mules were supplied not only with abundance of green barley, but with Indian meal. Our night's repose was confortable, as blankets were abundant, and we rose about seven o'clock in the morning of the 28th December, and had scarcely appeared when an excellent breakfast of both coffee and chocolate, with cakes fresh and well baked, some Bologna sausages without garlic, and some very excellent fruit which the alcalde had sent for in the preceding night to the lower regions; and the fine young man greeted us on our evident recovery from the previous day's fatigue, with such sociable kindness, as merits to be remembered, at least I shall not forget it very soon.

CHAPTER XX.

Hospitality.-Leave Muchachees.-Meet the senior alcalde-his kindness.-Village of Mucabichi.—Wheat mountain-reaping—a warmer climate-cottontrees-some account of.-Tabay-turbulent Chama.-Plateau of Merida.-Governor Paredes-sumptuous accommodation and entertainment-surprised by an alarm of fire, fire-false alarm-laughable-accounted for.—Sierra nevada of Merida-its ices on the table,-give zest to our wine.-Military gentlemen.-The Spaniards in our road-an escort ordered for us.-Visitors-their inquiries gratified.-Temperature.-The effects of the Earthquake.-Population-several sources of error concerning it.-Archbishop Gongora.-Representative government.-Democracy perverted.-Rivers near Merida.—Vincente at a fandango-in durance vile.--A refresco before parting, on the 30th December, delays us to one o'clock.--Determined to sleep at Exido.

OUR repose at this place was very pleasing-we were furnished-with bedding-clothes more than we required: it was with some repugnance I rose at seven o'clock, nor should I have risen till an hour later, had not the kindness of our host rendered the respect of waiting on him a matter of propriety. He had provided us not only with as good a

breakfast as we could have found in Philadelphia, but the chocolate and the coffee were smoking on the table. We partook of the repast with most grateful and pleasant feelings-and we afterwards found, that he had placed on our mules a quantity of eggs, and a pair of roasted fowls, with slices of nice corned pork, carefully and neatly wrapped up. We left Muchachees at eight o'clock, and had proceeded but a few miles when the senior alcalde met us, in full gallop, on his return; he saluted us kindly, prayed us to return and spend at least a day at his house, and he would introduce to us some company, whom we should be as much pleased with as they would be with us. We declined returning at that time, and expressed our grateful sense of the kindness with which his faithful representative had entertained us. He renewed his request that we would spend a few days with him, and I was obliged to assure him I had been on the road already twenty days longer than was consistent with the affairs I had in charge. This was nearly the last, and certainly among the best of the alcaldes we had met; from this point, the alcaldes, with a few exceptions, became only secondary among our hospitable entertainers, until we passed Tunja.

We passed through Mucabichi, near which, entering a narrow pass between two mountains, of very steep sides, we saw reapers at work, in a position that was entirely new and unheard of by me. The houses or cottages, which were but few, stood on the more depressed side of the pass; we entered one of those cottages to procure potatoes or milk, and indulge curiosity; the woman of the house spoke to her husband from the door; he stood with his back towards her, on the steep side of the mountain, where he was reaping some very fine wheat. The mountain side was ranged in steps, running level along in front, the wheat had been sown on those steps, and the reaper commencing below, cut and left the cut straw to a small boy or a girl to be tied up in

sheaves; the lower step being cleared, he proceeded to the next above, and so in succession to the top. The sides of the mountains of Merida are celebrated for their fine wheat, said to be sufficient to supply the whole republic, were there roads to transport it. But seaports are too distant, where the roads are either impassable, dangerous, or tedious to travel, or where there are no roads at all. Our route was now a gentle descent, the presence of wheat was an indication of a temperate climate; but it soon became warm, as we descended, the mountains on our left had wound off to the south-east, and that on our right was now less elevated, and its base was, in some respects, like those of the valley of Aragua, throwing out short limbs or promontories, standing out more or less advanced from the main ridge., Winding round the bluff of one of those projections, the ground became depressed and flat on our left, and covered here and there with large fragments of dispersed rocks, among which trees appeared, bearing a flower in great profusion, that gave it the appearance of what is commonly called the Snowball, (Hydrangea hortensis.) The space between the rocks on the left, and the bluff on the right, now became narrow, and, as the passage opened, several neat, small cottages stood before the sun, and in their front the trees in blossom: a little girl, of about eight or ten, skipt across the road as we were approaching, and mounting, with the agility of a goat, the rocks beneath those trees, which grew in the narrow intervals that separated the rocks. The tree was about the size of an ordinary apple-tree, but with an erect stem, and from the surface of the soil to the lower branches about five feet; the extent and elevation of the branches varied; but the shape was rather inclined to that of the thick end of an egg, than a sharper cone; I halted, and seeing the little girl with two small baskets on her arm, into which she sorted the flowers she picked, I halted till she had concluded, and followed her across the road. Her baskets were filled, and the flowers she

