LIFE IN PATAGONIA 95 



pushed too far out by the surging mass behind, 

 were swept from their feet by the swift current 

 and drowned. When they had drunk their fill, 

 they were driven like cattle to the Carmen and 

 shut up within the fort. In the evening the ship 

 arrived before the town, and, going a little too 

 near the shore on the opposite side, ran aground. 

 The men in her were quickly apprised of the dis- 

 aster which had overtaken the land force ; mean- 

 while the resolute Patagonians, concealed amongst 

 the trees on the shore, began to pepper the deck 

 with musket-balls; the Brazilians, in terror for 

 their lives, leaped into the water and swam to 

 land; and when darkness fell, the colonists had 

 crowned their brave day's work by the capture 

 of the Imperial war-vessel Itaparica. No doubt 

 it was soon pulled to pieces, good building mate- 

 rial being rather expensive on the Eio Negro; a 

 portion of the wreck, however, still lies in the 

 river, and often, when the tide was low, and those 

 old brown timbers came up above the surface, 

 like the gaunt fossil ribs of some gigantic Pliocene 

 monster, I have got out of my boat and stood 

 upon them experiencing a feeling of great satis- 

 faction. Thus the awful war-cloud burst, and the 

 little colony, by pluck and cunning and readiness 

 to strike at the proper moment, saved itself from 

 the disgrace of being conquered by the infamous 

 Empire of the tropics. 



During my residence at the house alongside the 

 Parrot's Cliff, one of our neighbors I was very 



