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 carried 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 says
that in 1535, when Buenos Ayres was founded, there were villages
containing two and three thousand inhabitants. (5/20. Purchas's
"Collection of Voyages." I believe the date was really 1537.) 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 being a pass for horses; and it
was, in consequence, for some time the head-quarters of a division
of the army. When the troops first arrived there they found a tribe
of Indians, of whom they killed twenty or thirty. The cacique
escaped in a manner which astonished every one. The chief Indians
always have one or two picked horses, which they keep ready for any
urgent occasion. On one of these, an old white horse, the cacique
sprung, taking with him his little son. The horse had neither
saddle nor bridle. To avoid the shots, the Indian rode in th