On the Atlantic it possesses a coast line of upwards of 1000 miles, richly furnished with bays and natural harbours. Proceeding westward from Calabozo Creek, in the Gulf of Maracaibo, the first inlet of real importance which wo discover is the Bahia Honda, which is well protected from the strong winds of the east and north, but is rendered unsuitable for the establishment of a port by its lack of drinkable water. Passing by the Bay of El Portete, we next reach the ports of Riohacha and Dibulla, of which the former is of considerable commercial importance as a centre of exportation, though it is greatly surpassed by that of Santa Marta, which is the next to break the coast-line. Santa Marta is situated at the side of the Cienega Lagoon, which stretches 25 miles from south to north, with a breadth of 11 from east to west, has communication with the lakes of Pajaral and Cuatro Bocas, and, though rather shallow, can be navigated by flat-bottomed steamboats. At the mouth of the Magdalena lies the port of Barranquilla, and a short distance to the west that of Sabanilla, one of the most active along the whole coast. After these comes the splendid Bay of Carthagena, known for centuries to all navigators of the Caribbean; and still further to the west the coast is broken by the port of Zapote, the Bay of Zispata, the Gulf of Morrosquillo, and finally by the noble Gulf of Darien, with the estuary of the Atrato and the ports of Turbo, Guacuba, Candelaria, &c. Along the isthmus are the Mandinga Creek; the Bay of Portobello, so famous in the history of Spanish America; the modern port of Colon, or Aspinwall, at the entrance of Navy Bay; and the now decadent port of Chagres. The coast-line of the Pacific is hardly so important as that of the Atlantic, except along the isthmus, where it forms the great Bay of Panamá, with the subordinate inlets of Parita Bay on the west and the Gulf of San Miguel on the east. Along the remainder of the line are Cupica, San Francisco, Solano, Palmar, and Charambira (the last obstructed by a bar), the large Bay of Malaga, protected by the Isla de Palmas, with the harbours of Guapi and Izcuandé, the Bay of Pasa Caballos, the harbour of Tumaco, and in the Island of Gorgona the fine harbour of Trinidad.

The western part of Colombia is one of the most mountainous districts in the world; its eastern extension belongs to the great plains of the Orinoco and the Amazon. The mountains are all more or less directly portions of the system of the Andes. Entering at the south from the territory of Ecuador, they form an extensive plateau from which a large number of rivers take their rise. The portion known as the paramo of Cruz Verde has, according to Steinheil, an elevation of 10,975 old Paris feet, or about 11,695 English feet. From this table land the system breaks up into three ranges, which stretch north through nearly the whole length of the country, with a general parallelism of direction least maintained by the eastern portion. Of these ranges the loftiest at first is the Central, or the Cordillera of Quindiu, which contains the snow peaks of Huila, Ruiz, and Tolima, the culminating peak of the Andes north of the equator; but in 5° 5' N. lat., where this range sinks down, the Eastern rises to the snow limit, and is the most elevated of the three Cordilleras. The Eastern Cordillera, or the Cordillera de la Suma Paz, runs north-east to the paramos of Pamplona, from which it sends out a branch to meet the massif of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. In its passage through the state of Santander it attains in the Alto de el Viejo an altitude of 12,965 feet, in Alto de el Trio of 9965, and in the Boca del Monte of 12,735. The Sierra Nevada is said to reach a height of 23,779 feet, and it is certainly covered with perpetual snow oyer a large part of its summit. The Western Cordillera, or Cordillera de Choco, is the least remarkable of the three, and has been worn down in many places into what are comparatively mere rounded hills with easy passages between; it continues northward, however, much further than the central chain, and in fact extends right through the Isthmus of Panamá.

The llanos or plains of the Orinoco extend eastward from the slopes of the Cordillera de la Suma Paz. As far south as the Vichada they form an almost complete level, destitute of trees, and affording abundant pasturage; while further south they are covered with forests, display considerable irregularity of surface, and are not unfrequently broken by steep rocks rising to a height of from 300 to 600 feet.

