i 



I 



42 Bogota'. 



be bestowed on the Indians in the primary 

 schools, where their children may learn to 

 read and write; and, in fine, the abolition 

 of the degrading and barbarous practice of 

 whipping them publicly, will, it is believed, 

 have a powerful influence on the improve- 

 ment of the natives. 



There are no laws which can have so 

 powerful an influence over the future desti- 

 nies of Colombia, as that which has declared 

 the children of slaves to be free, and that of 

 the 4th of October of the year XI., which has 

 placed the natives on an equality with the rest 

 of the citizens. Within the space of fifty or 

 sixty years at the farthest, Colombia will be 

 inhabited only by freemen, — the Indians will 

 have been intermixed with the European and 

 the African races, and a third will spring from 

 them, which experience has shewn will be 

 free from the defects of the natives ; and at 

 length the difference of casts will disappear 



