In The Morning We Rode To Some Neighbouring
Hills To View The Country, And To Examine The Geology.
After
dinner the soldiers divided themselves into two parties for
a trial of skill with the bolas.
Two spears were stuck in
the ground twenty-five yards apart, but they were struck
and entangled only once in four or five times. The balls can
be thrown fifty or sixty yards, but with little certainty.
This, however, does not apply to a man on horseback; for when
the speed of the horse is added to the force of the arm, it
is said, that they can be whirled with effect to the distance
of eighty yards. As a proof of their force, I may mention,
that at the Falkland Islands, when the Spaniards murdered
some of their own countrymen and all the Englishmen, a
young friendly Spaniard was running away, when a great
tall man, by name Luciano, came at full gallop after him,
shouting to him to stop, and saying that he only wanted to
speak to him. Just as the Spaniard was on the point of
reaching the boat, Luciano threw the balls: they struck him
on the legs with such a jerk, as to throw him down and
to render him for some time insensible. The man, after
Luciano had had his talk, was allowed to escape. He told
us that his legs were marked by great weals, where the thong
had wound round, as if he had been flogged with a whip.
In the middle of the day two men arrived, who brought a
parcel from the next posta to be forwarded to the general:
so that besides these two, our party consisted this evening
of my guide and self, the lieutenant, and his four soldiers.
The latter were strange beings; the first a fine young negro;
the second half Indian and negro; and the two others non-
descripts; namely, an old Chilian miner, the colour of mahogany,
and another partly a mulatto; but two such mongrels
with such detestable expressions, I never saw before.
At night, when they were sitting round the fire, and playing
at cards, I retired to view such a Salvator Rosa scene. They
were seated under a low cliff, so that I could look down
upon them; around the party were lying dogs, arms, remnants
of deer and ostriches; and their long spears were stuck
in the turf. Further in the dark background, their horses
were tied up, ready for any sudden danger. If the stillness
of the desolate plain was broken by one of the dogs barking,
a soldier, leaving the fire, would place his head close to the
ground, and thus slowly scan the horizon. Even if the noisy
teru-tero uttered its scream, there would be a pause in the
conversation, and every head, for a moment, a little inclined.
What a life of misery these men appear to us to lead!
They were at least ten leagues from the Sauce posta, and
since the murder committed by the Indians, twenty from
another.
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