plucked were of two kinds, one was filled with pods of cotton, already ripe, and requiring only exposure to the sun to be wrought and cleaned; the other basket contained pods not so ripe, but which were laid on a bed of clean snow-white cotton to complete its ripening by the sun. The little girl, and there were several other females, placed herself on her mat, and very unconcernedly continued her operations, opening two pods at the same time, with the thumb, and over the fore-finger of each hand, discharging the seed into a basket placed for the purpose, and forming the product of each pod into a long flat layer, upon which she successively laid others; and when the pile was of the purposed size it was twisted into a knot-like shape, and placed among others, and covered over. Though these were not the first cotton-trees I had seen on the route, I had not attended to them so circumstantially as on this occasion. I cannot avoid observing that the botanical books are very deficient as to this tree; there seems to be a doubt entertained in some of them, that cotton grows on trees as large as the ordinary appletree, because the plant which produces cotton in Macedonia, and in the United States, is an annual plant. The cottontree, I make no doubt, would benefit by more care and cultivation. But as it is, no culture is applied, the tree grows from the seed, and when mature, besides two crops in the year, that of spring and fall, it is a perpetual producer.

Our next stage brought us to the village of Tabay, standing on a sloping plain, which lay spread below us, and the turbulent Chama in the distance on our left, bounding over rocks and frothing with its noise, as it tumbled headlong to south-west. We reached Tabay at two o'clock, and dined on our own provisions, and as the atmosphere was warm, did not move until four o'clock, so that it was nearly dusk when we reached the dry bed of the river Mouhoon, which has its source in the west, and discharges its periodical flood in the rainy season into the Chama. The lofty platform on

which stands the city of Merida, has its eastern face defined by this river, and in order to reach that city, it is necessary to pass some distance up the Mouhoon valley, in order to gain the broad path which is cut out of the upright bank, that leads by a gradual ascent to the plateau above. We gained this elevation, said to be more than two hundred and forty feet above the plain from which we ascended. The sergeant proceeded to the city about a mile distant, and, knowing the place had a governor and military staff, we proceeded in that direction. Governor Paredes ordered a sumptuous house for our reception, the apartments were well lighted, handsome beds were prepared for us all; and in an hour after our arrival, an ample table was covered with fine damask linen, and a supper in the handsomest style; the governor's servants waited; his butler intimated that we should oblige the general by calling for any wine we preferred. An aid of the governor spent the evening and supped with us, and delivered a compliment upon our safe arrival from the governor, and that he would wait upon us next day. We were ready for repose at ten.

The house we occupied in Merida was public property, and kept in better condition than any I had seen since we left Valencia. As the bed was comfortable, and I felt the necessity of rest, I took no heed of waking early, but soon after dawn, I was suddenly aroused by a cry of "fire! fire! fire!" as distinctly as it is heard in Philadelphia. I started up, unconscious for the instant where I was, and it was only on going to a window which opened on a small patio, I recollected I was in Merida; I was turning about in the same unheeding manner, when the same voice screamed "Colonel Todd! Colonel Todd!" I knew the colonel must by that time be at Bogota, and I must have looked rather sheepish, when I found myself thus surprized by a parrot. In fact, Colonel Todd, on his route to Bogota, lodged in the same place; Colonel Lyster, of the Colombian army, accompanied