Some Abipones complained to Ychamenraikin, that as they were returning from hunting wild horses, they had been scourged and plundered by some of Debayakaikin's people. Moreover they announced that a very numerous horde of Nakaiketergehes had been discovered by them in the country between the cities of Sta. Fè and St. Iago. The Cacique pronounces this station dangerous to travelling Spaniards, and an infringement upon the peace established, and exclaims that he will set out the next day, and discover these hostile Abipones. The Christian Mocobios are called upon, and within a few hours a company of almost three hundred men is assembled. After a few days' journey they discovered the hostile horde, but did not make a sudden attack upon it. Not to appear deficient in courtesy, they sent forward two heralds to desire the enemies, in a friendly manner, instantly to restore the horses they had unjustly carried off, and to ask pardon for the injury they had committed. The blast of trumpets, by which twenty men challenged three hundred to the fight, was their answer. From words they proceeded to blows. Ychamenraikin, the Commander in Chief, and the foremost in the foremost rank, was pierced by an arrow in the left eye, and instantly expired. Inconceivable was the fury that inflamed the minds of the soldiers, at sight of their dead leader. "Come on," was the universal cry: "let none of the enemy depart alive." Their hands answered to their tongues: for all the spearmen rushed at once upon the adverse army. In truth, twenty might thus have been destroyed with little difficulty by three hundred, had they not with incredible firmness opposed themselves as a wall to their adversaries. Though wounded all over, they still continued to oppose spears to spears, and weapons to weapons, not receding a hair's breadth from the line of battle. The victors cut off the heads of those most renowned for valour, and carried them home as trophies. Two, who fell amongst the dead bodies and, being thought lifeless, had, the one an ear, the other a finger cut off by a Mocobio, appeared a few months after alive, in the town of St. Ferdinand.
All the men being slain, the Mocobios, irritated by the death of their Cacique, took delight in venting their fury on the women, who had taken refuge in a neighbouring wood. Forty women and children were slain, and many taken captive; which cruelty, as it was exercised towards the defenceless, we all condemned in the strongest manner. Many of our Abipones and Mocobios were wounded, but none slain except Ychamenraikin. The bones of this Cacique, after being stripped of the flesh, received the last obsequies, accompanied by the tears of the whole town, and by funeral rites, as has been related elsewhere.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF FRESH DISTURBANCES OF THE TOWN, ARISING FROM
THE VICTORY GAINED BY THE INHABITANTS.
Debayakaikin, upon hearing of this slaughter of his people, made no end of storming and threatening the victorious Riikahés. Not one of his fellow-hordesmen but raved with grief at some injury he had sustained from it: one mourned the death or captivity of a son; another of a husband; a third of a wife or brother. The life of Father Joseph Sanchez, priest of the town of Concepcion, was placed in extreme danger, as they declared their intention of revenging on every Spaniard, the slaughter they had suffered from the Abipones and Mocobios, the friends of the Spaniards. Had not Barreda restrained the enraged people, all the Nakaiketergehes would have instantly flown to devastate the colonies of St. Jeronymo and St. Xavier, whither Landriel was sent in the name of Barreda to require restitution of the captives. Ychoalay, respecting the wishes of the Vice-Governor, though not the threats of Debayakaikin, cheerfully assented to this demand, but his example was not followed by the Mocobios; which irritated the savages, and made them resolve to extort by arms what the Spaniards could not obtain by prayers. We learnt from trusty messengers that the enemies would be at the town of St. Jeronymo in a few days. Thrown into the utmost consternation we requested the Mocobios to lend us supplies, which they refused, alleging the perilous state of their own town, and the necessity they were under of providing for the security of it. All hope of succour being thus denied us, whatever could contribute to our defence was wisely and diligently ordered by Ychoalay. Many watchmen were appointed each night, and scouts sent backwards and forwards. Debayakaikin, learning from his spies that we were in daily expectation of him, that his expedition might not terminate like the former one, thought proper to defer it for some weeks, and then fell suddenly upon us, when we were not expecting any thing hostile.
On the night after Whitsuntide, he and his forces crept into the plain adjoining the town, and employed themselves till morning in collecting droves of horses, and in wounding the oxen with spears. At break of day, as I was performing divine service, Pachieke and Zapancha, who were sent by Debayakaikin to challenge the townsmen to join battle with him, arrived. Ychoalay replied, in the name of the rest, that they did not want courage to accept the challenge, but horses to convey them to the place appointed for the combat; which, as the enemy had themselves taken in the night, they might now make use of for the purpose of approaching the town, where he and his people would await them in battle-array. And, in fact, the Abipones, assembling from all quarters, soon formed an army, the front of which Ychoalay occupied on horseback. Whilst Ychoalay was sharpening the point of his lance on a whetstone in our court-yard, and greasing it with tallow that it might enter more readily into the flesh, I spoke to him about baptism, knowing that the weapons of all would be directed particularly at him, and endeavouring, at all events, to secure his salvation. But alas! I preached to deaf ears, so far was he from listening or attending to me, and so entirely engrossed by warlike affairs. From such mighty preparations for war, what could be expected but fields smoking with blood? Yet nothing but noise ensued; and the day passed entirely without slaughter: for about noon, as we were standing in form of battle, and expecting every moment the attack of the enemies, Debayakaikin at length made answer by the mouth of a herald, that he did not judge it expedient to join battle in sight of the town, where, he doubted not, we had a supply of muskets; deterred by a groundless apprehension of which, he departed without attempting any thing further. After weathering so great a storm, we were surprized, about evening, by another, which was the more terrible from being unforeseen. Ychoalay suddenly interrupted me as I was conversing with Father Brigniel. "Ho! you Fathers," said he, with an