102 BAHIA BLANCA. [chap v. 



Colorado. Two liundred soldiers were sont ; and they first dis- 

 covered the Indians by a cloud of dust from their horses' feet, 

 as they chanced to be travelling. The country was mountainous 

 and wild, and it must have been far in the interior, for th^ 

 Cordillera were in sight. The Indians, men, women, and children, 

 wore about one hundred and ten in number, and they were nearly 

 all taken or killed, for the soldiers sabre every man. The Indians 

 are now so terrified that they offer no resistance in a body, but 

 each flies, neglecting- even his wife and children; but when over- 

 taken, like wild animals, they fight against any number to tlie 

 last moment. One dying Indian seized with his teeth the thumb 

 of his adversary, and allowed his own eye to be forced out sooner 

 than relinquish his hold. Another, who was wounded, feigned 

 death, keeping a knife ready to strike one more fatal blow. My 

 informer said, when he was pursuing an Indian, the man cried 

 nut for mercy, at the same time that he was covertly loosing the 

 bolas from his waist, meaning to whirl it round his head and so 

 strike his pursuer. " I however struck him with my sabre to 

 the ground, and then got off my horse, and cut his throat with 

 my knife." This is a dark picture ; but how much more shock- 

 ing is the unquestionable fact, that all the women who appear 

 above twenty years old are massacred in cold blood ! When I 

 exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman, he answered, 

 '• Why, what can be done ? they breed so !" 



Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just 

 war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in 

 this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian 

 civilized country? The children of the Indians are saved, to be 

 sold or given away as servants, or rather slaves for as long a time 

 as tlie owners can make them believe themselves slaves ; but I 

 believe in their treatment there is little to complain of. 



In the battle four men ran away togther. They were pursued, 

 one was killed, and the other three were taken alive. They 

 turned out to be messengers or ambassadors from a large body of 

 Indians, united in the common cause of defence, near the Cor- 

 dillera. The tribe to which they had been sent was on the point 

 of holding a grand council ; the feast of mare's flesh was ready, 

 and the dance prepared : in the morning the ambassadors were 

 to have returned to the Cordillera. They were remarkably fine 



