TOPOGEAPHY. 



319 



made an irruption into the province, which they laid waste, 

 on the pretext that an Indian of a distinguished class had been 

 scourged with rods by the Jesuits. The pride of some, and 

 the ignorance of others, prevented the pacific negotiations 

 w^hich might have been entered on with the Indians. Every 

 thing was to be accomplished by the point of the lance ; and 

 peace was to be purchased on no other condition than that of 

 the extermination of the enemy. Don Antonio de Texerina, 

 Don Juan de Echalar, Don Martin Ascue, &c. took the field 

 at different times. 



These expeditions resembled those of the ancient feodal go- 

 vernments of Europe ; each of the soldiers entering on the 

 campaign, at his own cost, for a determinate number of days, 

 and returning whenever he had exhausted the small store of 

 provisions he had drawn from his necessitous abode. To ex- 

 plain this subje6f still better, they were undertaken without 

 system, order, discipline, or subordination ; and having for 

 their sole aim the ancient and deplorable mania of conquest, 

 the soldiery penetrated into the territory occupied by the In- 

 dians, where they put to death or captured a few of them, 

 as the fruit of their enterprize, and returned to their homes. 

 It is by no means surprizing, that, in the prosecution of so ir- 

 regular a plan, all the martial attempts should have been 

 unsuccessful, and should not have produced any other effedt 

 beside that of impoverishing the country. 



The useless desire to exterminate the Chirihuanos, and to 

 subdue them by the dint of arms, was abandoned in Tarija, 

 several years ago. I'he love of humanity, philosophy, and 

 the enlightened policy of the more recent governors, have dis- 

 sipated the ideas of coercion and violence, and have succeeded 



in 



