88 



THE PAMPAS. 



in a few in&tances their families are living with them. 

 When one thinks of the dreadful fate which has 

 befallen so many poor families in this province, 

 and that any moment may bring the Indians again 

 among them, it is really shocking to see women 

 living in such a dreadful situation — to fancy that 

 they should be so blind, and so heedless of experi- 

 ence; — and it is distressing to see a number of inno- 

 cent little children playing about the door of a hut, 

 in which they may be all massacred, unconscious of 

 the fate that may await them, or of the blood-thirsty, 

 vindictive passions of man. 



We were in the centre of this dreary country — I 

 always rode for a few stages in the morning, and I 

 was with a young Gaucho of about fifteen years of 

 age, who had been born in the province — his father 

 and mother had been murdered by the Indians — he 

 had been saved by a man who had galloped away 

 with him, but he was then an infant, and remem- 

 bered nothing of it. We passed the ruins of a hut 

 which he said had belonged to his aunt — he said 

 that, about two years ago, he was at that hut with his 

 aunt and three of his cousins, who were young men 

 — that while they were conversing together a boy gal- 



