The Rio Meta, the Vichada, the Casanare, and several other fine streams flow through these plains, many of them taking their rise in the main chain of the Andes, and others in the branch called the Cordillera of the cataracts of the Orinoco.
The northern portion of the Llanos is sometimes styled the province of Casanare, of which Pore is the chief town, situated in a hot climate and unhealthy situation; but its territory produces cacao, maize, yuccas, plantains, &c., and it has some trade in dressed leather, manufactured by the inhabitants from the skins of the numerous herds of cattle which feed in the plains, and from those of the venados or deer, with which the province abounds. The rivers and lakes furnish abundance of fish, and are the means of transporting the goods of New Granada to Caraccas and Guiana.
The city of Pore or San Josef de Pore, is 133 miles north-east of Santa Fé de Bogota; 82 south of Pamplona, and in 5° 40ʹ north latitude, 72° 13ʹ west longitude; containing about 500 inhabitants.
The other places in the province or district of Casanare are chiefly missionary, and other villages, along the banks of the rivers which flow from the Andes of New Granada to the Orinoco.
PROVINCE OF SANTA FÉ.
Santa Fé, or Santa Fé de Bogota, is bounded on the north by Santa Marta and Merida; on the east by the lofty summits of the eastern part of the Cordillera of the Andes, and the province of San Juan de los Llanos; south by Popayan; and west by Santa Fé de Antioquia.
This province, which is exceedingly mountainous, is situated in the very centre of the viceroyalty of New Granada, on the west of the eastern branch or parallel of the main chain of the Andes, and on both sides of the great river Magdalena, which pervades the whole province from south to north. The highest summits of this eastern branch are the Paramo de la Summa Paz, and that of Chingasa: it divides the valley of the river Magdalena from the plains washed by the Meta and the Casanare. None of the summits of the chain of Santa Fé de Bogota, attain the regions of eternal snows, although they approach very near to it. The western slope of this chain is broken into numberless elevated plains and peaks, intersected with crevices of the most tremendous appearance.
The city of Santa Fé, which being the capital of the kingdom, has been already described, is situated to the west of the Paramo of Chingasa, at a great elevation; on the western declivity of which is the celebrated fall of the Tequendama. The outlets from Popayan or Quito to Santa Fé, are by means of roads traversing an assemblage of broken ground; and the pass of the Paramo de Guanacas, which lies across the Cordillera of Antioquia, is the most frequented, from which the traveler crosses the Magdalena, and arrives at the metropolis by Tocayma and Meza, or the natural bridges of Icononzo. These bridges are however not much frequented excepting by the Indians and travellers whose curiosity inspires them to venture in such desolate regions; they are the formation of Natureʼs ever varying hand, and are situated west of the Summa Paz, in the direction of a small river which rises in the mountain of that name. This torrent rolls through a deep and narrow valley, which would have been inaccessible, but for the arches thrown across it in so wonderful a manner.
The little village of Pandi is the nearest inhabited place to this pass, being a quarter of a league distant, and the whole road from the capital is one of the most difficult in the Andes.