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He soon after ventured to attack the neighbouring town of Nueva Segovia de Barquesimeto; but, being repulsed by Diego de Losada, he perished in the conflict. This African monarchy was succeeded at Nirgua by a republic of Zamboes, the descendants of negroes and Indians.
In the towns and there are but few you see the yellow mulatto, and the pretty quadroon with her black waving hair; but in the spare settlements of the country you meet with a strange race the cross of the negro with the ancient inhabitants of the country the "zamboes."
The latter are gradually disappearing as a separate race; that is to say, they are represented in the general statement of the population by the Mestizoes and the Zamboes, whose numbers daily increase. I still found, however, four thousand tributary Indians in the valleys of Aragua. Those of Turmero and Guacara are the most numerous.
When they are assailed, they put in practice, with that presence of mind and that resignation which characterize the Indians, the Zamboes, and copper-coloured men in general, the counsels they have heard from their infancy. In countries where nature is so powerful and so terrible, man is constantly prepared for danger.
The inhabitants of this hamlet are almost all mulattos, Zamboes, or free blacks. This example of letting out land has been happily followed by several other great proprietors. The rent is ten piastres for a fanega of ground, and is paid in money or in cotton. As the small farmers are often in want, they sell their cotton at a very moderate price.
They are not Indians, they are not negroes, they are "zamboes" a mixture of both. They are coarse-featured, and coarsely clad. The zambo enjoys his dolce far niente while his wife does his work what work there is, but that is not much.
A more demon-like set, I think, could not have been found anywhere out of the infernal regions. Most of them were zamboes and mestizoes, and not a few pure Africans of the blackest hue, maroons from Cuba and the Antilles, many of them with their fronts and cheeks tattooed, adding to the natural ferocity of their features.
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