Yet with all the disadvantages attending the periodical return of this dreadful scourge, few rivers offer to human industry more abundant or affluent advantages than would the La YUNA, if the revolutions and outrages which distract that late happy island could be once terminated.

The excellent quality of the pastures, periodically enriched by the slime and mud deposited by the inundations, would, in the mere breeding of cattle, be an inexhaustible source of wealth. There, agriculture wants nothing but hands and the blessings of peace. The forests furnish building timber of every kind necessary for the use or convenience of man; the mountains in the neighbourhood of the river, all along its course, contain mines of gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, coal, and lapis lazuli, and the cultivation of all those invaluable objects is by so much the less difficult, as the river is navigable for more than twenty leagues into the country. But of all the singular things which distinguish this beautiful though formidable river, the most extraordinary is the simple and intrepid means employed for crossing it.

Like those fiery coursers who yield obedience only to the gentle management of a skilful and patient rider, the La Yuna will not suffer on its stream, any thing like the domination of an enforced and imperious sovereignty. Nor canoes, oars, cordage, or canvas, nor any of the means employed from the beginning of time, by skilful and hardy navigators, to cross the ocean, are able to encounter the impracticable currents of this violent river; and all the attempts of the kind which have hitherto been made for the purpose, have been found ineffectual; so that those who, by being bred upon the banks of the river, are acquainted with its fluctuations and dangers, never approach its banks but with awe and apprehension of its power.

The hide of an ox, fastened at the four corners to hoops made of saplings which are to be found upon the spot, constitute the sole means which these humble navigators have to offer to those travellers who are bold enough to hazard themselves upon the river. The passenger lies on his back, motionless, in this flimsy vehicle, which is pushed over the foaming surface of the water to the opposite bank, by two persons who swim after it. The smoothness of this conveyance cannot be surpassed, except by the horror it occasions; yet it has very rarely happened that the traveller's confidence in the dexterity of these tritons has been misplaced, or their

safety in the least endangered. As he lies motionless on his back, and his eyes are fixed on the firmament, he cannot perceive the motion of his barque, though he has in the space of four or five minutes crossed the breadth of the river, which all the time by its appalling roar, seems to threaten him with death, for his madness and temerity.

The periodical inundations of this river frequently alter its course, and raises banks of the moveable sand extremely dangerous to unskilful persons, who in ordinary times have attempted to ford it.

At length, after a course of about sixty leagues through the charming plains of Samana, it ends its wandering career in the superb bay of that name; and on leaving its banks seems to express its regret at parting, by the multiplicity of its windings.

REFLECTIONS ON THE EVENTS AT ST. DOMINGO.

ENTIRELY Occupied by the painful sensations with which the evacuation of St. Domingo had impressed me, and which gave a deadly blow to that unfortunate colony, I paid a last visit to the monuments of that city once so flourishing and happy. Upon the right bank of the river stood in majestic elevation, the decayed remains of the ancient palace of Columbus. It was impossible to look at the ruins of that renowned edifice without reflecting seriously upon the instability of every thing human. "Here," said I to myself, with the most painful emotions, "Here stood the proud city whence the founders of the most extensive portion of the globe once issued. It was in this celebrated capital that Columbus, in a superb palace, exhibited the terrible warning monument of the thankfulness and of the ingratitude of Ferdinand and Isabella. Here it was that that great man, whose vast all-pervading genius foresaw the existence of so many powerful nations, was shackled like a slave, and his aged limbs loaded with irons, by those very sovereigns to whose glory he had sa crificed his life and his wonderful talents.

In these interesting ruins, I with poignant anguish beheld the place where Bovadilla, that servile agent of intrigue, that base instrument of a restless and cruel policy, loaded with heavy chains those venerable arms which, but a little time before, were the support of the throne of Castile. I contemplated with mixed sensations of melancholy and admiration, that earth still glorious by having been trodden by illustrious, though inhuman adventurers; I in vain endeavoured to find the traces of that ancient and numerous population which the avarice and cruelty of the first conquerors of the country had entirely exhausted. Those outrages of criminal ambition recalled to my mind the melancholy remembrance of LAS CASAS, and of Ovando, and the virtuous sensibility of the former consoled me for the cold-blooded cruelty of the latter. Thus, then, the palace formerly the residence of a great and brilliant court, where the niece of the grand duke of Alva the wife of the son of Columbus, displayed royal magnificence, is now but the haunt of filthy reptiles; and that which was the cradle of opulent nations, now preents only an afflicting picture of misery and degradation. Throughout the whole extent of the isle, vagrants, outcasts, and barbarians usurp the place and property of the rich and industrious colonists; and what renders this deplorable condition of the island more provoking as well as afflicting is, that the whole is the offspring of the specious, malignant, hypocritical philanthropy which has appeared for the first time in the eighteenth century, and of the re-action of the new world upon the old.

May we not fairly attribute to such causes as these, the revolutions with which South America is even now menaced? Those vast colonies, groaning for three centuries under the weight of oppressive laws with which the treasury has constantly ground down the country, and killed the very seeds of all local prosperity, undoubtedly only wait for a favourable opportunity to throw off the yoke of a suspicious, jealous, and timid mother country; while Spain, by the destruction of her ancient monarchy, pays the sacred debts to humanity incurred by the outrages of her sovereigns, and the cruel persecutions of her religious intolerance.

VOL. II.