The Llanos are, in fact, a permanent camp of military instruction for their intrepid inhabitants. Accustomed from their infancy to subdue the wild horse, to master the wild bull, to swim across broad streams, and to grapple in single combat with the crocodile, the tiger and wild boar, the Llaneros learn to despise danger. When the war turned them from their ordinary occupations, the enemy found them ready-made soldiers. Inhabiting a genial atmosphere and endowed with iron constitutions, their wants are few and insignificant; in peace, the lazo and the horse; in war, the horse and the lance. Perfectly acquainted with the country and unencumbered with heavy accoutrements, the dwellers of the Llanos cannot be conquered except by men of the same region, and Venezuela possesses in those limitless plains and in the breasts of their valorous children, the strongest bulwark of her national independence.

Paez, now master of his own military movements, resolved to meet the enemy there, and, if possible, to bring about an engagement. On the 16th of February, 1816, he commenced his march in pursuit of the royalist chief, Don Francisco Lopez, and in three hours’ space met him at a place called Mata de la Miel, on the right bank of the river Apure. The royalist leader had two pieces of artillery and sixteen hundred men, whom he drew up at once in order of battle. Paez’s forces amounted altogether to about six hundred cavalry. It was evening and the night fast advancing, on which account many of the patriot officers were of opinion that the engagement should be postponed until the following day. This very reason, however, determined the leader to enter at once into action, as he feared that his soldiers, observing the great superiority of the enemy in numbers, might take advantage of the night to desert. Paez accordingly divided his forces in two columns, placing the one, composed of New Granadians, under command of Captain Genaro Vasquez, and the other, composed of Venezuelians, under Captain Ramon Nonato Perez. The royalists were completely routed, and during all that night and the two following days the forces led by Paez pursued and captured a great portion of those under Don Francisco Lopez. Such was the action of Mata de la Miel. There were left dead on the field four hundred royalists, and a great number of prisoners were taken together with about three thousand five hundred horses and nearly all the enemy’s arms. Four months afterward, in June, Lopez again crossed the Apure with twelve hundred horsemen and four hundred infantry, but Paez met him near Mantecal and compelled him to retreat, after losing many men and horses.

Notwithstanding these advantages on the part of the patriot forces, the result of the following campaigns (1814, 1815, and 1816) was most disastrous to the arms of the republic elsewhere; Venezuela, New Granada, and the plains of Casanare again fell into the hands of the vengeful Spaniards. In 1816, a very numerous emigration of patriots, consisting of men, women, and children, in a state of great destitution and suffering, fled to the wilderness from the persecution of the royalists, and took refuge in the camp of Paez. Many persons of distinction were to be found among the fugitives, and a system of government was established for the regulation of affairs. A meeting of officers was held at Arichuna, and Paez appointed supreme chief, with the rank of General of Brigade. He applied himself immediately to raise sufficient forces to oppose Don Francisco Lopez and to acquire, if possible, some resources in his extreme want. The hardships and privations endured by the patriot army on the plains can scarcely be conceived. The soldiers were so destitute of clothing as to be compelled to use for a covering the hides of the cattle freshly killed; very few had hats, none shoes. The ordinary and only food was beef, without salt and without bread. There were, in addition to all this, continual rains, and the rivers and creeks had overflowed and covered over the country. They wanted horses, and as these are indispensable to the Llaneros, they must be obtained before any thing else. Only wild horses could be procured, and they had to be tamed and broken. This was done in squadrons, and it was a curious spectacle to see five or six hundred riders at a time struggling to subdue these wild animals. Around the ground were stationed several officers, mounted on well-trained horses, whose duty it was to go after those which escaped from their riders, to prevent them from carrying away the saddles, although these were made of wood, with thongs of raw hides. Many years after these scenes, an eye-witness wrote: “We courted danger in order to put an end, with honor, to such a miserable life.” To provide against this misery, Paez now turned his attention to the nearest source of supply, Barinas, a city abounding in all the commodities he stood most in need of. Although nearly two hundred miles distant, the patriot chieftain did not hesitate to invade his old antagonist in the midst of the rainy season. The undertaking could not, however, be executed without great peril and hardships, he having to contend not only against the inveterate enemies who occupied all the approaches to the city, but against the inundation of the savannas at the time. The expedition, moreover, had to be conducted with great secrecy, avoiding even the few channels left open in those inland seas for the transit of men on horseback. Not in the least deterred by obstacles so formidable in themselves, Paez got together one thousand picked men, and two thousand white horses, animals of this color being reputed the best swimmers. With these, he crossed the Apure and several other streams, then at the height of their flood, being compelled besides to ford extensive lagoons of various depths to avoid the numerous gunboats of the enemy, stationed at all the important passes. On one of these, on the river Canaguá, the expedition was fortunate enough to capture by surprise a gunboat and a large quantity of hides, which were left behind with a strong guard for future use. When near Barinas, Paez sent a detachment to surprise also the town of Pedraza, to the south-east of the capital, with the object of drawing the attention of the royalists in that direction. The ruse succeeded admirably; the small detachment of men carried every thing before them, penetrating as far as the plaza, and then retreated, according to instructions, to rejoin the main body. Enraged at their audacity, the Spanish commander at Barinas sent out a large force in pursuit of the attacking party, thus weakening his own force. Paez then advanced against Barinas, disposing his line of march in single file, each horseman followed by his spare horse, tied to the tail of his own sumpter. The object of this arrangement was to deceive the royalists also in regard to the real numbers of the enemy, which from a distance presented a very imposing appearance. Barinas is situated on the border of an extensive plain, bounded on the south by the mesa of the same name, through which Paez made his entry into the doomed city when the sun was in the meridian. The dreaded army of “departed spirits” did not produce a more appalling consternation among the royalists than the apparition of this unexpected body of ragged horsemen. They knew full well that, owing to the overflow of the savannas, no advance could be made upon the city from the south. They felt equally secure against any attack from the north and from the east, which were then entirely under their control, while on the west they were still better protected by the lofty Sierra Nevada. Without stopping to ascertain the real character of the force before them, the royalists collected together in a great hurry whatever valuables they prized most, and had already loaded several mules with them, when the enemy, dashing forward in full gallop, arrived in time to secure the rich booty, after dispersing the owners and their troops. The half-clad followers of Paez then fell upon the stores and abandoned houses of the royalists with the eagerness of men who had not seen a respectable garment in a long time. One of the officers was fortunate enough to capture a mule loaded with thirty thousand dollars in gold, while every man in the party got more goods than he could carry.