unusually gloomy countenance, "my whole nation, weary of this colony, and of the friendship of the Spaniards, intend desertion—nor can I blame them. On account of the Spaniards, we have taken up arms against our countrymen and relations, and have combated them to this very day, with fortune, alas! how various! They have been our enemies ever since we professed ourselves the friends of the Spaniards and their firm defenders against Debayakaikin, Oaherkaikin, and their followers! How many droves of horses have they taken from us; how many wounds have they inflicted on us: how many deaths of our fellow-soldiers have they caused us to lament! The Spaniards were not ignorant of all this, yet they quietly looked on, and never seriously thought of lending us the promised assistance. On this account it is that the minds of my comrades are suddenly alienated, and that they are preparing for flight. I advise you to write immediately to the Vice-Governor for soldiers, to conduct you safe back to the lands of the Spaniards, before the Indians, exasperated by the loss of horses they have this day suffered, have time to think of taking away your lives." We both promised to follow his advice, adding that he might feel assured the Vice-Governor would do all in his power to assist and console our Abipones. The truth of Ychoalay's representations was betrayed by the sullen and threatening eyes of the other Abipones, in which we plainly read their grief at so great a loss of horses, and their ill-will to the Spaniards. That night we wrote an account of the perilous state of our affairs to the Vice-Governor; but even Ychoalay had great difficulty in finding any one who would carry the letters, as the weather had been stormy for many days past. Indeed the journey seemed impracticable whilst all the roads were flooded with water. In the mean time it was greatly to be feared, that when intelligence was received of the Vice-Governor's determination, the Indians, enraged at an unsatisfactory reply, would turn their backs on the colony, and after murdering the Jesuits, return to their former habits of plunder. Yet when affairs seemed desperate, an unhoped-for calm succeeded to this terrible storm. Providence clearly shone forth in the unexpected events which I am going to relate.
CHAPTER XIX.
YCHOALAY, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SPANIARDS, TAKES
A COMPANY OF HOSTILE ABIPONES, AND, ON ANOTHER
OCCASION, FIGHTS SUCCESSFULLY WITH OAHERKAIKIN.
The Charruas, a fierce equestrian nation, after being long formidable to travellers on the eastern bank of the Parana, were at length made captive, for the most part, by a troop of horse from Sta. Fè, and assembled in a colony founded in the plain Cajasta, where they were instructed in the divine law by a priest of the order of St. Francis. These savages, formerly so slothful, were impelled by hunger to make great exertions in cultivating land. But the plains adjacent to the town, being in great part marshy, scarce afforded a place where seed could be sown with any prospect of a harvest, and the hill occupied by the colony seemed too small for the number of inhabitants. On which account, some Charruas were sent by the priest to explore the remoter plains, and endeavour to find a better situation for the colony. On their return, they communicated their discovery of a very numerous horde of Abipones near La Laguna Blanca. The Vice-Governor of Sta. Fè, when informed of this circumstance, judged habitations of hostile Abipones insufferable in a place where they had such a good opportunity of sallying forth to annoy the colonies of the Spaniards. He appointed a troop of his own horse to drive away that hostile horde, and wrote to us to request that Ychoalay, with his people and with the Mocobios, might join them.
The Vice-Governor's letter, which was delivered to us as we were at dinner, dispersed the cloud that overspread our minds, like a propitious star. Ychoalay got every thing in readiness the same evening, and set out the next day with a numerous company almost before sun-rise. There was not one amongst them all that did not follow him with a cheerful mind, not one that complained of want of horses. For although the enemy had taken great numbers of them but a very short time before, yet many, still lurking in the remoter pastures, escaped both their eyes and hands. Ychoalay rode on before the rest, and reached the plain specified by the Vice-Governor, where he found the Spanish horsemen on foot and fasting, their horses and oxen having left them in the night. Both were recovered by the sagacity of Ychoalay. Soon after, under the guidance of the Charruas, they hastened to the shores of La Laguna Blanca, which, however, they found already deserted by the Abipones, and whither they had removed was difficult to conjecture. Ychoalay was commissioned by the Spaniards to seek the abode of the fugitives. All places being diligently examined under his direction, the enemy's stations were at length discovered, and at the same time so closely besieged, that all hope of flight or victory being precluded, they every one yielded to the conquerors. They were deprived of their arms, and brought like captives to the town of St. Jeronymo, with a crowd of women and boys.
The event of this expedition exasperated the minds of all the Nakaiketergehé Abipones, as much as it elated those of our nation; and proved a stimulus to the enemies to pursue the war with still more pertinacity. That three of the most formidable of the captives, Zapancha and Pachieke, and a brother-in-law of Alaykin, whose face dwells in my memory, though not his name, were kept in chains in the port of Monte-Video, was what the Nakaiketergehes could never digest, and what they embraced every opportunity to avenge. A few months after, to omit other instances, seven inhabitants of St. Jeronymo were treacherously slain, whilst travelling, by the tribesmen of Oaherkaikin. Ychoalay, thinking these atrocities no longer to be endured, led a hundred and twenty-five Riikahés against Oaherkaikin, whose encampments were then forty leagues north of the town.
I, who was then removed to the town of St. Ferdinand, through which Ychoalay was to pass with his troop, had a good deal of trouble and anxiety on account of this expedition, fearing that our Yaaukanigas, who had long been hostile to Ychoalay, would take part with Oaherkaikin, and involve our town in the troubles of war. The day before Ychoalay and his company arrived, a scout of his, who had been sent forward to explore the roads taken by the enemy, and their places of concealment, came to me in the early part of the night. In the space of an hour he was followed by a second, and then by a third. The two latter returned at night to relate to Ychoalay what they had seen and heard, but the first, who was called Rochus Chiruilin, passed the night in my house.