The fundamental formations throughout Colombia are igneous and metamorphic, the great masses of the Cordilleras consisting of gneiss, granite, porphyry, and basalt. In many places the Carboniferous strata have attained considerable development, though they have been thrown into strange confusion by some unknown disturbance. Volcanic forces are still at work, as is shown by occasional earthquakes, aud also by such phenomena as those at Batan near Sogamoso, where the subterranean heat is great enough to affect the local climate. Glaciers are still extant in the Paramo del Ruiz, and possibly in some of the other snow-clad heights. The slopes of the various Cordilleras are frequently covered with deep beds of gravel; and the valleys are full of alluvial deposits of very various periods. The rivers have in many instances cut remarkable passages for themselves through the mountains; and, according to Codazzi, the Sogamoso has at one time been the outlet of a vast series of lakes which he believed to have occupied the highlands of Bogotá, Tunja, and Velez.

The rivers cf Colombia belong almost entirely to the great Atlantic versant; but they are distributed by the principal water shed in very various directions. The two most important are the Magdalena or Rio Grande and the Cauca, which both flow from south to north through nearly the entire length of the country,—the former occupying the valley between the Eastern and the Central Cordilleras, and the latter that between the Central and the Western. They unite about 130 miles before reaching the sea, but they so long maintain an independeut course that neither can fairly be regarded as a mere tributary of the other. The Magdalena takes its rise in a small lake called the Laguna del Buey or Ox Lake, situated in the plateau of Las Papas. It receives from the right hand the Suaza, the Rio Neiva, the Cabrera, the Prado, the Fuzagasanga, famous for the falls of Tequendama, the Bogotá, the Carare, the Opon, the Sagamoso, itself a considerable stream, and the Rio Cesar, a fine river from the Sierra Nevada; and from the left the La Plata, the Paez, the Saldaña, the Cuello, the Guali, the Samana, or Miel, the Nare or Rio Negro, and various minor tributaries. The Magdalena is one of the most important water highways of the country, in spire of the fact that its current is so rapid as to make the upward voyage both difficult and tedious. From Honda, where the progress is interrupted by rapids, a native boat takes only about three days to reach the sea, while no fewer than six weeks are spent, even when the water is low, in returning against the stream. Steamers of from 50 to 200 tons burden, however, have plied regularly since 1833 between Honda and Barranquilla. The Honda rapids can be surmounted by haulage, and steamers descend them in safety, though there is a fall of 20 feet in two miles, and of 16 feet in the first. Above this point the channel is clear about half-way to the source; and though the traffic is still mainly carried on by native boats and rafts, a German named Alexander Weckbecker succeeded, in 1875, in taking a large steamboat—the “Moltke ”—three times to the town of Neiva. The Cauca rises to the west of the source of the Magdalena, in the Lake of Santiago, in the paramo of Guanacas. In the upper part of its course it flows through a volcanic region, and its waters are so impregnated with sulphuric and other acids that they are destructive of fish. These acids are mainly contributed by the headstream of the Rio Vinagre or Vinegar River, which rises in the Purace volcano. The principal tributaries are the Piendamó, the Ovejas, the Palo, the Amaime, and the La Vieja, from the Central Cordillera; and the Jamundi and a large number of minor streams from the Western. After the junction of the Cauca and the Magdalena the united stream attains an imposing breadth; but it breaks up into several channels before it falls into the sea. The River Atrato, which disembogues in the Gulf of Darien and separates the main branch of the Eastern Cordillera from the isthmian ranges, is of high importance, not only in itself as an actual means of communication, but as affording, in the opinion of many engineers, one of the most feasible means of forming an interoceanic canal. So important was it regarded by Philip II. that its navigation was forbidden in 1730 on pain of death; and the prohibition was not removed for a considerable period. The account, however, so frequently repeated, of the possibility of passing from the Atlantic to the Pacific versant by means of a canal, excavated about 1788 in the Raspadura ravine by some enterprising monk, seems to have little or no foundation. The Atrato rises in the slopes of the Western Cordillera, has a course of about 300 miles, and a breadth, during the last 96 miles, of from 750 to 1000 feet. Its depth in this lower part of its passage varies from 40 to 70 feet or even more. At Quibdó, 220 miles from the embouchure, it is still 850 feet wide aud 8 to 20 feet deep; and as the fall of the river is only about 3 inches to a mile, steamboats can pass as far as the confluence of the San Pablo and Certigui, 32 miles above Quibdó.