Paez only remained a sufficient time at Barinas to arrange the transportation of the booty, which took up nearly all the spare horses brought along for this purpose; without these and the hides seized at Canaguá, it would have been impossible to remove it to the patriot camp in the wilderness. Owing to the presence of a strong flotilla of gunboats at the mouth of the river, the captured vessel had to be abandoned after a while, and the wearisome route across the inundated savannas resumed by the returning caravan. The hides served the double purpose of covering for the goods and lighters to ferry them over the streams. This species of leather canoe is an ingenious contrivance frequently resorted to in those wild regions wherever there is a scarcity of boats, and consists in a bag or trough formed by passing a rope through a number of holes round the rim of the hide, and gathering it over the goods. One end of the rope of sufficient length is then handed over to a good swimmer, who takes it between his teeth and tows the lighter after him. In this manner, the immense booty obtained at Barinas was successfully transported over one hundred miles of inundated plains, to the inconceivable joy of the wretched emigrants at the camp of Arichuna.

After allowing his troop sufficient time to rest from their fatigues, and finding it to his advantage to resume the offensive, at least to occupy the attention of his soldiers, Paez commenced his march toward Achaguas, although the season was still very severe. The march was slow, as, besides the difficulties of the road, they were encumbered by numerous emigrants, and compelled, at every step, to procure supplies on account of the want of stores. The great multitude of men, women, and children, moving with the army, represented to the life the picture of a nomadic people without home or country, who, after consuming the resources of the district they have occupied, raise their tents to conquer another.[42] In this manner they arrived at the sand hills or Médanos de Araguayuna, where, having left the emigrants under the protection of a resolute band of horsemen, Paez incorporated all the men capable of bearing arms in his ranks, and marched against Lopez, whom he supposed to be at Achaguas. But after proceeding a short distance, he learned that the enemy, to the number of seventeen hundred horsemen and four hundred infantry, was at the cattle farm called Yagual. Paez then changed his course and took his position between the enemy and the city of Achaguas. His army was divided into three columns, commanded by Generals Urdaneta and Servier, and by Colonel Santander; they were nearly all armed with lances, very few with muskets or carabines, and the supply of ammunition was scanty. On the 8th of October, they came in sight of the enemy, and although their number much exceeded that of the patriot forces, Paez did not hesitate to give them battle. The conflict was long and severe, but it was decidedly in favor of the patriots. Don Francisco Lopez was compelled to abandon his position, after sustaining a severe loss; on the next day he refused to renew the battle, and fell back upon Achaguas, having previously shipped on the river Arauca all his artillery and wounded for San Fernando. On the 13th, Lopez, having made a short resistance, abandoned the town, of which Paez took possession. Shortly after this, Lopez being attacked by surprise on the banks of the Apure, was utterly defeated, his forces dispersed, and he himself lost his life.

At the head of his brave soldiers, Paez rescued the province of Apure, a part of that of Barinas, in Venezuela, and recovered that of Casanare, in New Granada. Having increased his force by the new levies raised in these provinces and in others, he formed that army which subsequently rendered such important services in the cause of freedom, and whose exploits have been so much admired.

