These people were sanguinary in their worship of Bochica and the gods. At the end of every fifteen years, they sacrificed a boy, who had been previously educated in the chief temple until he was fifteen. On this occasion, the priests led the victim with much ceremony to a column erected in a sacred spot, to which they bound him, and in the presence of the assembled nation, he was dispatched by the arrows of the warriors, after which, his heart was torn out, and offered on the altars of Bochica. They appear to have known the use of a rude sort of dial, by the columns which were erected in various places, and to one of which, the boy victim was always attached; they had also attained some knowledge in sculpture, as their calendar was engraved on a stone, and other specimens of the progress they had made in this art have been occasionally found. The ancient state of the town of Quito, and the first discoveries and settlements of the southern and eastern regions of New Granada, by Benalcazar and his followers, will be treated of under the head of the presidency of Quito. _Climate._--The climate of New Granada presents great variety; the elevated Cordillera of the Andes, and the eternal snows which cap its summits, render this country, though it lies partly under the equator, subject to all the cold of the polar regions; whilst on its low savannahs, the tropical heats are felt with all their ardour. The elevated plains between the ridges of the Andes, enjoy a temperate and unvariable climate, and it is in these delightful spots, that the European colonists have chiefly fixed their abodes. FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY. THE great feature of the kingdom of New Granada or Santa Fé, is that amazing range of mountains denominated the _Cordillera of the Andes_, which crosses the country from the south to the north, and as some of the most sublime scenes in that astonishing chain exist in this viceroyalty, a general description of the whole will be given here from the latest sources of information.