Of those rivers that belong to the Orinoco system the most important are the Guaviare, the Meta, and the Vichada. The first is formed of the Guayavero and the Iriwida, which flows from the mountains of Tunahí; and the principal tributaries of the second are the Chire, the Casanare, and the Lipa. Of those that belong to the Amazon are several tributaries of the Rio Negro branch, and the Caquita, or Japura. This last rises in the eastern slopes of the same table-land which gives birth to the Magdalena and the Cauca; and its principal affluents are the Pescado, the Caguan, and the Apopon i. Though belonging to Colombia only by its head waters, there is another tributary of the Amazon which bids fair to be of great importance to the country as a means of communication with Brazil. This river, the Rio Iça or Potumayo, rises in the Andes in the province of Pasto, under 2° N. lat., has a total length from its source to its confluence of 932 miles, receives in its course 36 affluents, of which several would afford passage for steamboats, and waters a region that abounds in gum elastic, sarsaparilla, cocoa, nut-wood, Pasto resin, gold, and other means of wealth. Its depth is from 7 to 34 feet during low water, and twice as great during flood; at some places it has a breadth of 1300 feet, and its current is from 3 to 4 nautical miles an hour. A steamer only takes 10 days to pass from the confluence with the Amazon to the mouth of the Guamués; and this place is only 80 or 90 miles from the province of Pasto. The opening up of this route is due to Raphael Reyes, a full account of whose exploration will be found in Petermann’s Mittheìlungen for 1876. The only rivers that remain to be noted are those of the isthmus; and these are chiefly of importance for their bearing on the question of iυteroceanic communication. The principal aro the Chagres, disemboguing in the Atlantic, and the Tuyra, the Chepa or Bayanos, and the Chiriqui, which find their way to the Pacific.

Many of the Colombian rivers take their rise in mountain lakes, and several of them fill considerable basins in their course; but throughout the country there are very few of those extensive sheets of water that form so usual a feature in most mountainous regions. The River Cesar flows through the lakes of Zipatosa and Adentro; between the Cauca and the Nechi lies Lake Caceres, as well as several others of less importance; the district of Tunja still preserves the Lake of Tota; and in Bogotá is the famous Guatavita, where the Muiscas are reputed to have sunk their treasures.

Colombia is distinctively a mineral country, and the list of its productions in this department includes gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, iron, mercury, and antimony, limestone, potash, soda, magnesia, alum, and salt, coal and asphalt, emeralds, amethysts, and amber. Many of the most important deposits are as yet untouched, owing mainly to the defective state of internal communication, and even those that have been worked have proved much less remunerative from the same cause. Gold especially is very widely diffused; it was freely used by the natives before the arrival of Europeans, and formed a valuable source of revenue to the Spanish Government, who employed thousands of negroes and Indians in the task of collection. It is principally obtained from alluvial deposits; and in some districts there is hardly a stream that would not furnish its quota. Hydraulic appliances were introduced about 1870 in some of the workings; and a more systematic treatment is being gradually adopted. Antioquia is the most important gold-producing state in the confederation; the total value of gold and silver exported from the capital in 1875 was 2,403,241 dollars; there were upwards of eighty lode mines at work in 1875; aud 15,000 men and women are employed in the mining. The silver frequently occurs in very rich lodes; but, owing it would seem to various economical causes, many of the mining operations have been unsuccessful. The “Santa Anna” mines in Tolima, which were worked from 1826 to 1873 (for some years under the direction of Air Robert Stephenson, the railway engineer), yielded during that period about £700,000 worth of ore, but ultimately proved a failure. The “Frias” silver mine, belonging to the Tolima Mining Company of London, yielded in 1875 300 tons of ore valued at £100 per ton. The emerald mines are remarkable as being the only known source of the genuine stone. They are situated at Muzo, in the state of Boyacá, in the Central Cordillera, to the north of Bogotá. Soon af ter the Spanish Conquest they were worked on a large scale by the Government; but towards the close of the 18th century it was found that it cost 6500 pesos to extract 1000 pesos worth of emerald, and they were consequently abandoned (see Ezpeleto’s report in Relax. de los Vireyes, p. 347). After the war of independence the mines were appropriated by the republic, from which a French company obtained a monopoly from 1864 to 1874. During this period the stones found a ready market in Paris, where green was the imperial colour. Since theexpiry of the contract the mines have been demonopolized. The emeralds are found in two distinct layers of calcareous bitumen, the upper of which is black and friable, and the under compact. In the upper the emeralds occur in “nests,” in the lower in veins, and usually in the neighbourhood of bands of fluor-spar. The finest stones may be worked up to a value of £20 a carat; the worst sorts are only worth about 5s. Coal is pretty generally distributed throughout the republic, and the great bed of Cali probably extends to the Pacific. Rock-salt is obtained in the table-lands of Bogotá, Tunja, aud

