On the _sábado de gloria_ Fonseca observed several Indians going out of the house to fetch water. Taking his revolver and carbine, he turned towards them, saying to us (there were present Juan C. Castaños, Pérez, Alfredo Cabrera, Miguel Rengifo, Ramón Granda, Sparro, Lorenzo Tello, and many others whose names I do not recollect now), "Look, this is how we celebrate the _sábado de gloria_ here," wantonly let fly at the Indians, killing one man and hitting a girl of fifteen years. This girl did not die immediately, being only wounded, but the criminal Miguel Rengifo, _alias_ Ciegadiño, finished her with a carbine bullet.
When Fonseca returned from the _correría_ and went to his section-house, Victoria, one of his nine concubines was accused of infidelity in his absence. Enraged, Fonseca tied her up to a tree by her opened arms and, raising her skirt to her neck, flogged her with an enormous lash, continuing until he was tired out. He then put her in a hammock inside a warehouse, and as the scars received no treatment in a few days maggots bred in them; then by his orders the Indian girl was dragged out and killed. Luis Silva, a Brazilian negro, who is at present in the section Unión, is the man who executed this order. After murdering Victoria as I have described they threw her body into the banana plantation.
The floggings of Indians were carried out daily, and from time to time some Indians were killed.
(_Sworn before_) FEDERICO M. PIZARRO, _Notary Public_.
SEÑOR BENJAMIN SALDAÑA ROCCA,--By the articles published in your worthy newspaper, _La Sanción_, I understand that you accept the voluntary statements of those who, like myself, have witnessed some of the awful crimes committed in the Putumayo by the brigands of Arana Hermanos. I shall now relate to you what I have seen and what they do there to-day.
In the year and fifteen days that I have been in El Encanto in Macedo's section--Monte Rico--and in Artemio Muñoz' section--Esmeraldas--I have seen them flog Indians in a most barbarous manner, generally leaving them dead or nearly so. The executioner in Monte Rico was Belisario Suárez, the second chief; in the two months and a half that I was in his service I have seen more than three hundred Indians flogged, each one receiving from twenty to one hundred and fifty or two hundred lashes, this latter number being given when they wish to kill him on the spot by flogging. Other Indians are given one hundred or more lashes and are then thrown out in the forest to die there, full of maggots, for even their own companions flee from them in horror. In this section all the employees are obliged to do the floggings: among them were Andrés Guerra, Gonzalez, and others whom I cannot remember now, but will cite later.