88 COLOMBIA South American states. The government sup- ports a district school in each parish. The government of Colombia is republican, founded on a written constitution adopted in 1863, modelled after that of the United States, but differing in some particulars. The executive power is vested in a president elected for two years; the legislative authority in a congress, consisting of an upper house, or senate, and a house of representatives. The senate has 27 members, each of the nine states sending three. The house of representatives, elected by uni- versal suffrage, is made up of delegates from the several states, each sending one member for every 50,000 inhabitants, and an additional one for a fraction of 20,000 and over. A vice president, elected for the same term as the president, acts as chairman of the senate. The president's powers are exercised through four ministers, or secretaries, viz., of the interior and of foreign affairs, of finances, of the treas- ury and the national credit, and of war, all re- sponsible to congress. The highest court of justice is the supreme court, which has three judges and a procurator general. Each of the states has its own legislature and executive officer. The Eoman Catholic faith predom- inates, the head of the hierarchy being the archbishop of Bogota; but there is absolute independence of church and state. All other religions are tolerated, and there is perfect freedom of worship. The army in time of peace consists of 1,420 men; in time of war, each state furnishes a contingent of 1 per cent, of the population. There is no navy. The national income, about one half of which is de- rived from the customs, was made up of the following elements in 1870 : Customs receipts $1,431,928 Salt monopoly '. 758,329 Panama railway 250,000 Mint 29,213 Postal service 51,282 National property 26,600 Public lands 6,817 Sundry receipts 185,613 Total $2,789,777 The expenditures of the same year were a little over $3,000,000. The total income for the year ending Aug. 31, 1872, was $3,219,733; for 1873 it reached $3,400,730; and the ex- penditures for the latter year were $3,250,730, leaving a surplus of $150,000. According to the president's message of April 4, 1872, the foreign debt amounted to $33,362,250, and the home debt to $9,899,710. The interest paid on the former was about $750,000 annually, under the act of congress decreeing that 37 per cent, of the net customs receipts should be thus applied. The foreign debt has been, how- ever, by agreement with the creditors, trans- formed into a debt of $10,000,000, at an annual jnterest of $450,000, dating from Jan. 1, 1873. The inhabitants of the country on its discov- ery were, like those of Mexico and Peru, distin- guished into two grand branches: the savages of the lowlands and coast regions, and the semi-civilized family of the table lands. The Colombian highlanders were the Muyscas, or more properly Chibchas, the word Muysca in the Chibcha tongue merely signifying "men" or "people." The origin and the elements of civilization introduced among them were at- tributed to two mythical beings, Bochica, or Bochia, and Nemterequeteba, who are fre- quently confounded with one another. Bochia was the more mythical of the two, was regard- ed as divine, and even as equal to the sun. His companion Chia, or Huitaca, occasioned through her magical art the submersion of the beautiful valley of Bogota, and for that rea- son was banished from the earth by Bochia, and made to revolve round it as the moon. Bochia next struck the rocks of Tequendama, and thereby opened a passage through which the waters flowed off in the neighborhood of the Giant's Field. Such is the traditional ori- gin of the picturesque falls of Tequendama. Nemterequeteba, surnamed Chinzapogua (the messenger of God), corresponding to the sec- ond Buddha of the Hindoos, was regarded as a human being. The country was ruled by three powers. The spiritual chief was the electoral high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso ; the temporal princes were the zaqui of Hunsa or Tunja, and the zipa of Funza, who would seem to have been in the feudal constitution originally subor- dinate to the zaqui. The Chibchas had a regu- lar system of computing time ; for money they used small circular gold plates, all cast of equal size. Their temples of the sun were built with stone columns, some vestiges of which were dis- covered in Leiva at the beginning of the present century. Their language was rich, sweet, and harmonious. The people were frugal and in- dustrious, but little versed in the art of war, for, although numbering about 2,000,000, Quesada subjugated them with 200 Spaniards. Other architectural relics in various parts of the coun- try were probably the work of a still more highly cultivated race than the Chibchas, and perhaps allied to the Aymaras of Upper Peru. Of the origin of the coast Indians, such as the Mesayas, Goajiros, &c., still mostly in a savage state, and speaking their own languages, little is known, except that they bear no resemblance to any of the other American families. The coasts of Colombia were discovered by Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, and visited by Eodrigo Bastidas in 1501, and by Columbus in 1502. It was first called Tierra Firme by the Spaniards, and Cas- tilla de Oro, or "Golden Castile." The con- quest was effected in 1536-'7, and the country erected into a viceroyalty called New Granada in 1718. The first efforts for emancipation from Spain were made in 1781 and 1795; indepen- dence was proclaimed in 1811, and secured by Bolivar in 1819, when a union was formed with Venezuela and Quito, under the name of the republic of Colombia. (For an account of the struggle for independence, see BOLIVAE.) This union was dissolved in 1829 by the withdrawal
