become worried nearly past grumbling.
On this day our own company rode out to Obraja, to visit the enemy's
picket again, and afterwards to San Jorge on the lake, to guard the
transportation of a row-boat thence to Rivas. The boat was one of those
borrowed from the vessels in San Juan harbor for the purpose of retaking
the steamers, and had been rowed up to San Jorge, and was now removed to
Rivas, to prevent its seizure by the enemy,--the garrison at Virgin
Bay having burnt the brig, and marched to Rivas, when the enemy first
appeared on land at Obraja. So that the whole American force (except
the crew of the little schooner in which General Walker and his fifty
original followers first came to Nicaragua, and which was lying at this
time in San Juan harbor) was now concentrated at Rivas; the enemy being
eight or nine miles behind them at Obraja, or on the lake with the two
steamers. As we rode through the town of San Jorge, the place seemed
almost deserted, and I remember lingering with others to haversack some
bunches of yellow plantains which hung in an empty house on the _plaza_.
The delay may have come near being fatal to us, for we heard afterwards
that we had been gone but a little while, when a troop of the enemy's
horse rode into the place, reconnoitred, and returned in the direction
in which they came. Their reconnoissance in San Jorge was explained soon
afterwards.

Some time in the last half of the night following, I was detailed, along
with a considerable detachment from two mounted companies, to ride on a
scout toward Obraja. On the outward ride I was but half-awake, and
my recollection of our course is confused: however, I think it was
somewhere between Potosi and Obraja that we came to a halt, and I was
aroused by some excitement in the party. Pickets were hastily posted
in several directions, whilst the officers gathered about some natives
awakened from a neighboring hut, and seemed to question them earnestly.
We soon heard that the enemy were on the road moving from Obraja, and
that a large force had a little while before passed this place going
eastward. The natives, prone to exaggeration, declared that this force
had been an hour in passing,--with baggage, eight pieces of cannon
mounted on ox-carts, several hundred pressed native Nicaraguans, tied
and guarded to prevent their running away, and a long train of women to
nurse the wounded. The Chamorristas, it seemed, had been around pressing
all the nati