CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CONTINUAL TUMULTS OF WAR.

To our other miseries were added perpetual warlike commotions. The new Governor, Martinez, to ingratiate himself with the King, resolved upon sending two hundred soldiers against the neighbouring hordes of Mocobios and Tobas, out of those four hundred which had been chosen to found the colony. On his consulting with me, I dissuaded him from an expedition, the event of which appeared so uncertain, lest the new colony, which was but poorly stocked with inhabitants, should be involved in war, and perish in its infancy. With the same ardour I recommended it to my Abipones religiously to maintain peace with all; they, however, never had either power or inclination to continue in a state of quiescence. One tumult succeeded to another. Soon after the colony was founded, Ychoalay came, and in a friendly manner desired restitution of the horses lately taken from him. Enraged at receiving a refusal, he set off, with a chosen band of his people, to recover them by force. My Abipones, rendered obstinate by their inveterate hatred to Ychoalay, determined to withstand him to the utmost. Some employed themselves in conveying the horses to a place of greater safety, that they might not be seized by the enemy; whilst others roamed up and down the woods, seeking honey to make mead. I, meantime, was a prey to anxious cares, ignorant what course to pursue when the town should be attacked. Ychoalay, formerly so much my friend, was now become the most dreadful of enemies. "It would be wrong," thought I, "to take up arms against one who is only coming to recover his own; but if, as is most likely, victory declares in his favour, and he puts to death every inhabitant that comes in his way, unless I discharge upon Ychoalay all the lead and gunpowder I have in the house, my Abipones will suspect me of having acted in collusion with him, and will pierce me with spears and arrows." Suspended by these reflections, I stuck, as it were, between the hammer and the anvil, and resolved to do what should seem most advisable at the time.

But all this danger was warded from us by a gracious Providence: for as Ychoalay was quickly travelling towards us, he fell in with a numerous horde of hostile Nakaiketergehe Abipones. A sharp skirmish ensued, which did not terminate without wounds and slaughter on both sides. Ychoalay had ten of his men wounded; and, that they might be the sooner and more certainly cured, hastened home, omitting the intended attack upon our colony, which was construed into a mark of fear by the inhabitants, and accordingly celebrated as a triumph with songs and drinking. The survivors of that routed horde took refuge, part with us, part in the town of St. Ferdinand, and showing their unhealed wounds, endeavoured, by that sight, to inflame their companions, who needed no such incitement, to speedy and effectual vengeance. Almost all immediately conspired against Ychoalay. A great company was formed of Yaaukaniga and Nakaiketergehe Abipones, who all set off to the town of St. Jeronymo, and that the blow might descend upon Ychoalay with the greater certainty from its being unforeseen, they gave out that their object was to hunt horses in the southern plains. But all these hopes and machinations came to nothing. By those very people, whom it was their intent to surprize and utterly exterminate, they were themselves surprized, partly slain, and partly put to flight. For, near St. Jeronymo, whilst, having left their saddles and supernumerary horses in a place called _Tiger's Cave_, and got their faces ready painted, they were meditating an assault upon the town, they fell in with Ychoalay, accompanied by a great number of his own Riikahes, of Christian Mocobios, and of Spanish horsemen, all delighted to have in their presence those whom they had that day set out to seek and slay in their retreats. Ychoalay could easily have destroyed this multitude of enemies, had they not preferred flight to combat. The fugitives owed their lives to the swiftness of their horses, to the ruggedness of the ways, and the lurking-holes of the forests; many however were slain, taken, and wounded by the pursuers. Ychoalay drove them before him to the town of St. Ferdinand, and being rendered formidable by the number of his fellow-soldiers, spread terror on all sides. The Nakaiketergehes, conspired to his destruction, though they saw their last efforts unaccompanied with success, conceived new hatred against him; and as in repeated skirmishes they failed to take away his life, consoled themselves with plundering him of innumerable horses. It cannot be matter of surprize that this nation entertained hostile feelings to Ychoalay, the slayer of their chief Cacique Debayakaikin, whose four sons dwelt in their colony, and whose hordesmen and fellow-soldiers, all but a very few of them had been.

Beside these intestine wars, the proximity of the Mocobios, Tobas, and Guaycurus, was always dangerous, and often exceedingly prejudicial to us. These savage nations, distinguished by their numbers and their power of doing mischief, contended that the plain which the colony occupied belonged to them, and had never been inhabited by Abipones. They feared and suspected the inhabitants of a colony which they knew to be in subjection to the Spaniards, and left no stone unturned to drive them from their new situation, which they endeavoured to effect sometimes by arts, sometimes by arms. Pretending peace and friendship, crowds of them came to visit our town, seemingly for the sake of civility, and were hospitably received by us, entertained for some days, and treated with little presents and plenty of beef. But abusing our kindness, though closely watched by me, they availed themselves of the opportunity to observe the number of inhabitants fit to bear arms, the pastures of the horses, and all the ways and means of access; aided by which knowledge, they afterwards flew, whenever it suited them, to alarm the colony, and to plunder horses, though this our vigilance generally prevented them from accomplishing. The frequent and secret hostilities of the savages caused us an immense deal of trouble; as we were often obliged to pass the night awake and in arms, for fear of the Oaekakalots, who, unlike other tribes, made their attacks in the night; and as no one could go out to hunt, or perform any other business, in the remoter plains or woods, on account of their being infested by the savages. That they might not start, on a sudden, from a neighbouring wood, and surprize the colony, I had an observatory erected in our court-yard, which proved of signal utility. Let me now relate some of the attempts made upon us by our savage neighbours.