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 
the 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 
