482 SPANISH AMERICA. 



rasses may be so termed, for these were no 

 other,) for several days before the army arriv- 

 ed at the Paramo, were literally strewed with, 

 and in some places impeded by, dead, dy- 

 ing, tired, broken-backed, or broken-legged 

 horses and mules, besides saddles, bridles, 

 baggage, &c.; some of these poor animals, 

 having fallen alive down precipices, at the 

 bottom of which there was neither food nor 

 water, must have been starved to death. In 

 short, the army appeared more like one fly- 

 ing, anxious only to preserve life, from a 

 victorious and cruel enemy, than one on its 

 march to attack more than three times its 

 own number of well-disciplined and ap- 

 pointed troops. 



Forty-three days had been spent in this 

 wretched and harassing manner, under in- 

 cessant rain, in passing those mountains, 

 when they (being in all about nine hundred 

 infantry and two hundred dismounted caval- 

 ry,) at length entered the kingdom of New 

 Grenada, where they found the enemy was 



