alluvial earth, which 

 they were ten hours in crossing. A merchant 

 of Carthagena, South America, deeply inte- 

 rested in all that regards the statistics of New 

 Grenada, Don Ignacio Pombo *, wrote to me in 

 the month of February 1803 : — " Since you as- 

 cended the Rio Magdalena to Santa-Fe, and 

 Quito, I have never ceased to take informations 

 respecting the isthmus of Cupica ; there are 



Puerto Quemado b Tupica, at 7° 15' lat. (Carta del Mar de las 

 Antillas, 1805. Carta de la costa occidental de la America, 

 1810.) A manuscript sketch in my possession of the pro- 

 vince of Choco, confounds Cupica and Rio Sabaleta, lat. 

 6° 30' j yet, Rio Sabaleta is placed in the maps of the Depo- 

 sito, south, and not north of Cape San Francisco Salano, con- 

 sequently, 45' south of Puerto Quemado. According to the 

 map of the province of Carthagena, by Don Vicenti, London > 

 1816, the confluence of the Rio Napipi (Naipi ?) is 6° 40' 

 lat. It is to be hoped that these uncertainties of position 

 will soon be removed by observations taken on the spot. * 

 * Friend of the celebrated Mutis, and author of a little 

 work on the trade of quinquina (Noticias varias sobre ww qui- 

 nas officinales, Carth. de Indias r 1817), which I have several 

 times had occasion to quote. 



