AN ASSAULT OF SIX HUNDRED SAVAGES ON THE SECOND
OF AUGUST.
Frequent thunder was at length succeeded by lightning. The Tobas, ever
full of threats, and unable to forget the slaughter they had undergone,
aimed long that they might strike the surer blow. Intent upon destroying
the colony, they associated with themselves their friends the Mocobios,
together with the Oaekakalots, Lenguas, or Guaycurus. Learning from
trusty messengers that six hundred savages were ready to attack us, we
petitioned for supplies from the city, and they were promised, but never
sent. The alarm being daily increased by the increasing evidence of the
danger, many fled for fear to their well known retreats; though some
returned at intervals, impelled by hunger, or desire to hear the news. I
often passed many days with none but four Guarany families, whom I
maintained in my own household, and some old Abiponian women, unable
either to travel or bear arms. At length, when we had given up all hope
of succour from the Spaniards, four soldiers crept to the colony, whose
wretched appearance seemed to intimate that they had come thither to
die, not to slay the enemy—they themselves declared that they had been
torn from their beds, where they were lying sick, and forced upon this
errand, at the command of the inexorable Master of the Watch. Lorenzo
Vernal, the captain of this miserable triad, was so dreadfully afflicted
with gout in his limbs, that he could hardly lift his hand to his mouth;
of his companions, one had such terrible swellings in the groin that he
walked with the greatest difficulty; the second was in a consumption;
the third melancholy mad. Such were the guards whom the Governor sent to
defend our colony against a multitude of savages!
A few days after their arrival, an Abipon, who had long sojourned
amongst the Mocobios, came in the dead of the night, and informed Oahari
that the Tobas, accompanied by troops of Mocobios and Lenguas, had begun
their journey, and intended speedily to attack us. The Cacique,
comparing his own strength with that of the enemy, and seeing himself
destitute of succour from the Spaniards, and unable to cope with such a
multitude alone, immediately determined on flight; but that I might not
suspect his departure to have been dictated by motives of fear,
pretended to me that he was going to be absent for some days on a
hunting excursion. Most of the inhabitants crowding after him, only a
few women and children remained to be slain by the enemy, only four men
to give them battle. What other person that had been placed in so
dangerous and difficult a situation, would not have taken boat on the
river, and fled to a place of greater safety? Who, indeed, could have
censured his flight? I was well aware that the peril in which I stood
would have excused such a measure, and detached from it every appearance
of disgrace; but, fortified against all events, I determined to defend
to the utmost the place committed to my care, lest the Spaniards should
reproach me with cowardice, and declare me deficient in that native
magnanimity by which the Germans have always been distinguished.
I perceived that our security lay in continual vigilance, especially as
smoke discerned at no great distance, and scouts discovered from our
observatory, were manifest indications of the enemy's approach. The day
before the assault, eight of our Abipones, all of tried valour, very
opportunely returned to us in the evening: the colony, therefore,
contained twelve fighting men, who, by the greatness of their courage,
made up for the smallness of their number. After passing that night, as
I had done many others, on the watch, walking up and down the court-yard
of the house, at length, about two o'clock, I laid myself down,
oppressed with sleep, and unable any longer to endure the extreme cold;
first, however, warning the captain to appoint a most vigilant watchman
in my stead. The good man assured me that it was his intention to do so,
and swore that he had been unable to get any sleep for many nights
through fear of the attack. He placed a man in the yard to watch, who,
to shelter himself from the cutting air, withdrew into a corner of the
house, and there fell fast asleep. Whilst he, therefore, was loudly
snoring, whilst all the inhabitants of the colony were wrapped in
slumbers, and the dogs mute, which, at other times, would bark at a
strange fly, about four o'clock above six hundred savage horsemen drew
near with cautious steps, and in the profoundest silence, by the light
of the full moon. In the first attack the savages carried off, without
opposition, sixty ploughing oxen which I had confined in stalls near my
house. Part of them besieged the houses of the Abipones, that, being
engaged in the defence of their property, they might not be able to come
and assist me. The rest of the savages, leaving their horses at the
border of a neighbouring wood, surrounded the paling of my house, and
filled the court-yard with a shower of arrows. The soldiers, awakened at
last by the screams of the women, who were flying to the palisado,
instead of instantly discharging the cannon, and all the muskets at
hand, upon the assailants, stupidly wasted time in collecting their
luggage, and after they had deposited this trash in a place of safety,
the captain comes, with a snail's pace, to awaken me, and, after much
circumlocution, announces that we are surrounded by enemies, with just
as much composure as if he had only been wishing me good day. When the
captain perceived that I had armed myself and left the apartment, he
fired his musket, but hit no one; for where he stood he could neither
see the enemy, nor be seen by them. Spying the smoking musket directed
towards the moon, which appeared right above my house, "What injury have
you received from the moon, good man," said I, "that you are firing at
_her_?" He, however, not a little elated at his musket's having made so
unusually loud and ready a report, said pompously to one of his
companions, "Come, brother, do you discharge your musket also:" but this
soldier, a remarkable tall lean man, betook himself to a corner of the
house, shaking in every limb, like a person in a fit of the ague.
