THE POSTA. 143 



down upon them; around the party were lying 

 dogs, arms, remnants of deer and ostriches ; and 

 their long spears were stuck in the turf. Further 

 in the dark backgi-ound, their horses were tied up, 

 ready for any sudden danger. If the stillness of 

 the desolate plain was broken by one of the dogs 

 barking, a soldier, leaving the fire, would place his 

 head close to the ground, and thus slowly scan the 

 horizon. Even if the noisy teru-tero uttered its 

 scream, there would be a pause in the conversation, 

 and every head, for a moment, a little inclined. 



What a life of misery these men appear to us to 

 lead ! They were at least ten leagues from the 

 Sauce posta, and since the murder committed by 

 the Indians, twenty from another. The Indians 

 are supposed to have made their attack in the mid- 

 dle of the night, for very early in the morning 

 after the murder they were luckily seen approach- 

 ing this posta. The whole party here, however, 

 escaped, together with the troop of horses, each 

 one taking a line for himself, and driving with him 

 as many animals as he was able to manage. 



The little hovel, built of thistle-stalks, in which 

 they slept, neither kept out the wind or rain ; in- 

 deed, in the latter case, the only effect the roof had 

 was to condense it into larger drops. They had 

 nothing to eat excepting what they could catch, 

 such as ostriches, deer, armadillo'es, «fec., and their 

 only fuel was the dry stalks of a small plant, some- 

 what resembling an aloe. The sole luxury which 

 these men enjoyed was smoking the little paper 

 cigars, and sucking mate. I used to think that the 

 carrion vultures, man's constant attendants on these 

 dreary plains, while seated on the little neighbour- 

 ing cliff's, seemed, by their very patience, to say, 

 " Ah ! when the Indians come we shall have a 

 feast." 



