236 MONASTERY OF CHIQUINQUIRA. 



monastery by her devotees, who had re- 

 covered from some severe illness, with 

 which they had been afflicted, and attri- 

 buted their recovery to having invoked the 

 assistance of the Virgin; but when these 

 offerings were not sufficiently numerous, 

 the friars did not stand on any ceremony 

 in placing representations of supposed mi- 

 racles. Amongst others, they once had my 

 friend P6pe Paris represented amongst a 

 band of assassins, from whom the power of 

 the Virgin saved him. The fact was, that 

 during the civil war which raged amongst 

 the different chiefs on their first shaking 

 off the yoke of Spain, a rencontre took 

 place in Bogota, in which my friend found 

 his brother extended on the ground, attack- 

 ed and surrounded by several of an inimi- 

 cal party ; thinking his brother's life in 

 danger, he sprang forward with a drawn 

 stiletto, wounded several, and rescued his 

 brother. No sooner was this known by the 



