Life in Patagonia. 97 



imagined in their terror, charging down upon them. 

 These were their seventy foes spread in an immense 

 half-moon, in the hollow of which over a thousand 

 horses were being driven along at frantic speed. 

 The Brazilians 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 invaders. In the meantime the Pata- 

 gonians 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 

 t,he Imperial troops was shot dead by a stray 

 bullet; then the men threw down their arms and 

 surrendered at discretion — 500 disciplined soldiers 

 of the Empire to seventy poor Patagonians, mostly 

 farmers, tradesmen, and artisans. The honour of 

 the Empire was very little to those famishing 

 wretches crying out with frothing mouths for water 

 instead of quarter. 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, pushed too 

 far out by the surging mass behind, were swept 

 from their feet by the swift current and drowned. 



H 



