Honda is the first port on the upper part of the great river; it is represented by M. Bouguer as a pleasant little town, “une petite ville tres riante,” lying in north latitude 5° 16ʹ, and 72° 36ʹ 15ʺ west longitude. The river is navigable for barks a great distance from Honda towards its sources, so that this town is the mart of the commerce between the northern and southern provinces of New Granada.
Mariquita is situated four leagues west-south-west of Honda, on the little river Guali, which passes through the latter place into the Magdalena. This town was formerly much celebrated for its gold mines, and its district contains at present, on the west, those of Bocaneme and San Juan de Cordova, with the mines of Hervi, Malpasso, Guarino, and Puano; and on the east are the silver mines of Sta. Anna, Lojas, and Frias, the silver in these being mingled with the purest gold which is extremely difficult to separate from it. The town was formerly exceedingly rich and populous, but owing to the want of exertion in the working of the mines, is now reduced to 300 inhabitants, and to comparative insignificance. It is eighty miles south from Santa Fé, in 5° 16ʹ north latitude, and 74° 6ʹ west longitude.
Mariquita is remarkable for having been the place where Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of New Granada, died in the year 1597. His body was removed to the cathedral of the capital, where it is enclosed in a monument.
San Gil is a small town on the northern frontier near the junction of the rivers Sogamozo and Suarez, as is Socorro, which lies a short distance south of San Gil, near the banks of the Suarez, and is 123 miles north-north-east of Santa Fé; the inhabitants amounting to more than 3500.
Velez is 100 miles north of Santa Fé, in 5° 50ʹ north latitude and 73° 16ʹ west longitude, on the river Suarez.
Muzo is a small town near the banks of the Magdalena, and on those of the river Negro, which flows into the former. The Muzos or Musos, were, and still are, a race of Indians, who were noted for being at continual war with the Muyscas or Bogotians. Their country was extremely rich in emeralds, and is mountainous, hot and moist. They had a singular tradition, that there was in ancient times on the other side of the Magdalena, the shadow of a man called Ari, which amused itself with making wooden faces of men and women, casting them into the stream, from whence they issued in the form of human beings, and he taught them to cultivate the earth; they then dispersed, and from this stock came the Indians who inhabit the surrounding regions.
The Muzos had no gods, nor did they worship the sun and moon, as the Bogotians did; as they said these bodies were created after the wooden faces, in order to give them light when they became living beings.
Their marriage ceremonies were singular, the wife beating her husband during the honey-moon. Their dead were dried before a slow fire, and not buried till a year had passed after their demise; and the widow was obliged to cultivate the ground for her support until the interment, when her relations took her home.
Leiva is a small town situate at the foot of the Paramo de Guacheneque, north of the capital.