administered
strictly to the poor natives--it was only the foreigners who could
evade it or purchase exemption. Punishment was severe; and in extreme
cases the convicts were sent to Carthagena, there to suffer
imprisonment of a terrible character. Indeed, from what I heard of the
New Granada prisons, I thought no other country could match them, and
continued to think so until I read how the ingenuity in cruelty of his
Majesty the King of Naples put the torturers of the New Granada
Republic to the blush.

I generally avoided claiming the protection of the law whilst on the
Isthmus, for I found it was--as is the case in civilized England from
other causes--rather an expensive luxury. Once only I took a thief
caught in the act before the alcalde, and claimed the administration
of justice. The court-house was a low bamboo shed, before which some
dirty Spanish-Indian soldiers were lounging; and inside, the alcalde,
a negro, was reclining in a dirty hammock, smoking coolly, hearing
evidence, and pronouncing judgment upon the wretched culprits, who
were trembling before his dusky majesty. I had attended him while
suffering from an attack of cholera, and directly he saw me he rose
from his hammock, and received me in a ceremonious, grand manner, and
gave orders that coffee should be brought to me. He had a very pretty
white wife, who joined us; and then the alcalde politely offered me a
_cigarito_--having declined which, he listened to my statement with
great attention. All this, however, did not prevent my leaving the
necessary fee in furtherance of justice, nor his accepting it. Its
consequence was, that the thief, instead of being punished as a
criminal, was ordered to pay me the value of the stolen goods; which,
after weeks of hesitation and delay, she eventually did, in pearls,
combs, and other curiosities.

Whenever an American was arrested by the New Granada authorities,
justice had a hard struggle for the mastery, and rarely obtained it.
Once I was present at the court-house, when an American was brought in
heavily ironed, charged with having committed a highway robbery--if I
may use the term where there were no roads--on some travellers from
Chili. Around the frightened soldiers swelled an angry crowd of
brother Americans, abusing and threatening the authorities in no
measured terms, all of them indignant that a nigger should presume to
judge one of their countrymen. At last their violence so roused the
sleepy alcal