Behind the Popa, which commands a fine view of the city and sea beyond it, is a lake, on the bank of which a young medical man had bought land, and was preparing to sow in it sea-island cotton seed, which he expected would be a good speculation. It could, at all events, hardly turn out a worse one than that of his profession in this city, where the natives pay only a quarter dollar, or shilling, a visit, and foreigners only half a dollar.

The pleasantest ride is that out of the San Domingo (northern) gate of Carthagena, to Boca Grande, but it is spoilt for pedestrians, owing to the custom of throwing out in heaps, near the gates and walls, all the dirt and offal of the city, which corrupt the atmosphere for some little distance. The road passes over a pretty green sward, on the neck of land that separates the outer sea from the inner harbour, shaded by low mango trees, to a fine hard beach, scattered with broken trees and roots thrown up from the sea, and with low rocks, whereon crawl numberless crawfish ; Boca Grande is about a mile and a half from the walls; and near it is a small fishing hamlet of about twenty-five houses, inhabited exclusively by negroes. The enjoyment of this evening ride is debarred to the inhabitants by the military regulations which enjoin the shutting at sunset of all the gates except those of Ximini, which are left open till eight.

The climate of Carthagena, during the months of January and April, is very endurable, there being, then, few or no mosquitoes-the absence of which compensates for almost any other annoyance. In April, the sun is shaded at times by the clouds, which gather for the approach of the rainy season; but this rather increases the sultriness, for, though they moderate the heat of the sun, the heaviness of the atmosphere deadens the breeze. The summer is the dry season, from December to April, the winter, the rainy one from May to November, in the middle of which, from July to October, fall the heaviest rains. In the summer, north-east breezes prevail, often blowing most boisterously, and cooling the air greatly. In the winter, the wind more generally blows from the south-west and south-east. In January, the range of Fahrenheit's thermometer is between 79 and 82 deg.; in April its lowest, at daylight, was 79 deg., and its highest, at noon, 86 deg. In the rainy season it ascends commonly to 92 deg. To English ideas it seems strange that the warmest season should be called winter; but the wettest and hottest weather is here considered the severest. The above may be considered the general temperature on the coasts of New Granada, which have not, like the interior of the country, the advantage of being cooled by high elevation and snowcovered mountains. The only exception in New Granada to this observation, is Santa Martha, where a mountain overhangs the sea, whose summit shows perpetual snow.

The most common diseases in Carthagena and its neighbourhood are intermittent fevers, from which the inhabitants suffer greatly in the rainy season. The health of the city is always greater in proportion to the dryness of the season. The yellow fever no longer ravages the coast, as formerly; this is, perhaps, to be attributed in great part, to the cessation, since the Revolution, of all intercourse with Mexico, where it still rages periodically; this view is rendered the more probable by Ulloa's statement, that it was unknown in Carthagena and its neighbourhood till 1729, before which date, there

was very little communication between New Granada and Mexico. Its last severe visitation at Carthagena, was in 1826, since which time it seems to have vanished, though it is still a subject of alarm to inexperienced travellers who meditate a visit to Colombia. Among the lower classes, elephantiasis is very common, and is aggravated by their uncleanly habits. In the bay is an island called Isla de Lazarinos (Leper Island) on which is a small village of about forty houses, all inhabited by lepers, and no one is allowed to land there without an authorization. The common people suffer, also, greatly, in Carthagena and its neighbourhood, from niguas (the jiggers of the West India Islands), which, when neglected, breed in the foot and leg, producing loathsome disease, and sometimes lameness. Padre Gumillo states that in 1720, some families from the Canary islands, died in Guayana only from niguas.

The population of Carthagena comprises persons of all castes and colours-Whites, Negroes, Mulattoes, Mestizoes (offspring of Whites and Indians), Sambos, or offspring of Negroes and Indians and Pardos, which was the name given to the castes not accurately defined; but Negroes and Mulattoes of darker and lighter shade, form the great majority. Among the Mulattoes are seen, occasionally, some who possess great personal attractions, and a few of the white women have a large share of beauty, which, however, is in general very short-lived in these countries. The constitution of the Whites is naturally weaker than that of the dark classes, to whom heat is congenial. The gradual shades of colour are most carefully defined in countries of mixed white and black population,-each shade further removed by intermarriage from the negro original being thought superior to the one before it; the Quinteron, for instance, fifth grade from black, considers himself of higher caste than the Quarteron, or fourth, and the Quarteron than the Terceron, or third, till, in the sixth generation, all trace of black blood is supposed to be gone, and the whitewashed offspring takes his station among the Whites. So great is the preponderance of Negroes and Mulattoes in Carthagena; and so unfriendly a feeling prevails between them and the Whites, that it has frequently excited alarm among the latter, and in August, 1833, a conspiracy was detected in the city, fortunately in time to defeat it, of the black population to rise against the Whites. Detection, though it averts danger for the time, still leaves fear behind it, so that a certain degree of disquietude must always prevail among a part of the population.