I cannot pretend to deny that I was not alarmed myself at the arrival of
the enemy, which was rather sudden than unforeseen; but the very
magnitude of the danger inspired me with a degree of courage, which, at
this day, I cannot regard without astonishment. As in desperate
diseases, violent medicines are sometimes hazarded, I, in like manner,
made the rashest attempts, since scarcely any hope remained that
destruction could be avoided. Trusting, by this means, to preserve the
lives of the rest, I exposed myself to as many deaths as enemies'
weapons. I ran towards the savage host, aiming a musket in a threatening
manner, and as I went along the ground was strewed with arrows which
rattled under my feet. The savages, ranged in a triple row, stuck to the
palisade like flies, and were defended by its thick and lofty stakes,
through the interstices of which they were able to shoot arrows at us,
but could hardly be reached by our bullets; on which account I did not
think it advisable merely to fire the musket, thinking that if they
heard the report, and saw none of their companions fall, they would
cease to fear, and boldly quit the palisade. I, therefore, walked
straight towards the paling, intending to take a more certain aim at the
savages with four pistols, and a gun, to which a bayonet was prefixed.
But an unlucky accident disconcerted this fine scheme; for when I was
about ten steps off the palisade, and was just going to fire, an arrow
an ell and a half long, made of the hardest wood, and barbed with five
hooks, pierced the shoulder of my right arm, wounded a muscle by which
the middle finger is moved, and stuck fixed in my side. On receiving
this wound, I took hold of my musket with my left hand, and entered the
house, that the captain, who was lying hid there, might pull out the
arrow; and in order to do this, he twisted it quickly round and round
with his hands, just as you mill chocolate, by which the flesh was
sufficiently torn to open a way for the hooks to be taken out. What
torture this caused me, no one that has not felt the same himself can
possibly imagine.
The arrow being extracted, I returned to the place where I had received
the wound, to keep the savages from the palisade; for though my right
arm was covered with blood, and totally useless, the left was sufficient
to handle the pistols with; but great was my surprize and
self-congratulation to find that the enemies had all retired to a great
distance from the stakes. These American heroes, terrified at sight of
the musket which I presented when within ten steps of them, hastily
departed without waiting for my return. The rest of the savages, who had
attacked the houses of the colony, were likewise repulsed, after a long
and bloody conflict, by a few Abipones; who, having delivered their own
habitations, flew to render me what assistance they could. One of them
exclaimed, when he saw me streaming with blood, "We will not suffer this
wound to go unrevenged, Father!" Another, seeing that the enemy had
retreated from the palisado, and were mounting their horses, shot an
arrow from the court-yard with such good fortune, that it pierced deep
into the breast of a Toba: the wretch, wounded by this unforeseen
weapon, threw away his bow and arrows, and was supported on horseback by
a person sitting behind him.
As the event of this foot conflict had proved so contrary to the wishes
of the savages, they all mounted their horses, re-entered their ranks,
and occupied the whole way between the palisade, and the houses of the
Abipones. That they might not attempt to proceed any farther, I burst
into the market-place, with the Abipon who had wounded the Toba,
carrying a musket in his hand. Do not expect to hear of a field smoking
with blood, and bestrown with dead bodies; that was not at all my wish.
My only intention was to put these dangerous intruders to flight, and my
only anxiety to prevent our being all crushed under their horses' feet.
