The inhabitants of the province are estimated at 30,000 to 35,000, of which about 4000 reside in Catamarca. The valley so called, and in which the greater part of this population is settled, runs from north-west to south-east, extending from the confines of Atacama to those of Rioja. On the eastern side it is separated from Tucuman first by the sierras of Ancasti and Ambato, and more to the north by the lofty chain of Aconquija: it is watered by a river which holds its course through it (said to have been once a much more considerable stream than at the present day), the waters of which are finally lost in the low sandy plains of the province of Santiago. The climate is sultry, and the people, at certain seasons, are very subject to intermittent fevers. They produce corn and cattle enough for their own subsistence, and supply the adjoining provinces largely with their cotton, the quality of that of Catamarca being in higher repute than their own, for their domestic manufactures: considerable quantities of red pepper are also sent from thence to Buenos Ayres. Catamarca, by the usual track, is about sixty leagues distant, south-west, from Tucuman. In a MS. by Dean Funes, in my possession, he places it in south latitude 28° 12´. The first Spanish settlement in this part of the country was formed by Juan Perez de Zurita, in the year 1558. He named it New England, and the principal town London, in celebration of the nuptials of his sovereign King Philip with our Mary. From thence, however, the Spaniards were shortly after expelled by the native Indians, and, removing to the valley of Conando, founded the town of Villagran. That district was subsequently abandoned from the same cause,--the continual hostility of the natives; and the population was finally settled in the valley of Catamarca.