In this district, and in other parts of these immense territories, particularly to the eastward, are large tracts of land _devoluto_, or not occupied by any person under a grant from government. These lands to a considerable extent (half a league to a league square) may be taken by making proper application, and afterwards held as freehold. Other excellent situations are in the possession of indigent people, who are equally incapable and unwilling to reap advantage from them. These may be bought very cheap, and are certainly preferable to the unoccupied tracts, as they have generally some few conveniences attached to them, and may, therefore, more easily be brought into a proper state of cultivation. Here is every inducement for a spirited and experienced agriculturist to settle: a rich and fertile district, in which there remains much to be discovered in every department, where all the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life are produced almost spontaneously; and where the exertions of industry would be rewarded in a tenfold degree by the bounteous hand of nature, and stimulated by the certain hope of arousing a slender population to follow the example. Nor could there be any objection on the score of differences in opinion; for I am persuaded that no one would here be molested for his religious tenets, while he prudently avoided giving offence, and paid the same regard to the conscience of his neighbour which he expected for his own.
_Observations on Tejuco and Cerro do Frio_.
IN the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to present to the reader a narrative of whatever I observed worthy of note in the Diamond District, and have related the several particulars in the order in which they occurred to me, reserving the task of general description for that period of my residence there when I might be supposed best qualified to perform it. This mode of proceeding will expose me to the risk of a few repetitions, for which my apology must rest on the peculiar circumstances under which I visited Tejuco,—on the continual journeys in which I was occupied from the moment of my arrival to the time when I was attacked by illness, and which left me no leisure for combining my actual observations with general views of the country.