374 
FRONTIER POSTS. 
their neighbours. Steppes and forests nearly desert sepa- 
rate, at a distance of one hundred and sixty leagues, the 
cultivated part of the coast from the four missions of Marsa, 
Tomo, Davipe, and San Carlos, which are all that the Spanish 
Franciscans could establish along the Bio Negro. Among 
the Portuguese of Brazil the military system, that of presides 
and ccvpitanes pobladores, has prevailed over the government 
of the missionaries. Grand Para is no douht far distant 
from the mouth of the Eio Negro : hut the facility of 
navigation on the Amazon, which runs like an immense 
canal in one direction from west to east, has enabled the 
Portuguese population to extend itself rapidly along the 
river. The banks of the Lower Maranon, from Yistoza as 
far as Serpa, as well as those of the Eio Negro from Fort da 
Bara to San Jose da Maravitanos, are embellished by rich 
cultivation, and by a great number of large villages and 
towns. 
These local considerations are combined with others, 
suggested by the moral position of nations. The north- 
west coast of America furnishes to this day no other stable 
settlements but Eussian and Spanish colonies. Before the 
inhabitants of the United States, in their progressive move- 
ment from east to west, could reach the shore between the 
latitude 41° and 50°, which long separated the Spanish 
monks and the Siberian hunt-rs,* the latter had established 
themselves south of the C ** r ; n River. Thus in New 
California the Franciscan missionar.es, men estimable for 
their morals, and their agricultural activity, learnt with 
astonishment, that Greek priests had arrived in their neigh- 
bourhood; and that two nations, who inhabit the eastern 
and western extremities of Europe, were become neighbours 
on a coast of America opposite to China. In Guiana cir- 
cumstances were very different : the Spaniards found on 
their frontiers those very Portuguese, who, by their 
language, and their municipal institutions, form with them 
one of the most noble remains of Eoman Europe; but 
whom mistrust, founded on unequal strength, and too great 
* The hunters connected with military posts, and dependent on the 
Russian Company, of which the principal shareholders live at Irkutsk- 
In 1804 the little fortress (krcpost) at the bay of Jakutal was still si* 
hundred leagues distant from the most northern Mexican possessions. 
