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.