A few days afterwards I saw another troop of these banditti-like
soldiers start on an expedition against a tribe of Indians at the
small Salinas, who had been betrayed by a prisoner cacique. The
Spaniard who brought the orders for this expedition was a very
intelligent man. He gave me an account of the last engagement at
which he was present. Some Indians, who had been taken prisoners,
gave information of a tribe living north of the Colorado. Two
hundred soldiers were sent; and they first discovered the Indians
by a cloud of dust from their horses' feet as they chanced to be
travelling. The country was mountainous and wild, and it must have
been far in the interior, for the Cordillera were in sight. The
Indians, men, women, and children, were about one hundred and ten
in number, and they were nearly all taken or killed, for the
soldiers sabre every man. The Indians are now so terrified that
they offer no resistance in a body, but each flies, neglecting even
his wife and children; but when overtaken, like wild animals, they
fight against any number to the last moment. One dying Indian
seized with his teeth the thumb of his adversary, and allowed his
own eye to be forced out sooner than relinquish his hold.
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