Thanksgiving

...for a plentiful harvest.

Wishing my American friends a happy Thanksgiving.

Map of Panama and Columbia

I wasn't expecting to say be able to say any more about this card than that it's a reproduction of a map from 1671, drawn by Guiljemus Blaeuw, called "Terra Firma et Novum Regnum Granatense et Popayan".  And that although it was sent to me from Chile, it had been bought in Colombia.

In trying to find out more about Guiljemus Blaeuw and Panama, I discovered that in the late 1690s Scotland had attempted to set up a colony in Panama.  I have never heard anything about this before, but I'm not well versed in Scottish history.  It was called the Darien Scheme after the densely forested area of Panama.  It was the disastrous failure of the proposed colony that led to the Act of Union between Scotland and England.