Carthagena is the principal entering port of the commerce of New Granada, though it is a dangerous place for the deposit of goods, being, like the banks of the coast and Magdalene, infested by a small insect called the Comejen, which, in a short time, eats through wood and stuffs, and almost everything in short but metal. It is stated to be a small red moth, hardly visible. The trade of the port furnishes the principal occupation of the upper and middling classes, the latter of whom mostly, and some of the former, keep retail shops of provisions or mercery, and are employed in the Custom House, which is extensive, and in other public offices. The lower classes find work as porters, servants, and market attendants, but the greatest proportion are fishermen; any trade suits them, provided only its labour be very light and afford frequent intervals of recreation. These conditions are a sine quâ non; for though, in so exhausting a climate, the gasping European cannot wonder that

privation with rest should be preferred to competence with toil, it must yet be confessed that indolence in Carthagena and its neighbourhood. steeped as they are to the lips in poverty, passes all bounds of reason and duty. Except on festivals, the supreme pleasure of the natives is to sit at their doors or lie in their hammocks, with the eternal cigar in their mouths, which neither sex can live without in New Granada, at least among the lower classes; amongst the females of the higher, smoking is not so universal as it was. So indispensable is this custom that sentries on guard, to whom it is rigorously forbidden, contrive to enjoy it, and deceive their officers by keeping the lighted end in their mouths. At the last siege of Puerto Cabello, by the patriots in 1823, this practice cost some lives, for the Spaniards used at night to detect a group of officers smoking by the light of their cigars, and fire a volley in their direction, which was generally sure to carry death to some of the party. A Carthagena fisherman will catch on the Monday three or four large fish, keep one or two for himself, and with the purchase money of the rest buy a little salt to dress and cure his own with, a hundred plantains, and a few cigars; and having thus provisioned himself will be induced by no consideration to do any more work that week.

But on the occasion of church-festivals, or dances, they shake off their indolence, which will not yield to the dread and hardly to the pressure of want. Their taste for dancing is a passion, and on nights so hot that Europeans find the least exertion disagreeable, they are seen dancing most actively in the squares, and even in small rooms, and this they continue for three or four hours. The people of colour are remarkable for their vivacity, are of very quick temper, and inherit their share of Spanish pride. Owing to the excitement of the climate, the cheapness of intoxicating liquors (chicha, guarapo, sugar-cane brandy, and anise), and the remissness of the authorities in the execution of the laws, great disorders prevail in the littoral provinces, and the lower classes on the coast have a larger share of the demoralization arising from indolence than in the interior.

The dress of the lower classes is, for the men a cotton shirt and trousers, and straw hat, the feet being commonly bare in both sexes; for the women a gown of printed cotton and straw hat. The better orders of women dress with taste, in light gowns and mantillas, with neat shoes and stockings for their small feet, of which they are very proud; and the men in light jackets, which, on occasions of visits or ceremony, are exchanged for coats.

A theatre was opened at Carthagena in 1830, by a small company of actors on their way out of the country, assisted by a few amateurs of the city. It was formed of a private house unoccupied and dilapidated, and was disposed in the shape of a long horseshoe. It had a pit, on each side of which was a gallery on the same level, two tiers of boxes available, the price of admission to which was four reals or two shillings; these were divided only by rails at the sides and back, with a passage behind. There was no roof, which of course made it difficult to hear, and the stars shone on the actors and audience, so that the performances were limited to the fine season, and even then were at times prevented by a rainy evening. A low Spanish comedy was tolerably well acted, and gave great amusement. The performance began at half-past eight, and was concluded at midnight.

The only promenades of the inhabitants are the plain between the city

and Popa, and the esplanade, a large broad platform on the ramparts, where recruits were drilled and troops exercised by the Spaniards, and still are by their successors. But the great assemblies and festivities of this people are during the festivals and public ceremonies of the church, which command their undivided attention.

