During the six days of our stay at Carthagena our most interesting excursions were to the Boca Grande and the hill of Popa; the latter commands the town and a very extensive view. The port, or rather the bahia, is nearly nine miles and a half long, if we compute the length from the town (near the suburb of Jehemani or Xezemani) to the Cienega of Cacao. The Cienega is one of the nooks of the isle of Baru, south-west of the Estero de Pasacaballos, by which we reach the opening of the Dique de Mahates. Two extremities of the small island of Tierra Bomba form, on the north, with a neck of land of the continent, and on the south, with a cape of the island of Baru, the only entrances to the Bay of Carthagena; the former is called Boca Grande, the second Boca Chica. This extraordinary conformation of the land has given birth, for the space of a century, to theories entirely contradictory respecting the defence of a place which, next to the Havannah and Porto Cabello, is the most important of the main land and the West Indies. Engineers differed respecting the choice of the opening which should be closed; and it was not, as some writers have stated, after the landing of Admiral Vernon, in 1741, that the idea was first conceived* of filling up the Boca Grande. (* Don Jorge Juan in his Secret Notices addressed to the Marques de la Ensenada says: La entrada antigua era por un angosto canal que llaman Boca Chica; de resultas de esta invasion se acordo deja cioga y impassable la Boca Grande, y volver a abrir la antigua fortificandola. [The old entrance was by a narrow channel called the Boca Chica; but after this invasion it was determined to close up the Boca Grande and to open the old passage, fortifying it.] Secr. Not. volume 1 page 4.) The English forced the small entrance when they made themselves masters of the bay; but being unable to take the town of Carthagena, which made a gallant resistance, they destroyed the Castillo Grande (called also Santa Cruz) and the two forts of San Luis and San Jose which defended the Boca Chica.