104 BAHIA BLANCA. [chap, v 



Salta, a distance in a straight line of nearly one thousand miles. 

 This gives one a grand idea of the immense territory over which 

 the Indians roam : yet, great as it is, I think there will not, in 

 another half-century, be a wild Indian northward of the Eio 

 Negro. The warfare is too bloody to last ; the Christians killing 

 every Indian, and the Indians doing the same by the Christians. 

 It is melancholy to trace how the Indians have given way before 

 the Spanish invaders. Schirdel* says that in 1535, when Buenos 

 Ayres was founded, there were villages containing two and three 

 thousand inhabitants. Even in Falconer's time (1750) the 

 Indians made inroads as far as Lnxan, Areco, and Arrecife, but 

 now they are driven beyond the Salado. Not only have whole 

 tribes been exterminated, but the remaining Indians have 

 become more barbarous : instead of living in large villages, and 

 being employed in the arts of fishing, as well a;^ of the chace, 

 they now wander about the open plains, without home or fixed 

 occupation. 



I heard also some account of an engagement which took place, 

 a few weeks previously to the one mentioned, at Cholechel. 

 This is a very important station on account of being a pass for 

 horses ; and it was, in consequence, for some time the head- 

 quarters of a division of the army. When the troops first arrived 

 there they found a tribe of Indians, of whom they killed twenty 

 or thirty. The cacique escaped in a manner which astonished 

 every one. The chief Indians always have one or two picked 

 horses, which they keep ready for any urgent occasion. On one 

 of these, an old white horse, the cacique sprung, taking with 

 him his little son. The horse had neither saddle nor bridle. 

 To avoid the shots, the Indian rode in the peculiar method of 

 his nation ; namely, with an arm round the horse's neck, and 

 one leg only on its back. Thus hanging on one side, he was 

 seen patting the horse's head, and talking to him. The pur- 

 suers urged every effort in the chace ; the Commandant three 

 times changed his horse, but all in vain. The old Indian father 

 and his son escaped, and were free. What a fine picture one 

 can form in one's mind,— the naked, bronze-like figure of the 



* Purchas's Collection of Vova^es. I believe the date was really 

 1537. 



