102 BAHIA BLANCA. [cHar v. 
Colorado. Two hundred soldiers were sent; and they first dis- 
covered the Indians by a cloud of dust from their horses’ feet, 
as they chanced to be travelling. ‘The country was mountainous 
and wild, and it must have been far in the interior, for the 
Cordillera were insight. ‘The Indians, men, women, and children, 
were about one hundred and ten in number, and they were nearly 
all taken or killed, for the soldiers sabre every man. The Indians 
are now so terrified that they offer no resistance in a body, but 
each flies, neglecting even his wife and children ; but when over- 
taken, like wild animals, they fight against any number to the 
last moment. One dying Indian seized with his teeth the thumb 
of his adversary, and allowed his own eye to be forced out sooner 
than relinquish his hold. Another, who was wounded, feigned 
death, keeping a knife ready to strike one more fatal blow. My 
informer said, when he was pursuing an Indian, the man cried 
out for mercy, at the same time that he was covertly loosing the 
bolas from his waist, meaning to whirl it round his head and so 
strike his pursuer. ‘I however struck him with my sabre to 
the ground, and then got off my horse, and cut his throat with 
my knife.” This is a dark picture; but how much more shock- 
ing is the unquestionable fact, that all the women who appear 
above twenty years old are massacred in cold blood! When I 
exclaimed that this appeared rather inhuman, he answered, 
‘‘ Why, what can be done? they breed so!” ; 
Every ne here is fully convinced that this is the most just 
war, because it is against barbarians. Who would believe in 
this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian 
civilized country? The children of the Indians are saved, to be 
sold or given away as servants, or rather slaves for as long a time 
as the owners can make them believe themselves slaves; but I 
believe in their treatment there is little to complain of. 
In the battle four men ran away togther. They were pursued, 
one was killed, and the other three were taken alive. They 
turned out to be messengers or ambassadors from a large body of 
Indians, united in the common cause of defence, near the Cor- 
dillera. ‘The tribe to which they had been sent was on the point 
of holding a grand council; the feast of mare’s flesh was ready, 
and the dance prepared: in the morning the ambassadors were 
to have returned to the Cordillera. They were remarkably fine 
