When the congress met it represented only a part of the territory, and but a small percentage of the population. Narino and other popular young leaders in Bogota intrigued for a centralised system in which Bogota was to be master province. An insurrection against the junta installed him as dictator, and congress fled from the capital. The royalists had made no effort to oppose the revolution in the centres of population, contenting themselves with sending expeditions from Quito to occupy Pasto and Popayan, with keeping possession of the Isthmus, and establishing themselves on the lower Magdalena. Cartagena was thereby isolated from the rest of the revolted provinces, and Bogota cut off from communication with the sea. In March, 1811, the patriots marched up the Cauca from Cali and defeated the Spaniards in Popayan. Quito rose in rebellion a second time, and the Ecuadoreans advanced north into Pasto, only to be beaten once more by the loyalist peasantry. The Granadans, who invaded by way of Popayan, met with no better success, and their forces under the command of a North American adventurer, Macaulay, were annihilated. The re-establishment of the royal authority at Quito followed, and Bogota again lay open to attack from the south. While the royalist reaction was thus closing in around the revolution in central New Granada, the mass of the people cooled, the patriot leaders fought among themselves, and the interior was a prey to anarchy. Dictator Narino had broken completely with the ambulatory congress, and was sending his troops into the adjacent provinces. Congress protested and a civil war broke out in central Granada. Narino was defeated in an attack on Socorro, but the federalists were in their turn repulsed when they lay siege to the capital, and Bogota declared itself an independent state. In the midst of these disorders, the alarming news was received that General Samano, advancing from Quito and Pasto, at the head of two thousand well-equipped men, had retaken Popayan, and was already menacing Antioquia and the lower Cauca. In the face of this common danger Narino and congress came to terms. The latter advanced to meet Samano and badly defeated him at the battle of Calivio, January 15, 1814. The re-occupation of Popayan was the only result of this victory. Pasto remained faithfully loyalist--a Vendee into which many republican armies were destined to dash in vain. The Spaniards brought up reinforcements, and when Narino again advanced his army was overwhelmed and himself captured. However, the loyalists were not able to equip an army large enough to justify undertaking the conquest of central Granada, so the jarring factions and provinces were left alone for the present to waste their energies in internecine conflicts. [Illustration: ROPE BRIDGE OVER THE MAGDALENA RIVER.]