Although the soil of New Granada offered endless possibilities to the colonists, the cost of transport and the difficulties attendant on this necessary commercial operation rendered agriculture in the interior of little importance as an industry.  Each settlement grew sufficient for its own needs, and no more.  Other factors in the slight use made of the rich soil were the natural indolence and the improvident habits of the people—­habits not yet quite eradicated, since at the present day Venezuela, although it possesses some of the richest and best maize-growing lands in the world, still imports maize from the United States.  From the creation of the Viceroyalty onward, attempts were made by the Spanish authorities to make the people industrious and thrifty, but these met with scant success.

The power and character of the aboriginal tribes may be estimated from the fact that, up to the end of the colonial period, Spanish authority in the immense territory of Quito was only exercised over a valley, formed by two spurs of the Andes, which reached some eighty leagues in length, with an average breadth of fifteen leagues.  At the beginning of the eighteenth century a number of towns were established by Catholic missionaries on the Atlantic coast and on the rivers emptying into the Gulf of San Miguel; but the Indians destroyed them all, and remained so little dominated by the white race that a treaty of peace, concluded between Spaniards and native chiefs in 1790, contained a clause by which the Spaniards consented to abandon all their forts in Darien.

Beyond these there were other foes to be feared, quite as grim and even more dangerous.  In 1670 the famous buccaneer, Captain Morgan, destroyed the castle of San Lorenzo at Chagres.  This, of course, was in addition to his feat of capturing and burning the town of Panama.  Ten years later another party of buccaneers captured the city of Santa Maria, in consequence of which the mines of Cana were closed in 1685.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century William Paterson established a Scottish colony on the Bay of Caledonia, at Puerto Escoces, but the venture scarcely proved a success.  Ill-fate seems to have pursued most of the attempts at settlement in New Granada while the Spanish rule lasted.  Yet the town of Santa Fe de Bogota flourished, and has continued to flourish to this day, so that no less an authority than Mr. R.B.  Cunninghame Graham has described it as the chief literary centre south of Panama.

The town is set at the foot of the hills, facing a vast plain, and towards the end of the colonial period was represented as a city of 3,250 families—­a population of upwards of 16,000.  It was the centre of archiepiscopal authority, with jurisdiction over the Dioceses of Cartagena, Santa Marta, Panama, Caracas, and Quito.  The route from Bogota to Europe lay by way of Cartagena, 300 miles distant from the capital.