392 
PHO VINCES OF VENEZUELA. 
Chajptek XII. 
General View of the Provinces of Venezuela. — Diversity of their Interests, 
— City and Valley of Caracas. — Climate. 
In all those parts of Spanish America in which civilization 
did not exist to a certain degree before the Conquest (as it 
did in Mexico, Guatimala, Quito, and Peru), it has advanced 
from the coasts to the interior of the country, following 
sometimes the valley of a great river, sometimes a chain of 
mountains, affording a temperate climate. Concentrated at 
once in different points, it has spread as if by diverging rays. 
The union into provinces and kingdoms was effected on the 
first immediate contact between civilized parts, or at least 
those subject to permanent and regular government. Lands 
deserted, or inhabited by savage tribes, now surround the 
countries which European civilization has subdued. They 
divide its conquests like arms of the sea difficult to be passed, 
and neighbouring states are often connected with each other 
only by slips of cultivated land. It is less difficult to acquire 
a knowledge of the configuration of coasts washed by the 
ocean, than of the sinuosities of that interior shore, on which 
barbarism and civilization, impenetrable forests and culti- 
vated land, touch and bound each other. From not having 
reflected on the early state of society in the New World, 
geographers have often made their maps incorrect, by marking 
the different parts of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, as 
though they were contiguous at every point in the interior. 
The local knowledge which I obtained respecting these 
boundaries, enables me to fix the extent of the great terri- 
torial divisions with some certainty, to compare the wild and 
inhabited parts, and to appreciate the degree of political 
influence exercised by certain towns of America, as centres 
of power and of commerce. 
Caracas is the capital of a country nearly twice as large 
as Peru, and now little inferior in extent to the kingdom of 
New Grenada.* This country which the Spanish govem- 
* The Capitania-Generai of Caracas contains near 48,000 squar« 
leagues (twenty-five to a degree). Peru, since La Paz, Potosi, Charcas 
