sels can receive and discharge cargo. The bay is slowly
filling up, however, and two other landing-places--Salgar and
Savanilla--had to be abandoned before Puerto Colombia was selected.
The pier-head had 24 ft. of water alongside in 1907, but the silt
brought down by the Magdalena is turned westward by the current along
this coast, and may at any time fill the bay with dangerous shoals.
The oldest and best port on the coast is Cartagena, 65 m. south-west
of Barranquilla, which has a well-sheltered harbour protected by
islands, and is connected with the Magdalena at Calamar by railway.
The next best port is that of Santa Marta, about 46 m. east-north-east
of Barranquilla (in a straight line), with which it is connected by 23
m. of railway and 50 m. of inland navigation on the Cienaga de Santa
Marta and eastern outlets of the Magdalena. Santa Marta is situated on
a small, almost landlocked bay, well protected from prevailing winds
by high land on the north and north-east, affording excellent
anchorage in waters free from shoaling through the deposit of silt.
The depth of the bay ranges from 4-1/2 to 19 fathoms. The town stands at
the foot of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, which restricts the area
of cultivatable land in its immediate vicinity, and the enclosing high
lands make the climate hot and somewhat dangerous for foreigners.
Since the development of the fruit trade on the shores of the
Caribbean sea and Gulf of Mexico by an important American company,
which owns a large tract of land near Santa Marta devoted to banana
cultivation, and has built a railway 50 m. inland principally for the
transportation of fruit, the trade of the port has greatly increased.
The population of this region, however, is sparse, and its growth is
slow. The fourth port on this coast is Rio Hacha, an open roadstead,
about 93 m. east of Santa Marta, at the mouth of the small river
Rancheira descending from the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta. It has little trade, and the undeveloped, unpopulated
state of the country behind it affords no promise of immediate growth.
There are other small towns on the coast which are ports for the small
vessels engaged in the coasting and river trade, but they have no
international importance because of their inaccessibility to
ocean-going steamers, or the extremely small volume of their trade.
The Gulf of Uraba is a large