Volume Iii Part 4 (2/2)

As in political economy numerical statements become instructive only by a comparison with a.n.a.logous facts I have carefully examined what, in the present state of the two continents, might be considered as a small relative population in Europe, and a very great relative population in America. I have, however, chosen examples only from among the provinces which have a continued surface of more than 600 square leagues in order to exclude the accidental acc.u.mulations of population which occur around great cities; for instance, on the coast of Brazil, in the valley of Mexico, on the table-lands of Santa Fe de Bogota and Cuzco; or finally, in the smaller West India Islands (Barbadoes, Martinique and St. Thomas) of which the relative population is from 3000 to 4700 inhabitants to the square league, and consequently equal to the most fertile parts of Holland, France and Lombardy.

MINIMUM OF EUROPE:

INHABITANTS TO THE SQUARE LEAGUE.

The four least populous Governments of European Russia: Archangel : 10.

Olonez : 42.

Wologda and Astracan : 52.

Finland : 106.

The least populous Province of Spain, that of Cuenca : 311.

The Duchy of Luneburg (on account of the heaths) : 550.

The least populous Department of Continental France : 758.

(Hautes Alps)

Departments of France thinly peopled (the Creuse, : 1300.

the Var and the Aude)

MAXIMUM OF AMERICA.

The central part of the Intendencias of : 1300.

Mexico and Puebla, above

In the United States, Ma.s.sachusetts, but having only 522 square leagues of surface : 900.

Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together : 840.

The whole Intendencia of Puebla : 540.

The whole Intendencia of Mexico : 460.

These two Mexican Intendencias together are nearly a third of the superficial extent of France, with a suitable population (in 1823 nearly 2,800,000 souls) to prevent the towns of Mexico and Puebla from having a sensible influence on the relative population.

Northern part of the Province of Caracas : 208.

(without the Llanos)

This table shows that those parts of America which we now consider as the most populous attain the relative population of the kingdom of Navarre, of Galicia and the Asturias, which, next to the province of Guipuscoa, and the kingdom of Valencia, reckon the greatest number of inhabitants to the square league in all Spain; the maximum of America is, however, below the relative population of the whole of France (1778 to the square league), and would, in the latter country, be considered as a very thin population. If, taking a survey of the whole surface of America, we direct our attention to the Capitania-General of Venezuela, we find that the most populous of its subdivisions, the province of Caracas, considered as a whole, without excepting the Llanos, has, as yet, only the relative population of Tennessee; and that this province, without the Llanos, furnishes in its northern part, or more than 1800 square leagues, the relative population of South Carolina. Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture, are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain.

We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling. Such is the state to which colonial politics and maladministration have, during three centuries, reduced a country which, for natural wealth, may vie with all that is most wonderful on earth. For a region equally desert, we must look either to the frozen regions of the north, or westward of the Allegheny mountains towards the forests of Tennessee, where the first clearings have only begun within the last eighty years!

The most cultivated part of the province of Caracas, the basin of the lake of Valencia, commonly called Los Valles de Aragua, contained in 1810 nearly 2000 inhabitants to the square league. Supposing a relative population three times less, and taking off from the whole surface of the Capitania-General nearly 24,000 square leagues as being occupied by the Llanos and the forests of Guiana, and, therefore, presenting great obstacles to agricultural labourers, we should still obtain a population of six millions for the remaining 9700 square leagues. Those who, like myself, have lived long within the tropics, will find no exaggeration in these calculations; for I suppose for the portion the most easily cultivated a relative population equal to that in the intendencias of Puebla and Mexico,* full of barren mountains, and extending towards the coast of the Pacific over regions almost desert. (* These two Intendencias contain together 5520 square leagues and a relative population of 508 inhabitants to the square sea-league.) If the territories of c.u.mana, Barcelona, Caracas, Maracaybo, Varinas and Guiana should be destined hereafter to enjoy good provincial and munic.i.p.al inst.i.tutions as confederate states, they will not require a century and a half to attain a population of six millions of inhabitants. Venezuela, the eastern part of the republic of Columbia, would not, even with nine millions, have a more considerable population than Old Spain; and can it be doubted that that part of Venezuela which is most fertile and easy of cultivation, that is, the 10,000 square leagues remaining after deducting the Llanos and the almost impenetrable forests between the Orinoco and the Ca.s.siquiare, could support in the fine climate of the tropics as many inhabitants as 10,000 square leagues of Estramadura, the Castiles, and other provinces of the table-land of Spain? These predictions are by no means problematical, inasmuch as they are founded on physical a.n.a.logies and on the productive power of the soil; but before we can indulge the hope that they will be actually accomplished, we must be secure of another element less susceptible of calculation--that national wisdom which subdues hostile pa.s.sions, destroys the germs of civil discord and gives stability to free and energetic inst.i.tutions.

When we take a view of the soil of Venezuela and New Grenada we perceive that no other country of Spanish America furnishes commerce with such various and rich productions of the vegetable kingdom. If we add the harvests of the province of Caracas to those of Guayaquil, we find that the republic of Columbia alone can furnish nearly all the cacao annually demanded by Europe. The union of Venezuela and New Grenada has also placed in the hands of one people the greater part of the quinquina exported from the New Continent. The temperate mountains of Merida, Santa Fe, Popayan, Quito and Loxa produce the finest qualities of this febrifugal bark hitherto known. I might swell the list of these valuable productions by the coffee and indigo of Caracas, so long esteemed in commerce; the sugar, cotton and flour of Bogota; the ipecacuanha of the banks of the Magdelena; the tobacco of Varinas; the Cortex Angosturae of Caroni; the balsam of the plains of Tolu; the skins and dried provisions of the Llanos; the pearls of Panama, Rio Hacha and Marguerita; and finally the gold of Popayan and the platinum which is nowhere found in abundance but at Choco and Barbacoa: but conformably with the plan I have adopted, I shall confine myself to the old Capitania-General of Caracas.

Owing to a peculiar disposition of the soil in Venezuela the three zones of agricultural, pastoral and hunting-life succeed each other from north to south along the coast in the direction of the equator.

Advancing in that direction we may be said to traverse, in respect to s.p.a.ce, the different stages through which the human race has pa.s.sed in the lapse of ages, in its progress towards cultivation and in laying the foundations of civilized society. The region of the coast is the centre of agricultural industry; the region of the Llanos serves only for the pasturage of the animals which Europe has given to America and which live there in a half-wild state. Each of those regions includes from seven to eight thousand square leagues; further south, between the delta of the Orinoco, the Ca.s.siquiare and the Rio Negro, lies a vast extent of land as large as France, inhabited by hunting nations, covered with thick forests and impa.s.sable swamps. The productions of the vegetable kingdom belong to the zones at each extremity; the intermediary savannahs, into which oxen, horses, and mules were introduced about the year 1548, afford food for some millions of those animals. At the time when I visited Venezuela the annual exportation from thence to the West India Islands amounted to 30,000 mules, 174,000 ox-hides and 140,000 arrobas (of twenty-five pounds) of tasajo,* or dried meat slightly salted. (* The back of the animal is cut in slices of moderate thickness. An ox or cow of the weight of 25 arrobas produces only 4 to 5 arrobas of tasajo or ta.s.so. In 1792 the port of Barcelona alone exported 98,017 arrobas to the island of Cuba.

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