130 BAHIA BLANCA. " 



Bteps, how far tired; by the manner in which the 

 food has been cooked, whether the pursued trav- 

 elled in haste; by the general appearance, how 

 long it has been since they passed. They consider 

 a rastro of ten days or a fortnight quite recent 

 enough to be hunted out. We also heard that Mi- 

 randa struck from the west end of the Sierra Ven- 

 tana, in a direct line to the island of Cholechel, 

 situated seventy leagues up the Rio Negro. This 

 is a distance of between two and three hundred 

 miles, through a country completely unknown. 

 Wliat other troops in the world are so independent 1 

 With the sun for their guide, mares' flesh for food, 

 their saddle-cloths for beds — as long as there is a 

 little water, these men would penetrate to the end 

 of the world. 



A few days afterwards I saw another troop of 

 these banditti-like soldiers start on an expeditioia 

 against a tribe of Indians at the small Salinas, who 

 had been betrayed by a prisoner cacique. The 

 Spaniard who brought the orders for this expedi- 

 tion was a very intelligent man. He gave me an 

 account of the last engagement at which he was 

 present. Some Indians, who had been taken pris- 

 oners, gave information of a tiibe living north of 

 the Colorado. Two hundred soldiers were sent ; 

 and they first discovered 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 

 the Cordillera were in sight. The Indians, men, 

 women, and children, were about one hundred and 

 ten in number, and they were nearly all taken or 

 killed, for the soldiers sabre every man. The In- 

 dians are now so terrified that they offer no resist- 

 ance in a body ; but each flies, neglecting even his 

 wife and children ; but when overtaken, like wild 



