It was probably not long after this that these forms of torture gradually fell into disuse and were replaced by others which apparently were regarded as more merciful. In 1646 the Suprema applied to the tribunal of Córdova for information concerning the garrucha and silla and for a description of the _trampa_ and _trampazo_ which it used, with an estimate of their severity. The tribunal replied that the silla had been abandoned because it could scarce be called a torture and the garrucha on account of the danger of causing dislocations. For more than thirty years the tribunal, as well as the secular courts, had discontinued its use as also the brazier of coals, heated plates of metal, hot bricks, the toca with seven pints of water, the _depiñoncillo_, _escarabajo_, _tablillas_, _sueño_ and others. The methods in use were the cordeles and garrotes, of which there were three kinds, the _vuelta de trampa_, the _mancuerda_ and stretching the accused in the _potro_ or rack. [Sidenote: _VARIETIES_] The letter proceeds to describe at great length and in much detail these somewhat complicated processes. In abandoning the pulleys and the water-jar, the patient gained little. He was adjusted for torment by a belt or girdle with which he was swung from the ground; his arms were tied together across his breast and were attached by cords to rings in the wall. For the trampa or trampazo the ladder in the potro had one of its rungs removed so as to enable the legs to pass through; another bar with a sharp edge was set below it and through this narrow opening the legs were forcibly pulled by means of a cord fastened around the toes with a turn around the ankle. Each _vuelta_, or turn given to the cord, gained about three inches; five vueltas were reckoned a most rigorous torture, and three were the ordinary practice, even with the most robust. Leaving him stretched in this position, the next step was the mancuerda, in which a cord was passed around the arms, which the executioner wound around himself and threw himself backward, casting his whole weight and pushing with his foot against the potro. The cord, we are told, would cut through skin and muscle to the bone, while the body of the patient was stretched as in a rack, between it and the cords at the feet. The belt or girdle at the waist, subjected to these alternate forces was forced back and forth and contributed further to the suffering. This was repeated six or eight times with the mancuerda, on different parts of the arms, and the patients usually fainted, especially if they were women.