Pamplona, and forms an important Government monopoly.

Though Colombia is situated within the tropics, and, in fact, as we have seen, is crossed by the equator in its southern limits, its great irregularity of surface and its extensive coast-lines develop a great variety of climatic conditions. A comparatively short journey transports the traveller from the sultry valley of the Magdalena, where the water grows tepid and the stones burning hot in the sun’s rays, to the summits of a mountain where the snow lies cold from year to year. In the table-lands and valleys of the Eastern and Western Cordilleras, at a height of 800 to 9500 feet above the level of the sea, there are two dry seasons and two rainy, the former commencing at the solstices and the latter at the equinoxes, while in the lowlands both of the Pacific and the Atlantic seaboard there is only one dry and one rainy of six months each. In the Gulf of Darien and the Isthmus of Panamá there is no such distinction, and rain occurs in any part of the year, The greatest mean temperature in the country is about 86° Fahr., and the lowest in the inhabited parts of the Cordilleras is about 44°. At Honda, which is about 1000 feet above sea-level, the daily range of the thermometer is only from 8° to 12°, and the annual not more than 20°. “The hottest place,” says Mosquera, to whom we are largely indebted, “which I have found in New Granada, is the port of Ocaña, where I have on several occasions seen the thermometer in the shade at 104° Fahr.” In the llanos of the Orinoco the mean annual temperature is about 80° Fahr., while in the forest district to the south the average is about 8° higher. In the latter the rain is distributed throughout the year, while in the former the seasons are distinctly marked, and from November till April the rains fall in torrents accompanied with dreadful thunderstorms.

In keeping with this variety of climate the Colombian flora ranges from purely tropical forms in the lowlands up to purely Alpine or boreal types in the mountains. The tree limit on Tolima, in the Central chain, is 10,360 feet. The country abounds with extensive forests, in which timber of gigantic proportions waits for the settler’s axe. Besides several of the common species of palm trees which are found as high as 2500 feet above the sea, there are two remarkable species, the Ceroxylon andicola, Palma de Cera, or Wax-palm, and the Oreodoxa regia, or Palmita del Azufral, which in company with the oak, frequently clothe the Cordilleras to a height of 6000 or 8000 feet. They are both of extreme beauty, and the. former shoots up to about 180 or 200 feet. From the Sierra Nevada and other districts are obtained logwood, Brazil-wood, and fustic; and the Mgroxylon toluifera, from which the balsam of Tolu is collected, grows luxuriantly on the banks of the Rio Negro. Excellent Indiau-rubber is obtained from the Castilloa elastica, a lofty and luxuriant tree, which occurs in considerable abundance in Panamá, Cauca, and other states. The quantity and quality of the material might be greatly increased and improved, as the collection is still in the hands of a very rude and careless class of men. Under the superintendence of Mr Cross the tree is being introduced into British India. Cinchona of six or seven different varieties is common throughout the country,—the elevation most favourable for its growth being between 7800 and 9000 feet above the sea. Of other medicinal plants there may be mentioned the aloe, the sarsaparilla, the albataque, and the vine of the cross. The cotton plant grows wild in many parts and yields an excellent fibre; indigo is indigenous; and an almost endless variety of fruits are found throughout the country.

The fauna is perhaps hardly so rich as the flora, but it does not fall far behind. Of monkeys there are at least seventeen...