guard, in lieu of regular soldiers, consisted of a body of about fifty Miguelets.  They had all the appearance of banditti, but a finer body of ferocious fellows I never saw.  They were all men in the prime of life, mostly of tall stature, and of Herculean brawn and limbs.  They wore huge whiskers, and walked with a fanfaronading air, as if they courted danger, and despised it.  In every respect they stood in contrast to the soldiers who had hitherto escorted us, who were mere feeble boys from sixteen to eighteen years of age, and possessed of neither energy nor activity.  The proper dress of the Miguelet, if it resembles anything military, is something akin to that anciently used by the English marines.  They wear a peculiar kind of hat, and generally leggings, or gaiters, and their arms are the gun and bayonet.  The colour of their dress is mostly dark brown.  They observe little or no discipline whether on a march or in the field of action.  They are excellent irregular troops, and when on actual service are particularly useful as skirmishers.  Their proper duty, however, is to officiate as a species of police, and to clear the roads of robbers, for which duty they are in one respect admirably calculated, having been generally robbers themselves at one period of their lives.  Why these people are called Miguelets it is not easy to say, but it is probable that they have derived this appellation from the name of their original leader.  I regret that the paucity of my own information will not allow me to enter into farther particulars with respect to this corps, concerning which I have little doubt that many remarkable things might be said.

Becoming weary of the slow travelling of the post, I determined to brave all risk, and to push forward.  In this, however, I was guilty of no slight imprudence, as by so doing I was near falling into the hands of robbers.  Two fellows suddenly confronted me with presented carbines, which they probably intended to discharge into my body, but they took fright at the noise of Antonio’s horse, who was following a little way behind.  The affair occurred at the bridge of Castellanos, a spot notorious for robbery and murder, and well adapted for both, for it stands at the bottom of a deep dell surrounded by wild desolate hills.  Only a quarter of an hour previous I had passed three ghastly heads stuck on poles standing by the wayside; they were those of a captain of banditti and two of his accomplices, who had been seized and executed about two months before.  Their principal haunt