age
presbytery, and galloped eighty miles into the hills to perform the
christening ceremony, that a daughter was born to them. To celebrate the
event, I suppose, Ruiz executed one or two brilliant forays clear away
at the rear of our forces, and defeated the detachments sent out to cut
off his retreat. General Robles nearly had a stroke of apoplexy from
rage. He found another cause of insomnia than the bites of mosquitoes;
but against this one, senores, tumblers of raw brandy had no more effect
than so much water. He took to railing and storming at me about my
strong man. And from our impatience to end this inglorious campaign, I
am afraid that we young officers became reckless and apt to take undue
risks on service.

"Nevertheless, slowly, inch by inch as it were, our columns were closing
upon Gaspar Ruiz, though he had managed to raise all the Araucanian
nation of wild Indians against us. Then a year or more later our
Government became aware through its agents and spies that he had
actually entered into alliance with Carreras, the so-called dictator of
the so-called republic of Mendoza, on the other side of the mountains.
Whether Gaspar Ruiz had a deep political intention, or whether he wished
only to secure a safe retreat for his wife and child while he pursued
remorselessly against us his war of surprises and massacres, I cannot
tell. The alliance, however, was a fact. Defeated in his attempt to
check our advance from the sea, he retreated with his usual swiftness,
and preparing for another hard and hazardous tussle began by sending his
wife with the little girl across the Pequena range of mountains, on the
frontier of Mendoza."

XI

"Now Carreras, under the guise of politics and liberalism, was a
scoundrel of the deepest dye, and the unhappy state of Mendoza was the
prey of thieves, robbers, traitors and murderers, who formed his party.
He was under a noble exterior a man without heart, pity, honour, or
conscience. Tie aspired to nothing but tyranny, and though he would have
made use of Gaspar Ruiz for his nefarious designs, yet he soon became
aware that to propitiate the Chilian Government would answer his purpose
better. I blush to say that he made proposals to our Government to
deliver up on certain conditions the wife and child of the man who had
trusted to his honour, and that this offer was accepted.

"While on her way to Mendoza over the Pequena pass she was betrayed by
her escort of Carreras' me