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If the independent Indians have nearly disappeared for a century past northward of the Orinoco and the Apure, that is, from the Snowy Mountains of Merida to the promontory of Paria, it must not thence be concluded, that there are fewer natives at present in those regions, than in the time of the bishop of Chiapa, Bartolomeo de las Casas.

After this bloody sacrifice to policy or resentment, Theodoric carried his victorious arms as far as Merida, the principal town of Lusitania, without meeting any resistance, except from the miraculous powers of St. Eulalia; but he was stopped in the full career of success, and recalled from Spain before he could provide for the security of his conquests.

The thirst of gold everywhere precedes the desire of instruction, and a taste for researches into antiquity; in all the mountainous part of South America, from Merida and Santa Martha to the table-lands of Quito and Upper Peru, the labours of absolute mining have been undertaken to discover tombs, or, as the Creoles say, employing a word altered from the Inca language, guacas.

Not the three wives who got up from their graves in Merida and appeared to the husband to whom they had all been married, produced a more startling effect on that widower than D. Barbara on her husband Sebastian, when she would visit him as he was tending his herds on the mountain sides, for no woman ever had such a tongue.

Although his army numbered but 500 men, he succeeded in driving the enemy, not only from the country along the Magdalena River, but entered Venezuela, and forced his way westward to the important towns of Merida and Truxillo, where the people gladly welcomed him and rallied to his support.

The tardy repentance of the Goths had compared their own numbers and those of the invaders; the cities from which the march of Tarik had declined considered themselves as impregnable; and the bravest patriots defended the fortifications of Seville and Merida.

As we have said, his decision in this matter was based, among other things, on the realization that the freedom of Colombia was in constant danger while the royalists occupied Peru. While making preparations for the campaign, he received news from Santander, the vice-president of Colombia, that the Spanish general, Morales, was advancing from Merida to Cucuta with a powerful army.

We were then permitted to take out enough plates for immediate use, leaving the balance in Progreso until we should be ready for our return journey. Acting on the advice of the vice-consul, we changed quarters in Mérida from the Hotel de Mexico, to the Moromuzo, kept by an American who had been many years in the country, and where, though we paid even more for rooms, we had some comfort.

It is stated in the old Spanish accounts of Merida that it was built on that site because there was in the ruins an abundance of building material. There is mention of twomoundswhich furnished a vast amount of hewn stone. Mr.

The country being extremely flat, the drainage is necessarily very bad: and in places like Merida, for example, where a crowding of population exists, and the cleanliness of the streets is utterly disregarded by the proper authorities, the decomposition of vegetable and animal matter is very large; and the miasmas generated, being carried with the vapors arising from the constant evaporation of stagnant waters, are the origin of those scourges that decimate the inhabitants.