The reader may be assured that I did not forget my promise to the municipality of Subtiaba. A day was shortly afterwards fixed for my visit, and I was received with great ceremony at the cabildo, or council chamber, where I found collected all the old men who could assist me in forming a vocabulary of the ancient language, which I had casually expressed a desire to procure. It was with difficulty that we could effect an entrance, for a half-holiday had been given to the boys of all the schools in honor of the occasion, and they literally swarmed around the building. We were finally ushered into an inner room, where the archives of the municipality were preserved. Upon one side was a large chest of heavy wood, with massive locks, which had anciently been the strong box or treasury. A shadow fell over Simon’s face as he pointed it out to me, and said that he could remember the time when it was filled with “duros,” hard dollars, and when, at a single stroke of the alarm bell, two thousand armed men could be gathered in the plaza of Subtiaba. But those days were passed, and the municipality now scarcely retained a shadow of its former greatness. Under the crown it had earned the title “leal y fiel,” loyal and true; and in reward of its fidelity it had received a grant of all the lands intervening between it and the ocean, to hold in perpetuity for the benefit of its citizens. And Simon showed me the royal letters, signed “Yo, el Rey” (I, the King), which the emperors of Spain had thought it not derogatory to their dignity to address to his predecessors in office; and notwithstanding his ardent republicanism, I thought Simon looked at them with something of regret. I inquired for manuscripts which might throw some light upon the early history of the country, but found only musty records, of no interest or value.