1829. ] The Two Miners of Famatina. 349 
great apparent good humour, and with. great satisfaction to the 
party ; who, as their spirits waxed higher with Leita’s excellent wine, 
grew more favourably disposed towards their prisoner ; and the head 
of them, seeing with what alacrity he went in and out in their service, 
observed that it was a pity he should be so much inconvenienced by his 
fetters, and ordered that they should be taken off. Freed from this in- 
cumbrance, he still kept running in and out doing their bidding, and 
supplying them with more wine ; till at length, having ascertained the 
position and arms of the three sentinels who had been placed without, 
he watched his opportunity, and suddenly closed the door (which shut 
with a spring latch) on the drinking party within ; and then, having by 
great resolution and strength disarmed and put to flight the sentinels, he 
presented himself at the window of the room where the rest were enclosed, 
and threatened with an axe to chop off the head of the first person who 
offered to escape by that exit. Then, still keeping watch over the now 
drunken party within the room, he whistled for his black slave, (who, it 
appeared, had only been sent ont of the way to conceal himself with the 
view of assisting his master’s project,) Leita ordered him to prepare the 
two best horses of the party and bring them to him, and to unsaddle and 
turn loose all the rest. This being done according to his desire, both 
master and man mounted, and were soon at a great distance on the road 
across the Andes to Coquimbo in Chile. They rode day and night ; but 
by the time they had reached the central ridge of the Andes, their horses 
sunk under them from fatigue ; and, on seeing their pursuers appreaching 
in the distance, they abandoned their horses, and continued their flight 
on foot, making for the craigs and precipices where their pursuers could 
not possibly follow. They were now safe for the present; and in a few 
days Leita made his appearance before the Spanish Royalist, General 
Osorio, representing who he was, and the circumstances under which he 
had left Rioja ;.and stating that if the general would supply him with 
a certain number of men he would engage speedily to reduce the whole 
province to the dominion of the Spanish monarchy. Osorio could not 
supply Leita with the required means, but was induced, by his represen- 
tatidas, to provide him with letters of recommendation to Pezuela, the 
viceroy of Peru, who, he said, would be likely to further his view in the 
proposed project. But to deliver these letters, it was necessary that 
Leita should travel through a great tract of country in the provinces of 
Tucuman and Salta, at the imminent risk of falling in with his enemies. 
He therefore determined on disguising himself as a poor miner, and 
taking with him only one attendant as a guide on the road he was to go, 
leaving his own faithful black behind him to avoid suspicion. In this 
manner he reached in safety the boundary of the province of Salta. But 
here, observing a scouting party of fifty men in the distance, Leita hid 
his money and papers in a thicket hard by ; which he had scarcely ac- 
complished when the party came up, and began to make illusory 
inquiries, which he at first refused to answer, for fear of causing suspi- 
sion by his Arragon accent. At last, being compelled by their ill usage 
and threats to speak, he described himself as a poor miner in search of 
work. But, as he had feared, his accent excited further suspicions, and 
they proceeded to beat him and his guide, till the latter at last confessed 
who Leita was, though he could not disclose the object of his travelling 
that road. But another blow or two soon induced him to confess where 
his master had hidden his papers and money ; and these disclosed all 
