116 



CHARLES DARWIN 



Indians can only travel in particular directions. The escape 

 of the Indians to the south of the Rio Negro, where in such 

 a vast unknown country they would be safe, is prevented by 

 a treaty with the Tehuelches to this effect ; — that Rosas pays 

 them so much to -slaughter every Indian who passes to the 

 south of the river, but if they fail in so doing, they them- 

 selves are to be exterminated. The war is waged chiefly 

 against the Indians near the Cordillera; for many of the 

 tribes on this eastern side are fighting with Rosas. The 

 general, however, like Lord Chesterfield, thinking that his 

 friends may in a future day become his enemies, always 

 places them in the front ranks, so that their numbers may 

 be thinned. Since leaving South America we have heard 

 that this war of extermination completely failed. 



Among the captive girls taken in the same engagement, 

 there were two very pretty Spanish ones, who had been car- 

 ried away by the Indians when young, and could now only 

 speak the Indian tongue. From their account they must 

 have come from Salta, a distance in a straight line of nearly 

 one thousand miles. This gives one a grand idea of the 

 immense territory over which the Indians roam: yet, great 

 as it is, I think there will not, in another half-century, be 

 a wild Indian northward of the Rio Negro. The warfare 

 is too bloody to last; the Christians killing every Indian, 

 and the Indians doing the same by the Christians. It is 

 melancholy to trace how the Indians have given way before 

 the Spanish invaders. Schirdel a says that in 1535, when 

 Buenos Ayres was founded, there were villages containing 

 two and three thousand inhabitants. Even in Falconer's 

 time (1750) the Indians made inroads as far as Luxan, 

 Areco, and Arrecife, but now they are driven beyond the 

 Salado. Not only have whole tribes been exterminated, but 

 the remaining Indians have become more barbarous: instead 

 of living in large villages, and being employed in the arts of 

 fishing, as well as of the chase, they now wander about the 

 open plains, without home or fixed occupation. 



I heard also some account of an engagement which took 

 place, a few weeks previously to the one mentioned, at 

 Cholechel. This is a very important station on account of 



31 Purchas's Collection of Voyages. I believe the date was really 1537. 



