of fighting, judging from the sound of musketry and cannon. Seeing a man who was incapacitated in some way or other from fighting, and two boys with him on a large tamarind tree in the next yard; and hearing their excited expressions of wonder, and their sympathetic cheers and regrets, I passed through the paling and ascended the tree, whence I had a good view of that part of the savanna in which the soldiers were engaged. Our party was broken up in detachments and opposed to others similarly arranged and fighting from clumps of trees. Our line was too near the town to be seen from my point of sight; but the enemy's was quite distinctly visible. It was curious at first to see them opposed to each other, seeming like children at play, and the almost ludicrous way they dropped down. But I soon got accustomed to the distance, and then I felt the reality and enormity of the scene; and when a cannon-ball cleared a passage, eliciting cheers from my companions in the tree, I uttered a groan from the depth of my heart, much to their surprise and disgust that I should care for the

enemy.

"One lost to them," said the man,"is one gained to us."

The evening of that day, our soldiers entered the town with their usual cheers. They had gained a battle; had always gained, to judge by their reports. But to me, perhaps because I had seen a part of the battle, the cheers sounded like a delusion. Amidst the cheers, I fancied I could hear the wounded and dying, and the future wails of the widows and orphans. Several who went out that day did not return; but these were said to have gone on somewhere with despatches, probably that their friends might be quieted. They had been despatched on their last mission. Of course the strangers who were left on the field were not known, and not much asked after. At night, after burying the dead, some wounded Indians were brought in, wrapped in hammocks (chinchoras); one, as he passed by me, gave a groan of anguish of body or of mind, perhaps of both.

CHAPTER XV.

EARTHQUAKE.

I SAID that Maturin was in the centre of Nueva Andalucia, but that Cumaná was the capital of that state. Cumaná is well situated for maritime commerce on the southern part of the mouth of the beautiful Golfa de Cariaco, but it is too secluded, by its position at the extremity of a point, and it is cut off from the bulk of the state, for facility of communication, by the mountainous character of the country immediately beyond it. The only apparent reason for its being the capital, is its more convenient vicinity to the Federal district of Caracas than any other city of Nueva Andalucia.

Cumaná was, at this time, in the hands of the insurgents, the Provisorios, as they were called, on account of the Provisional Government they pretended to have organised. Several of the chief

officers and subalterns came from Cumaná, picking up and pressing soldiers on their way to Maturin.

Despatches having been sent on to Cumaná reporting the investiture of Maturin by the Government army, and the consequent distress of the town, and asking for reinforcements, the Provisional Governor of the State sent on to say that aid would be sent to them in men and commisariat requirements within a certain time. It was observed that no fighting had occurred for some days (Sotillo had never been, willingly, the assailant during this siege: his policy seemed to have been patiently to sit and starve out the city to a surrender), and that the officers were in excellent spirits; that double guards were placed at the entrenched and barricaded entrances, and the patrols increased; and that mysterious assurances of a speedy end to the siege were everywhere given to the jaded and starved soldiery and towns-people. But it was also currently reported that Sotillo was impatiently awaiting the arrival of Monagas, with an overwhelming force,

and fuming at the tardy surrender of the distressed town. His wish was to gain admittance before the approach of his superior.

The news of the arrival of Monagas into Sotillo's camp was a great relief to the women and strangers of the town. Maturin was his native place; his great cattle wealth was principally in the environs of the town; his own family house was here, and in it his most beloved daughter, La Doña Giuseppi, with her children unprotected but by the general love which sprang from her own benevolent and friendly character. And withal, Monagas was known to be not cruel, and was farseeing and politic. To have destroyed Maturin would have been to depreciate the value of his cattle farms, and to imperil their very existence in the contingency of revengeful reprisals. To intercede for the liberation of Maturin, and to protect it from Sotillo's infuriated Indians, would strengthen his cause in Nueva Andalucia, by fixing to himself the sympathies of wavering partisans of both sides, and rendering his name. popular as a generous foe.