224 
POET OP CAETHAGEITA. 
Idudscape scenery remarkable for beauty , tliev have fuP- 
nishod mformation respecting the inhabitants, and the 
different modes of traveUing in barks, on mules, or on men’s 
packs, ihese works, several of which are agrco.able and 
instructive, have familiarized the nations of the Old World 
with those of Spanish America, from Buenos Ayres and 
Ohih as far as Zacatecas and New Mexico. But unfor- 
tunately, in many instances, the want of a thorough know- 
ledge of tlie Spanish language, and the little care taken to 
acquire tim names of places, rivers, and tribes, have occa- 
sioneu extraorcunary mistakes. 
_ During the six days of our stay at Carthagena, our most 
interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill 
ot iopa ; the latter commands the town and a very extensive 
1 ^^ther the hahia, is nearly nine miles and 
a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near 
Bie suburb of .Teheraani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of 
Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Barn, 
south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach 
S'”°i "V ’r extremities of 
the smaU is and of lierra Bomba form, on the north, with a 
nock of land of the continent, and on the south, with a cape 
of the island of Barn, the only entrances to tlio Bav of 
Carthagena ; the former is called Boca Grande, the second 
iiocaUiica. Ihis extraordinary conformation of the land has 
given birth, lor the space of a century, to theories entirely 
contradictory respecting the defence of a place, which, next 
to the Ilavannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important 
of the main laud and the AV'est Iiidies. Engineers dit- 
fered respecting the choice of the opening which should be 
ctosed; and it was not, as some writers have stated, after 
the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741 , that the idea was 
first conceived'- of filling up the Boca Grande. 'Phe English 
oice e small entrance, when they made themselves 
* Don Jorge Juan, in hia .Secret Notices, addressed to the Marques de 
entrada antigua era por uu angosto canal qua 
llaman BocaChica; de resuUas de esta invasion se acordo deia cioea y 
tTre^old an “ ^ ^ fortificandola.’^ 
|.lhe old enhance was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica: but 
olen the ‘o up the Boca Grande, and » 
open the old passage, fortifying it,]— Seer. Not. vol. i, p. 4, 