You will laugh to hear how one man can hold out against six hundred
horsemen in Paraguay. No sooner had the gunpowder lighted by the Abipon
thundered from the musket, than, startled by the sulphureous smoke, or
perhaps somewhat touched by the shot, they all quitted their ranks, and
fled precipitately with a horrid outcry, overturning rather than turning
their horses, and almost forcing them backwards by the violence with
which they pulled the bridle. They paused for a while in a neighbouring
grove, which they reckoned secure, and ranged themselves afresh in form
of battle, designing first, to entice me to pursue them, and then, by
means of forty of their companions, who were concealed beneath the
sloping bank of a lake in the vicinity, to intercept, surround, and slay
me. Being apprized of this ambuscade by a watchman stationed in the
court-yard of the house, I loaded the musket again, and stood with my
Achates, the Abipon, on a little neighbouring hill, from whence I could
observe the farthest motions of the enemy, and defend the chapel, and
the houses of the Abipones, by which I was protected on every side from
the assault of the inimical troop. The savages, beholding the musket,
the sound of which still rang in their ears, were afraid to renew the
attack. That they might not, however, appear to have done nothing, and
return home empty-handed, since an opportunity of committing slaughter
was denied them, they began to turn their attention towards plunder, and
three hundred being dismissed to collect the horses of the Abipones,
which were feeding on the remote shores of the river, an equal number
remained to keep us at bay. The horsemen surrounded the colony at a
distance, in the form of a semicircle, remaining perfectly silent and
quiet, and keeping their eyes constantly fixed upon the musket. The
allied company, as they consisted of three different nations, were
distinguished by feathers of various colours hanging from their spears.
A band of Abipones kept guard to repel the enemy if they should venture
an attack. I was as anxious to preserve the situation I had chosen, as
the savages were to maintain theirs. Mutual fear imposed a truce of some
hours on us both; we dreading the multitude of enemies,—they the musket.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the plunderers triumphantly returned,
bringing a booty of at least two thousand horses, to display which they
passed on at a distance, in sight of the colony, but beyond the reach of
my weapon. Though greatly distressed at the loss of their horses, my
Abipones saluted the plunderers with festive drumming and joyful
vociferation, exulting that they who had come with a design of carrying
off men, had been forced to content themselves with beasts. After
besieging us for some time, the savages joined their companions, nor was
their retreat disorderly. By order of the Caciques, two companies
preceded the drove of horse, as many followed it, and the rest went on
each side. As usual they burnt all the dry grass they could find in the
plain, that their countrymen might be apprized of their return from
afar, by means of the smoke. They halted on the borders of a lake a few
leagues distant from the colony, and there feasted sumptuously on our
oxen, as appeared next day from the bones they had left.
Although the enemies were out of sight, my labours were not yet at an
end, and after having been fatigued with riding, watching, giving
orders, and shedding a quantity of blood from four o'clock in the
morning till two in the afternoon, I laid aside my arms for a while, and
applied my mind to healing. Whilst an arrow was extracted from an
Abipon, who had been wounded in defending his house from the besiegers,
the broken point stuck deep in the flesh, and I was called upon by the
screams of his wife to apply whatever remedy I judged proper. Having
performed this charitable duty, I at length got time to attend to my own
cure, to bathe the wound, which had been inflicted ten hours before,
with hot wine, and to bind it up. My hand streamed continually with
perspiration; from which it may be concluded that wooden arrows contain
a sort of poison. In consequence of losing such a quantity of blood, I
was tormented with a burning thirst, which the largest draughts of water
failed to appease. I do not remember to have tasted a morsel of food the
whole day. The pain of my wound, which received hourly augmentation,
became perfectly intolerable at night, when I could discover no
comfortable position in which to place my arm. A pillow laid underneath
it afforded me some relief. The muscle, or more properly, the tendon of
the muscle which moves the little finger, had been so dreadfully
lacerated, that it swelled like a rope, but was completely cured, at the
end of sixteen days, by the nightly application of melted hen's fat. The
swelling in the muscle subsided, but I did not recover the use of the
finger, which was moved by it, for five months; at the end of which it
was healed by a balsam administered by a famous druggist in the town of
the Holy Apostles. Even at this day I bear about me a scar, the witness
of a signal wound, the monument of my contempt of death, and defence of
the colony, and a constant memorial of beloved Paraguay.