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the remainder of his life, without ever being brought to justice. I 

 know not whether this want of vigilance in the magistracy be not a 

 temptation for the numerous refugees who seek shelter here, such as 

 European Spaniards, who have deserted from the service or have 

 been banished for their crimes. These wretches, loaded with guilt, 

 flee into the interior, where they seldom fail to find some one or other 

 of their countrymen who is willing to give them employment, 

 though frequently at the peril of his life. By the corrupt example 

 of these refugees, the innocent Creolian is soon initiated in vice, and 

 becomes a prey to all those violent passions which are engendered 

 and fostered by habitual intoxication. 



The common dress of the people is such as might be expected 

 from their indolence and poverty. They generally go without shoes 

 and stockings ; indeed as they rarely go on foot, they have seldom 

 occasion for shoes. Some of them, particularly the Peons, make a 

 kind of boots from the raw skins of young horses, which they fre- 

 quently kill for this sole purpose. When the animal is dead, they 

 cut the skin round the thigh, about eighteen inches above the gam- 

 brel ; having stripped it, they stretch and dress it until it loses the 

 hair and becomes quite white. The lower part, which covered the 

 joint, forms the heel, and the extremity is tied up in a bunch to 

 cover the toes. These boots, when newly finished, are of a delicate 

 colour, and very generally admired. The rest of their apparel con- 

 sists of a jacket, which is universally worn by all ranks, and a shirt 

 and drawers made of a coarse cotton cloth brought from the Brazils. 

 Children run about with no dress but their shirts until their fifth or 

 sixth year. Their education is very little attended to, and is con- 

 fined to mere rudiments ; a man who is able to read and write, is 

 considered to have all the learning he can desire. 



Among the many natural advantages which this district possesses, 

 are the frequent falls in the rivulets and larger streams, which might 

 be converted to various mechanical purposes, if the population were 

 more numerous and better instructed. Some of these streams, as 



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