On Holy Thursday, all the better classes, gente decente, as they are called, of the city throng to the churches and visit each other, dressed in black and looking hot and wretched; in the evening all the churches have their altars brilliantly illuminated, and are dressed out in flowers, pictures, images, &c. All the people of the city walk from one church to another, the men who can afford it in black cloth coats, and the ladies in white dresses, mostly with black, but a few with white, lace mantillas, necklaces, earrings, and brooches. Carthagena is an unfavourable theatre for the church processions, for as it is too hot to display them when the sun shines, and it is dark immediately on its setting, they must move by torchlight, which, though it gives a brilliant effect in the focus, throws into the shade all the well-dressed ladies following without candles. The narrow streets afford no room for spectators, and they crowd tumultuously, unrestrained by any police, round the pretty children dressed as angels in red and blue embroidered velvet, with long rich trains draggling in the dust, and the bearers of the figures arrayed in white linen robes, and white caps with black girdles and fillets, on whom flowers are thrown from the balconies, so that all is irregularity and confusion. On Easter Eve, dressed up figures, with gunpowder in them, are burnt in the streets; it is usual to make one of these represent some unpopular public man of the day: sometimes the President of the Republic himself, a paper bearing his name being affixed to it. the morning of Easter Sunday, immediately after midnight, the streets are filled with crowds loudly singing, accompanied by a military band.

On

Among the ceremonies to which the writer was invited on his first arrival at Carthagena, was a dinner given by General Montilla, the prefect of the department, which differed little as to abundance or ceremony from those in other towns of the Republic, except that it was enlivened by a military band. The host was an old officer of the Revolution, about forty-five, with most pleasing manners. An asthma, from which he suffered much, disabled him from living in the colder climates of the interior, and thus confined his services to the warmer regions of the coast, excluding him from Congress and offices of state. The party consisted of about thirty, including the civil and military authorities of the city, foreign consuls, officers of an English ship of war in the bay, and some of the principal English merchants. The dinner, which was abundant and elegant, and carved by the guests themselves, was divided into two courses, platos de sal, as they were called, and platos de dulce, or dessert; between these was a long quarantine, which is the least agreeable part of a South American party, being passed by the guests in smoking and conversing in other rooms, or in the corridors, while the dinner is changed for the dessert, as there is hardly ever space sufficient for laying out both at once. This interval is seldom less than three-quarters of an hour, and sometimes an hour and a half. The dessert is by far the most showy part of the banquet, being crowded with fruits, flowers, jellies, preserves, sweetmeats, &c., which the New Granada ladies make with great taste and skill, and on such occasions, contributions of dishes are sent from all friends in the

Much

city and neighbourhood. At the dessert, toasts are given, and speeches made, in which the natives, profiting by the great copiousness and pliability of the Spanish language, show much tact and talent. wine was drunk, especially Champagne, the favourite beverage, but the guests, though excited, stopped short of intoxication, which is seldom seen among the better classes of New Granada.

A dinner given by a native gentleman in Bogotà was a much more elaborate performance; each of the two courses consisted of sixty dishes (the guests being forty-six in number), of which a large proportion might as well have been imitations of food, for the table was ten feet wide, and they were ranged down the centre, so as to be totally inaccessible, except by mounting on the table. Those dishes intended to be used were placed along the sides. This same gentleman afterwards gave a grand dinner, in honour of the Pope's internuncio, of which dinner he published an account, wherein it was stated that the guests were eighty in number, and the dishes fifteen hundred. The waste in such fêtes is enormous, as the servants indulge in riot and plunder uncontrolled. At a ball and dinner in Bogotà, given by subscription to about two hundred guests, of whom thirty only were at the dinner, the consumption of wine amounted to between thirty and forty demijohns, large wicker-covered bottles, containing about sixteen quarts bottles each.

The decline of Carthagena in wealth, commercial importance, and mercantile population, is shown by the enormous diminution in the rents of its houses, among other symptoms. Since the division of Colombia, completed in 1832, which restricted its trade to the supply of New Granada alone, the best houses in the city have been rented from 30 to 40 dollars a month.

In concluding the sketch of Carthagena, it may be well to add, that it is, in common with Chagres, a place of banishment for convicts, from the interior provinces of New Granada, who are sentenced to presidio, that is, alternate confinement and forced labour, in the works of the fortress. Among these criminals, the writer saw two men, who had murdered a priest, in the neighbourhood of Bogotà. These men had escaped capital punishment, owing to their victim having, through Christian over-scrupulousness, refused in his dying moments to designate his murderers, although he confessed he knew them. Through the deficiency of evidence, as to the murder, these undoubted assassins were only sentenced, on other testimony, to the punishment of presidio, for the robbery. A nephew of the unfortunate cura, whom the writer met at Carthagena, found on his arrival there, these two men at large, as clerks in a commercial house, frequenting the theatre, and living with their mistresses. He had complained to the governor of this abuse of justice, but said he had no hope of redress, as such practices were not uncommon, where the culprits had means of bribery at command.

On leaving Carthagena, begin the difficulties of the traveller who intends to visit the interior provinces. But this is a subject which our limits will not permit us to touch upon at present.