1833.] CAPTIVE INDIANS. 103 



men, very fair, above six feet high? and all under thirty years oi 

 age. The three survivors of course possessed very valuable 

 information ; and to extort this they were placed in a line. The 

 two first being questioned, answered, " No se " (I do not know), 

 and were one after the other shot. The third also said " No se ;" 

 adding, " Fire, I am a man, and can die !" Not one syllable 

 would they breathe to injure the united cause of their country ! 

 The conduct of the above-mentioned cacique was very different : 

 he saved his life by betraying the intended plan of warfare, and 

 the point of union in the Andes. It was believed that there 

 were already six or seven hundred Indians together, and that in 

 summer their numbers would be doubled. Ambassadors were to 

 have been sent to the Indians at the small Salinas, near Bahia 

 Blanca, whom I have mentioned that this same cacique had 

 betrayed. The communication, therefore, between the Indians, 

 extends from the Cordillera to the coast of the Atlantic. 



General Rosas's plan is to kill all stragglers, and having 

 driven the remainder to a common point, to attack them in a 

 body, in the summer, with the assistance of the Chilenos. This 

 operation is to be repeated for three successive years. I imagine 

 the summer is chosen as the time for the main attack, because 

 the plains are then without water, and the Indians can only 

 travel in particular directions. The escape of the Indians to the 

 south of the Rio Negro, where in such a vast unknown country 

 they would be safe, is prevented by a treaty with the Tehuelches 

 to this effect ; that Rosas pays them so much to slaughter every 

 Indian who passes to the south of the river, but if they fail in so 

 doing, they themselves are to be exterminated. The war is 

 waged chiefly against the Indians near the Cordillera ; for many 

 of the tribes on this eastern side are fighting with Rosas. The 

 general, however, like Lord Chesterfield, thinking that his friends 

 may in a future day become his enemies, always places them in 

 the front ranks, so that their numbers may be thinned. Since 

 leaving South America we have heard that this war of exter- 

 mination completely failed. 



Among the captive girls taken in the same engagement, there 



were two very pretty Spanish ones, who had been carried away 



by the Indians when young, and could now only speak the 



Indian tongue. From their account they must have come from 



8 



