1833.-] INDIAN STORIES. 109 



of Commandant Miranda. A large portion of these men 

 were Indians {mansos, or tame), belonging to the tribe of 

 the Cacique Bernantio. They passed the night here ; and 

 it was impossible to conceive anything more wild and 

 savage than the scene of their bivouac. Some drank till 

 they were intoxicated ; others swallowed the steaming blood 

 of the cattle slaughtered for their suppers, and then, being 

 sick from drunkenness, they cast it up again, and were 

 besmeared with filth and gore. 



Nam simul expletus dapibus, vinopue sepultus 

 Cervicem inflexam posuit, jacuitque per antrum 

 Immensus, saniem eructans, ac f»-usta cruenta 

 Per somnum commixta mero. 



In the morning they started for the scene of the murder, 

 v/ith orders to follow the "rastro," or track, even if it 

 led them to Chile. We subsequently heard that the wild 

 Indians had escaped into the great Pampas, and from some 

 cause the track had been missed. One glance at the rastro 

 tells these people a whole history. Supposing they examine 

 the track of a thousand horses, they will soon guess the 

 number of mounted ones by seeing how many have 

 cantered ; by the depth of the other impressions, whether 

 any horses were loaded with cargoes ; by the irregularity 

 of the footsteps, how far tired ; by the manner in which the 

 food has been cooked, whether the pursued travelled 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 Miranda struck from the west end of the Sierra 

 Ventana, 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. What other troops in the world are 

 so independent? 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 expedition 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 expedition was a very intelligent man. He gave me an 