It is not my purpose to enter here into a detailed account of the events of that epoch; the limits of this chapter, and the relationship existing between the author and the subject of this hasty sketch, preclude the possibility of such an undertaking, especially when better pens have compiled them in the Encyclopædia Britannica—articles, Colombia and Bolívar; in the American Cyclopædia—articles, Paez and Venezuela; also in Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela, and various other works by English officers who served in the ranks of the patriot armies at the time, to which English and American readers of history are especially referred for a more comprehensive view of that fearful struggle. My object is to give my readers some idea respecting the nature of that contest in that part of Venezuela which, after years of unheard-of privations and almost insurmountable difficulties, furnished at last the elements which decided the fate of Colombia upon the plains of Carabobo, Junin, and Boyacá.

Vain were, after this, the efforts of the Spanish invaders to destroy what they contemptuously called the Gang of Apure, in their official documents. Several expeditions were despatched from Spain about this time, under the command of the ablest generals, and provided with all the material for a vigorous campaign. One of these, led by Lieut.-General Don Pablo Morillo, set sail from Cadiz on the 18th of February, 1815. It consisted of sixty-five transport ships and other smaller vessels, convoyed by the line-of-battle ship San Pedro Alcantara (lost afterwards during the blockade of the Island of Margarita), mounting seventy-four guns. The total number of men composing this expedition, including marines, amounted to fifteen thousand. The ships carrying this formidable armament cast anchor, on the third of April, 1815, in Puerto Santo, to the windward of Carupano, in Venezuela. Morillo, the commander of this expedition, was a brave, active, and energetic officer, cool in action, a severe disciplinarian, and was beloved by his soldiers. Besides this force, there was a royalist army of five thousand men in Venezuela, commanded by Morales.

At first, General Morillo met with little or no opposition, until, going to the interior, he encountered the wild horsemen of the plains. The haughty temper of the Spanish commander-in-chief could not bear that a handful of demi-savages, as he was pleased to style them, should insult the pennant of Castile any longer, and he therefore prepared to capture every one of them, with what results, the sequel of this narrative will show.

In the early part of January, 1817, the Spanish commanders, La Torre and Calzada, effected a junction at Guasdualito, on the plains of Apure. About the same time, the royalist brigadier, Don Ramon Correa, and Lieutenant-Colonel Don Salvador Gorrin, left San Fernando, and with their cavalry and infantry attacked the line of the patriots, and completely routed Guerrero, the republican general, forcing him to fall back upon Paez, after a bloody battle, in which the patriots sustained a considerable loss. The siege of San Fernando being raised in consequence of this triumph, the attention of La Torre and Calzada was directed to Paez, who presented the greatest obstacle to their occupation of the river Apure and its adjacent plains. An army of four thousand veteran soldiers of all arms, including seventeen hundred of the cavalry commanded by Colonel Remijio Ramos, presented a force sufficient to inspire the Spanish commander with confidence, particularly as La Torre, who was a brave and accomplished soldier, was anxious to distinguish himself among his companions in arms. He, therefore, marched to the town of San Vicente, following the right bank of the river Apure, with the intention of attacking Paez, who was then in Mantecal. On the 28th of January, the patriots and royalists met on the plain of Mucuritas; the former, with a body of cavalry amounting only to eleven hundred horsemen, and the latter with the forces already mentioned. The result of the engagement was as unfortunate to La Torre as it proved advantageous to the patriots under Paez, who on this occasion made up for his inferiority in numbers by means of a stratagem which nearly resulted in the destruction of the entire Spanish army. The order of battle adopted by the royalist leader was the best which the nature of the ground and the enemy he had to contend with would permit; his infantry presented a strong and compact front, while his cavalry was posted on the wings and on the rear. Paez having only cavalry, could not come within the range of the enemy’s muskets without running the risk of being wholly destroyed; and he consequently conceived the idea of separating the royalist horse from the infantry. The presumptuous confidence of Colonel Ramos and the inexperience of La Torre in the Llanero’s tactics, facilitated the execution of Paez’s plan. Having formed two columns with a portion of his forces, Paez ordered them to attack the enemy’s flanks, and then immediately to retreat, as if they had been repulsed. His object was to draw out the enemy’s cavalry in the heat of the pursuit, and at once surround them with two other columns, which he had ready prepared for that purpose. This simple manœuvre had the desired effect, and La Torre’s cavalry was speedily destroyed. The European hussars alone escaped, because they advanced with less precipitancy and in better order. The republican leader now ordered the dry grass of the plain to be set on fire, and it instantly became a sea of flame. Fortunately for La Torre, his infantry retreating precipitately in close column, succeeded in reaching a spot which had been burned some time before. Even there his infantry sustained several charges from Paez’s cavalry, compelling him ultimately to seek a refuge in a dense wood on the right bank of the Apure, where the pursuit ceased for want of infantry on the part of the patriots. Of this battle, General Morillo wrote: “Fourteen consecutive charges upon my wearied battalions convinced me that these men were not a small gang of cowards, as had been represented to me.” On the following morning Morillo joined La Torre, and continued with him his march to San Fernando without crossing the Apure, and always in sight of the republican cavalry; Paez finally perceiving that the enemy avoided a new engagement, retired to San Juan de Payara.