Immediately on our arrival we had visiters, some of whom were silent and uncommunicative upon the historical associations of the place; and when they went away their good-natured neighbours spoke of them as los pobres, who had good reason to be silent. All spoke with kindness and good feeling of the leaders, and particularly of one Don Juan, the captain, a dashing, generous fellow, whose death was a great public loss. Individuals were named, then living in the place, and the principal men, who had been notoriously pirates; one had been several years in prison and under sentence of death, and a canoa was pointed out, lying in front of our door, which had been often used in pirate service. Our house had been the headquarters of the bucaniers. It was the house of Molas, to whose unhappy end I have before referred. He had been sent by the government as commandant to put down these pirates, but, as it was said, entered into collusion with them, received their plunder, and conveyed it to the interior. At night they had revelled together in this house. It was so far from the capital that tidings of his misdoings were slow of transmission thither, and, when they were received, he persuaded the government that these reports proceeded from the malice of his enemies. At length, for his own security, he found it necessary to proceed against the pirates; he knew all their haunts, came upon them by stealth, and killed or drove away the whole band. Don Juan, the captain, was brought in wounded, and placed at night in a room partitioned off at the end of our sala. Molas feared that, if carried up to Merida, Don Juan would betray him, and in the morning the latter was found dead. It was more than whispered that he died by the hand of Molas. It is proper to add, what we heard afterward, that these stories were false, and that Molas was the victim of a malicious and iniquitous persecution. I should add, too, that the character of this place has improved. Broken up as a pirates' haunt it became the abode of smugglers, whose business being now comparatively unprofitable, they combine with it the embarking of sugar and other products of ranchos along the coast. We found one great deficiency at this place: there was no ramon for the horses. At night we turned them loose in the village; but the barren plain furnished them no grazing, and they returned to the house. Early in the morning we despatched Dimas to a ramon tree two leagues distant, that being the nearest point at which any could be procured; and in the mean time I set about searching for a canoa, and succeeded in engaging one, but not of the best class, and the patron and sailors could not be ready in less than two or three days.