by, they had cut
down trees and blocked it up, and their way being stopped, we could fire
upon them from their intrenchment without once missing aim.

At last, seeing the river in the ravine running down with blood, and
tired of pursuing the fugitives, we spared the few remaining Spaniards.
After we had chanted the 'Te Deum,' sixty of us went to tell those left
in the camp of the victory which Heaven had vouchsafed to us. We found
them on the point of giving battle to the three hundred Spaniards, who
had already (on finding out their weakness) sent a message to them by an
officer to tell them that it was hopeless for them to expect to cross
the valley, and to offer terms of peace. To which our men replied that
were there as many Spaniards as the blades of grass in the prairie they
would not be afraid, but would pass through in spite of them, and go
where they liked!

The officer, being just dismissed with this message when we arrived,
shrugged his shoulders with astonishment when he saw us safe back again,
and mounted on the horses of his comrades of the intrenchments. He rode
off with the news to his troop, whom we presently fired upon, to rid
them altogether from their desire to follow in our wake. Unfortunately
for them they had not time to mount their horses, so after a brief
conflict, in which a great number of them fell, we let the rest go,
though we kept their horses. Then, with our baggage, we joined those of
our men who had stayed to guard the intrenchments. In both these combats
we had only two men slain and four wounded.

Continuing our journey, we passed one more Spanish intrenchment, where,
since the news of our victory had gone before us, we found no
resistance. At last, on the sixteenth day of our march, we reached the
river which we had been seeking eagerly, by whose means we meant to gain
the sea into which it flowed.

At once we entered the woods which are on its banks, and everyone set to
work in good earnest to cut down trees, in order to construct
_piperies_, with which to descend the river. The reader may perhaps
imagine that these piperies were some kind of comfortable boat to carry
us pleasantly along the stream, but they were anything but this. We
joined together four or five trunks of a kind of tree with light
floating wood, merely stripping off their bark, and binding them,
instead of cord, with a climbing plant growing in those forests, and
embracing the trees like ivy, and when these str