The more this troop advanced into the plain the easier it was, through the cloud of dust that enveloped them, which was at times driven away by the wind, to discover the circumstances under which they were travelling. The troop was composed of more than four thousand men. Each horseman of the principal corps had a foot soldier riding on the same horse behind him.
This circumstance was not at all extraordinary.
Arrived at a point of land jutting into the river, the advanced guard stopped.
Two hours later the tents were ready, intrenchments made, sentinels posted, and the corps d'armée was firmly established in an excellent position out of the reach of a surprise.
It was ten o'clock in the morning.
Except the corps d'armée, the immense plain appeared quite deserted.
Nevertheless, several measures of precaution had been taken. Sentinels, placed at certain distances, watched over the common safety, and their horses, which are generally left to browse at liberty during a halt, were attached to pickets fixed in the earth. The bivouac fires were lighted in hollows and fed by an extremely dry wood, which only emitted light and scarcely perceptible smoke.
A remarkable circumstance was that several whites, or rather several persons clothed in the costume of the Spanish-Americans of the Banda Oriental, were among the Indians, and were treated as guests and friends.
Then, on the other side of the river, at the opposite angle of the triangle, of which the corps formed, so to say, the summit, was a third troop of horsemen, also very numerous; but the latter had simply halted among the high grass.
These horsemen were Montoneros, that is to say, partisans.