glass of aqua-ardente, for which they charge a quarter dollar, or about two ounces of the very worst cheese I ever saw, for which they charge a real.

It is remarkable that these men are incapable of the mental effort required in calculation, a very palpable proof of which I shall here detail:---A person purchased some cheese which amounted to about sixty dollars; and this purchase was made of three different people, all of whom had an equal share---that is the sixty dollars were to be divided into three equal parts. Every one of these three persons calculated how this division was to be made; but no two of them could calculate alike there generally was a difference of ten or fifteen dollars; and to offer advice was out of the question, for it would not be taken. At length these ingenious gentlemen effected a division, with which they all seemed satisfied; but still there were twenty dollars left, which they were wholly at a loss how to incorporate with the other three portions. Having completely failed, they, by general consent, agreed to throw for the twenty dollars with dice; and this was accordingly done.

This amazing sterility of intellect, often gives the wholesale dealer a decided advantage over his customers; while the retail dealers as often get the advantage in their turn. A mistake of this nature happened on the occasion stated above. The purchaser condescended (strange to tell) to ask a friend of mine if the money was all right; when it was found that the three wholesale men had taken ten dollars less than they had bargained for, which my friend advised him to return; but he snatched up the money, mounted his mule and rode off, highly delighted at the success of this act of dishonesty! The South Americans are ingenious in nothing but thieving.

Should these retail merchants be asked for a quart bottle of rum, or a pound or two of cheese, they will shrug their shoulders, and recommend you to the protection of some one of their saints or evangelists, because they would set you down as mad! In serving any one with any quantity, beyond the smallest, they must (as usual) have their own way---they must deal the articles out in real pieces; otherwise they could not fail of com

mitting blunders. It is altogether useless, and mere waste of time, to reason with them, or to attempt to prove that different weights or vessels may be constructed, which would at once lesson labour, and give the purchaser the article in one piece, rather than in fifty or more. Convince them you cannot: you may, with equal chance of success, endeavour to reason the fury of the hurricane into calmness. I therefore found it necessary to comply, and take the articles as they choose to give them.

In passing on to my hut, I had an opportunity of seeing, for the first time, a fight between two of the natives, with knives. They were both dressed in a habit, very commonly worn in this country, viz. a blanket, with a hole cut in its centre, through which they put their head, while the blanket covers their arms, and hangs over the upper part of their body. In these conflicts, they brandish their knives, and run at each other like mad bulls; and, on the present occasion, I could observe, that the object of both was to stab his opponent, about the under part of the belly; which, if effected, the knife is so held

that they can cut the wound upward, so to allow the whole intestines to tumble out. For a long time these two monstrous barbarians, cut and thrust at each other, with the greatest possible fury; and the wounds they received in their hands, in grasping their opponent's knife, and in their arms, actually covered a great part of their dress with blood. Neither of them were killed; but they both became so much exhausted as scarcely to be able to stand upright. They were, at length, separated; as I understood, to renew the fight when they had sufficiently recovered./

CHAP. X.

RETREAT OF PAEZ TO CAUGRAL.

Description of Paez's Dragoons ;-Paez's Guard;-Remarks on dressing in red in Guyana;-Appearance of the Spaniards and their firing;-Consequent bustle, confusion, and plundering among the troops;-Quarrels between the British and Creoles ;-The Passes by which the Spaniards could cross;-The activity of Paez;-The author and another Englishman look for a residence in the bush ;—Its great inconvenience, &c.;-Its injury to health ;--Anzoategui the commander of the infantry prepares to retreat, but assures the British officers that he will not.

THE retreat, from the opposite bank of the Arauca had now commenced; and I had an opportunity of minutely inspecting the dragoons as they rode up to cross over to Caugral.

Their horses were of a small size, and the greater proportion of the dragoons were as