One day I rode up the valley to the farthest inhabited spot.
Shortly above that point, the Cachapual divides into two deep
tremendous ravines, which penetrate directly into the great range.
I scrambled up a peaked mountain, probably more than six thousand
feet high. Here, as indeed everywhere else, scenes of the highest
interest presented themselves. It was by one of these ravines that
Pincheira entered Chile and ravaged the neighbouring country. This
is the same man whose attack on an estancia at the Rio Negro I have
described. He was a renegade half-caste Spaniard, who collected a
great body of Indians together and established himself by a stream
in the Pampas, which place none of the forces sent after him could
ever discover. From this point he used to sally forth, and crossing
the Cordillera by passes hitherto unattempted, he ravaged the
farm-houses and drove the cattle to his secret rendezvous.
Pincheira was a capital horseman, and he made all around him
equally good, for he invariably shot any one who hesitated to
follow him. It was against this man, and other wandering Indian
tribes, that Rosas waged the war of extermination.
SEPTEMBER 13, 1834.
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