manners, determined to screen himself from 

 punishment by becoming* the executioner. The 

 preparations for the execution however shook 

 his resolution ; he felt a horror of himself, and, 

 preferring* death to the disgrace of thus saving 

 his life, called again for his irons, which had 

 been struck off. He did not long suffer deten- 

 tion 3 and underwent his sentence by the base- 

 ness of one of his accomplices. This awakeningof 

 a sentiment of honour in the soul of a murderer 

 is a psychologic phenomenon worthy of reflection. 

 The man, who had so often shed blood when 

 stripping the traveller in the steppe, recoiled at 

 the idea of becoming the passive instrument of 

 justice, to inflict upon others a punishment, 

 which he felt perhaps he himself deserved. 



If, in the peaceful times when Mr. Bonpland 

 and myself had the good fortune to travel 

 through both Americas, the llanos were even 

 then the refuge of malefactors, who had com- 

 mitted crimes in the missions of the Oroonoko, 

 or who had escaped from the prisons on the 

 coast, how much worse must this state of things 

 have become in consequence of civil discords, 

 and amid that sanguinary struggle, which has 

 terminated by giving liberty and independance 

 to those vast regions ! Our wastes and heaths 

 are but a feeble image of the savannahs of the 

 New Continent, which for the space of eight or 

 ten thousand square leagues are smooth as the 



