children of the Indians are saved, to be sold or given
away as servants, or rather slaves for as long a time as the owners
can make them believe themselves slaves; but I believe in their
treatment there is little to complain of.

In the battle four men ran away together. They were pursued, one
was killed, and the other three were taken alive. They turned out
to be messengers or ambassadors from a large body of Indians,
united in the common cause of defence, near the Cordillera. The
tribe to which they had been sent was on the point of holding a
grand council, the feast of mare's flesh was ready, and the dance
prepared: in the morning the ambassadors were to have returned to
the Cordillera. They were remarkably fine men, very fair, above six
feet high, and all under thirty years of age. The three survivors
of course possessed very valuable information and to extort this
they were placed in a line. The two first being questioned,
answered, "No s," (I do not know), and were one after the other
shot. The third also said "No s,;" adding, "Fire, I am a man, and
can die!" Not one syllable would they breathe to injure the united
cause of their country! The conduct of the above-mentioned cacique
was very different; he saved his life by betraying the intended
plan of warfare, and the point of union in the Andes. It was
believed that there were already six or seven hundred Indians
together, and that in summer their numbers would be doubled.
Ambassadors were to have been sent to the Indians at the small
Salinas, near Bahia Blanca, whom I have mentioned that this same
cacique had betrayed. The communication, therefore, between the
Indians, extends from the Cordillera to the coast of the Atlantic.

General Rosas's plan is to kill all stragglers, and having driven
the remainder to a common point, to attack them in a body, in the
summer, with the assistance of the Chilenos. This operation is to
be repeated for three successive years. I imagine the summer is
chosen as the time for the main attack, because the plains are then
without water, and the 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 themselves
are to be exterminated. The