This news caused no inconsiderable stir amongst the motley assemblage, and we returned to the hacienda to decide what course we were to adopt.
Ten days previous, with three companions, all Englishmen, three guides, and four rancheros as attendants, we left St. Jago with the intention of proceeding by land to Buenos Ayres. The reason of our employing the rancheros was, that they had a short time previous accompanied a Valparaiso merchant from St. Fé to St. Jago, and had been most useful to him on the route. Absent from their own country they were glad of an opportunity to return, and we secured them for a comparatively small recompense.
The guides were the usual adjuncts to all travelers, and indispensable in order to pilot us on our way, and catch horses for us, when those we rode were knocked up. The previous evening we had arrived at the hacienda of San Jacinto, after having two days before descended from the Andes, whence it was distant some ninety miles.
A kind of station-house was here for the guides, where they changed: those who had conducted us across the precipices and defiles of those eternal snow-clad mountains, giving place to others who were to conduct us to the settled districts of the Buenos Ayrean plains, where their services would be no longer required. It was also used as a place of refreshment, where the usual Pampa fare was to be obtained, with some most execrable peach brandy, and a little bad wine.
Several other houses stood in the neighborhood of the hacienda, inhabited by cross-bred herdsmen, almost as wild as the stock they were in charge of, and a few women their companions in the wilderness, and an odd child was also visible.
Several other travelers had arrived the same evening as ourselves, but none traveling in our direction, and no European. Having consulted, and the majority being of opinion that the Indians who had alarmed us were merely a scouting party at some distance from their tribe, it was resolved that all should proceed on their journey. Against this almost unanimous decision, one of our companions, a mercantile man from St. Jago, rebelled, and chose rather to return in company with the chief body of travelers, who were proceeding across the Andes, than face the danger of meeting the hostile Indians with our small force. Remonstrance to change his resolve was of no avail, so, as soon as fresh horses had been obtained, with my two companions and attendants I pursued my way, leaving all around the hacienda in anxious preparation to receive any attack that might be made on them by the Indians in revenge for the death of one of their chiefs.
Under the suggestion of the guides we refrained from at once striking across the plains the way our road lay, in order to deceive any one who might follow, and descending into the bed of the gully by the path, followed its course some fifteen miles before we ascended to the level plains, and struck into the Pampas across which our journey was to be performed.
When once on level soil we urged our horses to their utmost speed, and when two hours before sun set we halted to refresh ourselves, it was considered that a space of at least sixty miles divided us from the scene of the morning adventure. Around naught could be seen but the undulating bosom of the Pampas, as the tall, wiry grass that covered its face, bent beneath a slight breeze that fanned our heated temples.
The guides soon cleared a large circular space, for our night’s resting-place, of the parched grass, and a fire being kindled, a cup of coffee, with some dried beef and a few biscuits, revived our wearied frames.
In consequence of the circumstances of the morning, all the horses were retained and made fast to pegs taken from the Spanish saddles of our guides, who carried them for such emergencies.