It is bounded on the north by the provinces of Maracaybo and Venezuela, east by the plains of Caraccas and the Orinoco, west by Merida and New Granada, and south by Juan de los Llanos, or Casanare. This province was formed in the year 1787, by separating the southern districts of Venezuela and Maracaybo, when it was also constituted a distinct government. The chief has the title of governor, and his functions are the same as those of Cumana and Maracaybo, in the civil, military and ecclesiastical departments. In order to defend this new province, a militia was raised in 1803, and a garrison allotted to the city of Varinas, consisting of seventy-seven men. The chief products of this extensive country are tobacco, well known in the European markets, and cattle, sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo; and all the fruits of the torrid zone, find here a soil adapted to each; and their qualities are unrivalled. The commodities of Varinas are exported chiefly by water to Guiana; the place of embarkation being at a spot called Tocunos, five leagues below the city. The most remarkable features of this country are the extensive plains, of which it is mostly composed, and which are covered with a luxuriant herbage, feeding innumerable herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and droves of mules and horses; these are either used in the province, or exported by means of the Great Orinoco. Varinas is intersected by numerous large and navigable rivers, which occasionally inundate and fertilize its plains. Of these, the _Apure_, the _Portuguesa_, the _Guanarito_, the _Bocono_, _Guanapalo_, the _Arauca_, the _Capanaparo_, the _Sinaruco_, and the Meta, are the most noted. The _Apure_ rises in one of the ridges that diverge from the eastern branch of the Andes in New Granada, in the province of Santa Fé; its length is 170 leagues, of which forty are from north-east to south-east, and the rest from west to east, where it joins the Orinoco by a number of mouths, after having received many very fine rivers, which will one day serve to render the carrying on of the trade from the eastern district of New Granada, and the countries bordering on the Atlantic extremely easy. These rivers are the _Tinaco_, _San Carlos_, _Cojeda_, _Agua Blanca_, _Acarigua_, _Areyaruo_, _Hospicia_, _Abaria_, _Portuguesa_, _Guanare_, _Tucapido_, _Bocono_, _Masparro_, _La Yuca_, the _Santo Domingo_, _Paguay_, _Tisnados_, &c., which all come either from the mountains of Granada, or those of Venezuela, and mingle their waters with the Apure, in the immense plains of Varinas.