56- 



had made, owing to his zeal and intelligence. 

 Since we had reached the middle of the steppes, 

 the heat had increased to such a degree, that we 

 should have preferred travelling no more dar- 

 ing the day ; but we were without arms, and the 

 llanos were then infested by an immense number 

 of robbers, who assassinated the whites that fell 

 into their hands with an atrocious refinement of 

 cruelty. Nothing is more deplorable than the 

 administration of justice in the colonies beyond 

 sea. We every where found the prisons filled 

 with malefactors, on whom sentence is not 

 passed till after waiting seven or eight years. 

 Nearly a third of the prisoners succeed in mak- 

 ing their escape ; and the unpeopled plains, 

 filled with herds, afford them both an asvlum 

 and food. They commit their depredations on 

 horseback, in the manner of the Bedoweens. 

 The insalubrity of the prisons would be at it's 

 height, if they were not emptied from time to 

 time by the flight of the prisoners. It often 

 happens also, that sentences of death, tardily 

 pronounced by the audiencla of Caraccas, can- 

 not be executed for want of a hangman. In 

 these cases a barbarous custom prevails, which 

 I have already mentioned, of pardoning one cri- 

 minal on the condition of his hanging the others. 

 Our guides related to us, that a short time 

 before our arrival on the coast of Cumana, 

 a Zambo, known for the great ferocity of his 



