94 
BAXDlTTt IX Tin; I,LAX03. 
pled plains, filled with herds, furnish them with booty. Thev 
commit their depredations on horseback, in the manner 6t 
the Bedouins. The insalubrity of the prisons would be at- 
tended with fatal results, but that these receptacles are 
cleared from time to time hy the flight of the prisoners. It 
also frequently happens that sentences of death, tardily pro- 
nounced by the Audiencia of Caracas, cannot be executed 
for want of a hangman. In these cases the barbarous cus- 
tom is observed of pardoning one criminal on 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 manners, deter- 
mined to screen himself from punishment by turning exe- 
cutioner. The preparations for the execution however, 
shook his resolution ; he felt a horror of himself, and pre- 
ferring death to the disgrace of thus saving his life, he 
called again for his irons, which liad been struck off. He 
did not long remain in prison, and he underwent his sen 
tenee through the ba.snness of one of his accomplices. Tin's 
awakening of a sentiment of honour in the soul of a mur- 
derer is a psychologic phenomenon worthv of reflection. 
The man who had so otten shed the blood of travellers in 
the plains, recoiled at the idea of becoming the passive in- 
strument of justice, in inflicting upon others a punishment 
which he felt that he himself deserved. 
If, even *in the peaceful times when M. Bonpland and 
myself had the good fortune to travel througli North and 
South America, tlie Llanos were the refuge of malefactors, 
who had committed crimes in the missions of the Orinoco, 
or who had escaped from the prisons on the coast, how 
much worse must that state of things have been rendered 
by discord, during the continuance of that sanguinary 
struggle which has terminated in conferring freedom and 
independence On those vast I'egions ! Our European wastes 
and heaths are but a feeble image of the savannahs of the 
New Continent, which, for the space of eight or ten thou- 
sand square leagues are smooth as the surface of the sea. 
The immensity of their extent insures impimity to robbers, 
who conceal themselves more effectually in the savannahs 
than in our mountains and forests ; anil it is easy to con- 
ceive, that even a European police would not be very ef- 
