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POPULAR DESCRIPTION,

HISTORICAL AND TOPOGRAPHICAL,

GEOGRAPHICAL,

OF

COLOMBIA.

[A republic of South America, lying between lat 11° 30′ N., 0° 30′ S.: bounded, on the N., by the Caribbean Sea; E. by the Atlantic Ocean and Dutch Guiana; on the S. by Brazil and deserts which separate it from Peru; on the W. by Guatimala and the Pacific Ocean.]

THE well-chosen name of Colombia was assumed by the provinces formerly composing the vice-royalty of New Granada and the captain-generalship of Venezuela, on their incorporation into a Federal Republic in the year 1819. The country was discovered by Columbus; and thus, more than three hundred years after his death, tardy justice has been done to his memory, by giving his name to that portion of the New Continent on which he first landed. The admiral, Herrera informs us, was so much delighted with the beauty and fertility of these regions, that, with the warm enthusiasm of a discoverer, he imagined it to be the paradise described in Scripture, which the Almighty chose for the residence of man.* It was in the year 1498, in his third

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