94 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



heard behind them, and looking back, they beheld 

 a great army, as they imagined in their terror, 

 charging down upon them. These were their sev- 

 enty foes spread in an immense half-moon, in 

 the hollow of which over a thousand horses were 

 being driven along at frantic speed. The Brazil- 

 ians received their equine enemy with a discharge 

 of musketry; but though many horses were slain 

 or wounded, the frantic yells of the drivers behind 

 still urged them on, and in a few moments, blind 

 with panic, they were trampling down the invad- 

 ers. In the meantime the Patagonians were firing 

 into the confused mass of horses and men ; and by 

 a singular chance a miracle it was held to be at the 

 time the officer commanding the Imperial troops 

 was shot dead by a stray bullet; then the men 

 threw down their arms and surrendered at dis- 

 cretion 500 disciplined soldiers of the Empire to 

 seventy poor Patagonians, mostly farmers, trades- 

 men, and artisans. The honor of the Empire was 

 very little to those famishing wretches crying out 

 with frothing mouths for water instead of quar- 

 ter. Leaving their muskets scattered about the 

 plain, they were marched by their captors down 

 to the river, which was about four miles off, and 

 reached it at a point just where the bank slopes 

 down between the Parrot's Cliff on one side, and 

 the house I resided in on the other. Like a herd 

 of cattle maddened with thirst, they rushed into 

 the water, trampling each other down in their 

 haste, so that many were smothered, while others, 



