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are not however so thick as those of the Upper 

 Oroonoko. The population augments percepti- 

 bly as you advance toward the capital : you 

 find few Indians, but Whites, Negroes, and men 

 of mixed descent. The number of the Negroes 

 is not great ; but here, as every where else, the 

 poverty of their masters is far from procuring 

 for them more humane treatment, and more 

 favourable to their preservation. An inha- 

 bitant of Caycara, Mr. V a, had just been 



condemned to four years imprisonment, and a 

 fine of one hundred piastres, for having, in a 

 paroxysm of rage, tied a Negress by the legs to 

 the tailof his horse, and dragged her at full gallop 

 through the savannah, till she expired of agony. 

 Iam glad to record, that the Audiencia was gene- 

 rally blamed in the country, for not having 

 punished more severely so atrocious an action. 

 Yet a small number of persons* who pretended to 

 be the most enlightened and most sagacious of 

 the community, deemed the punishment of a 

 White contrary to sound policy, at the moment 

 when the Blacks of Saint Domingo were in com- 

 plete insurrection. When institutions that have 

 become odious are menaced, men are never 

 wanting, who, in order to maintain them, advise 

 no relaxation of what they contain that is most 

 hostile to reason and justice. Since I left those 

 countries, civil dissensions have put arms into 

 the hands of the slaves ; and fatal experience 



