396 
NATIVE POPULATION. 
extends along a space of two hundred leagues. It is 
washed by the Caribbean Sea, a sort of Mediterranean, on 
the shores of which almost all the nations of Europe have 
founded colouies; which communicates at several points 
with the Atlantic; and which has had a considerable in- 
fluence on the progress of knowledge in the eastern part of 
equinoctial America, from the time of the Conquest. The 
kingdoms of New Grenada and Mexico have no connection 
with foreign colonies, and through them with the nations 
of Europe, except by the ports of C'arthagena, of Santa 
Martha, of Vera Cruz, and of Campeachy. These vast 
countries, from the nature of their coasts, and the isolation 
of their inhabitants on the back of the Cordilleras, have 
few points of contact with foreign lands. The gulf of 
Mexico also is but little frequented during a part of the 
year, on account of the danger of gales of wind from the 
north. The coasts of Venezuela, on the contrary, from their 
extent, their eastward direction, the number of their ports, 
and the safety of their anchorage at different seasons, 
possess all the advantages of the Caribbean Sea. The com- 
munications with the larger islands, and even with those 
situated to windward, can nowhere be more frequent than 
from the ports of Cumana, Barcelona, La Guayra, Porto- 
Cabello, Coro, and Maracaybo. Can we wonder that this 
facility of commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of 
free America, and the agitated nations of Europe, should in 
the provinces united under the Capitania-General of Vene- 
zuela, have augmented opulence, knowledge, and that rest- 
less desire of a local government, which is blended with the 
love of liberty and republican forms ? 
The copper-coloured natives, or Indians, constitute an 
important mass of the agricultural population only in those 
places where the Spaniards, at the time of the Conquest, 
found regular governments, social communities, and ancient 
and very complicated institutions ; as, for example, in New 
Spain, south of Durango; and in Peru, from Cuzco to 
Potosi. In the Capitania-General of Caracas, the Indian 
population is inconsiderable, at least beyond the Missions 
and in the cultivated zone. Even in times of great political 
excitement, the natives do not inspire any apprehension in 
the whites or the mixsd castes. Computing, in 1800, tlw 
