thers in
the province. The curse of war had fallen upon it. Many of the houses
were empty,--their owners having been killed on their own thresholds, or
carried off to be shot, or sent to work at the fortifications of
Cartagena or other places on the coast. I saw here a larger number of
slaves--negroes and negresses--than at any other place we had passed
through. The latter were dressed in blue petticoats, without any other
garments. They came in numbers from the river-side, carrying huge
pitchers or leathern bottles of water on their heads, and walking
gracefully and perfectly upright. I remember a group we passed in the
outskirts of the town, who appeared to take life very easily: the women,
in the most scanty raiment, with huge necklaces, were seated on the
ground chatting and laughing; the men, their only garment a shirt, were
lazily smoking their cigars. Forgetting that I was to be ignorant of
Spanish, I spoke to them, when, turning round, I saw a person passing in
the uniform of an officer. He looked at me for a moment, but making no
remark, passed on, and I thought no more about the matter.

Only a very small remnant, I should say, of the ancient inhabitants now
remain, though the traces of their former existence are everywhere to be
seen, showing that at one time they must have been very numerous. They
have been destroyed in vast numbers by the severity of their relentless
and avaricious taskmasters. Thousands and tens of thousands of poor
Indians have perished from famine, the sword, and the pestilence, or
have died with hearts broken by the loss of liberty, or from being
compelled to labour in the gold-mines with constitutions unequal to the
performance of their hard task-work.

We were, of course, anxious not to stay an hour longer at Cartago than
was necessary; and yet it might seem strange to the inhabitants that an
Englishman, travelling for the sake of amusement, should not wish to
remain a sufficient time in the town even to form a correct opinion of
it. The posada was a wretched one, but there were few people in it.
The old woman who kept it declared that the Spaniards had carried off
all her property; indeed, except a few red earthenware plates, I could
see nothing on which our supper could be served. I sat down in a corner
of the room, and pretended to be reading an English book; while Mr
Laffan went out to arrange for guides, silleros, and peons, to enable us
to travel over the Quindio mo