208 
JounnaL of an Officer in the Irish 
Legion, lately serving in Columbia.— 
Tour from Merida to the Vale of 
Santa Maria Anna. 
EAVING Merida in the morning, 
we proceeded to the vale of Santa 
Anna: in our way we visited the ruin- 
ed monastery that belonged to the Do- 
minican friars previous to the revolu- 
tion. Here, instead of bare walls, 
we were surprised to find gilded roofs, 
marble altar-pieces, and other ves- 
tiges of grandeur, that might have done 
honour to Rome or Paris. In the nave 
and chancel lay many good and holy 
fathers, whose pious stories were en- 
graved upon their tombs for the benefit 
of posterity; but, unfortunately, time 
and the damps had been extremely busy 
with them. One monument struck me 
more particularly: it bore a copper- 
plate, neatly fitted into the marble-slab, 
surmounted by two panes with wings, 
which covered the’ tomb, and on this 
was the name of the late superior of 
the order, in Spanish, with many enco- 
miums on‘his good qualities. Amongst 
many other titles, all too flattering for 
any virtue except that of aromance, he 
was classically styled, Fulcrum Mise- 
rorum, gemma virorum. Having a na- 
tural curiosity to know something of a 
man’s history in whose character those 
rare traits were to be met with, I in- 
quired of an old Frenchman, who ac- 
companied me, as to his knowledge of 
the superior. He told me that the 
Monk had originally come from Seville, 
in old Spain, with a view to improve 
his fortune ; that, in consequence of the 
refusal of another prelate to place him- 
self at the mercy of the wind and waves, 
he was appointed Bishop of Vene- 
zuela, and that on his translation to 
this rich see he resided between Ma- 
racaibo and Merida. I asked the 
Frenchmen whether the hero of his 
tale had died rich? ‘ Oui, Monsieur ;” 
—not content with an income of forty 
thousand dollars, on the death of the 
governor of Maracaibo, he . made 
free with the treasure in the royal 
chest ; a defalcation of six hundred 
thousand dollars was the consequence, 
which could not be accounted for, and 
the governor’s haciendas were confis- 
cated in order to make good the de- 
ficiency. Not thinking it prudent to 
return to old Spain, he retired to the 
convent, where he assumed. the cha- 
racter of a hermit, and lived with the 
fathers a life of piety and mortification, 
according to some; but, as others tell 
Journal of a Tour from Merida. 
[Ocr. I, 
the tale, in all manner of voluptuous- 
ness and hypocrisy. He himself had been 
pressed into the Monk’s service as 
baker-general to the convent, to super- 
intend the bread and pastry, and also to 
act as pilot to his pleasure barge on the 
lake: during the life-time of the superior 
he had enjoyed a tolerable easy place of 
it, but after his death the monks had 
obliged him to cut fuel to ‘serve the 
ovens, for which he got many benedic- 
tions in lieu of his promised salary. I 
asked him to whose gratitude the su- 
perior was indebted for this handsome 
monument ; he replied, to the fisher- 
men of Maracaibo, in return for his 
having obliged his flock to abstain from 
meat three times a week, which gave 
them a good market for their fish: 
perhaps the hint was taken from Pope 
Leo, who proclaimed Saturday a fast- 
day in England, to oblige the pious 
fishermen of that country, who gave him 
a douceur of five hundred pounds for 
his papal benevolence. 
The monk could hardly have fixed 
on amore delightful spot through the 
whole earth, than that retreat which 
his own see afforded: here he could 
enjoy his otium cum dignitate to his 
heart’s content, unrufiled by the care of 
this world, amid the romantic scenery of 
forests, lakes, rivers, rocks and hanging 
gardens, with a climate the most favour- 
abte. The gardens. belonging to the 
convenis have gone to ruin since the 
revolution, but sufficient vestiges of 
taste and decoration still linger to tell! 
what they once were. Innumerable flow- 
ers and blooming shrubs emit a delightful 
fragrance, while the numerous exotics 
once collected in the green-houses of 
the convent have been suffered to re- 
main, and, beautiful even in neglect and 
wildness, lend a charm to desolation: 
These monasteries are connected with 
the female convents in the vale by a: 
serpentine walk about a mile in length; 
shaded by tall trees interwoven so’as to 
exclude the rays of the sun: at proper 
intervals, little arbours are placed, fes- 
tooned with the acacia, im bloom the 
whole year round, and other flowery 
shrubs equally rare to the European, 
Here the fathers were often entertained 
by the sisterhood with coffee, lemonade, 
and fruits, until dusk. Our French 
guide also told us, that the demon of 
civil war caused a feud amongst the 
nuns of the: two convents, who es- 
poused the cause of their respective 
partisans as fiercely as the contending 
generals and their armies: jt was not 
unusual, 
