CHAPTER II
COLONIAL TIMES
In 1564 the president arrived in state with all the trappings appropriate to his high rank. His powers were most ample; he was practically vicegerent of the Castilian king; his jurisdiction extended not only over the Bogotá-Pamplona plateaux and Tolima on the upper Magdalena, but also over Santa Marta, Cartagena, Antioquia, and even to Panama and the Mosquito coast. The name of New Granada, which Quesada had given to his conquests in honor of his native province in Spain, was extended to the whole presidency. To it were also attached, though loosely, the provinces that now make up the republic of Venezuela. But access to the Venezuelan coast from Bogotá was so difficult as to prevent that region from ever being really a part of the New Granada presidency, and it became an independent captaincy-general in 1731. The eastern boundary of the president's immediate jurisdiction included the provinces which naturally communicated with the Colombian plateaux, but the extension of the Andes north-east from Pamplona along the Venezuelan coast was left to be settled from Coro. For similar reasons the valley of the upper Cauca—Cali and Popayan, as well as Pasto—was attached to the presidency of Quito, and the subordination of its governor to Bogotá was only incidental and gave rise to many disputes and conflicts. The administrative entity of New Granada may be said to have included the territory which the Spaniards had reached by the line of the Magdalena, and in addition the Cartagena region and the Isthmus. The last named province was a source of constant trouble, because the difficulties of communication and the diversities of interests really made it separate from the rest of New Granada. Panama's governor and independent audiencia frequently defied the commands received from Bogotá.
THE NATURAL BRIDGE AT GUARANDA.