A very small number of Abipones are to be feared by the Spaniards, however numerous, if they be reduced to straits, surrounded on every side, and left no way of escape; for then they dare the utmost in their own defence. They convert every thing they lay their hands on into weapons. Terror inspires them with sagacity and courage, and consequently is more to be dreaded than the most magnanimous spirit. I have many instances of this in my mind, but it will be sufficient to relate three. An Abipon, with arrows, and, when these were consumed, with sticks, supplied him by his wife, did so much execution against the soldiers of St. Iago, by whom he was surrounded, that he maintained his post, and when, after many wounds inflicted and received, he fell at length, was highly extolled for his valour by the very Spaniards against whom he had fought. Nachiralar̂in, Chief of the Yaaucaniga Abipones, spread the terror of his name throughout the colonies of Paraguay. Accompanied by a crowd of his followers, called _Los Sarcos_, or more properly _Garzos_, from their grey or blue eyes, Nachiralar̂in afflicted the country of Cordoba, Sta. Fè, Corrientes, and Paraguay, for many years, with slaughter and pillage, till he was at length taken and slain at the shores of the Tebiguary̆, by two hundred soldiers from Asumpcion. Shut up and besieged in a wood with fourteen Abipones, he fought with such obstinacy against the company of Spaniards, that he did not fall till after a contest of several hours. Some of his fellow-soldiers could not be prevented from escaping. It was never without disgust that I heard this victory boasted of by those present at the engagement; you would have thought they were speaking of the bloody battles of Thrasymene, Caudinæ Furculæ, Blenheim, &c. Certainly the leader Fulgentio de Yegros obtained great celebrity at that expedition, and was afterwards raised to the highest honours in the army, and to the government of the province itself. Add to these instances, that twenty wood-Abipones when attacked in the open plain by three hundred Christian Mocobios and Abiponian catechumens, chose to lose their lives before they would quit their station. Incredible is the obstinacy with which these few contended against numbers. The place which they had chosen at the beginning of the fight they every one occupied in death. From this it is evident, that a few, though inferior in number, arms, and strength, may prove formidable to a multitude, if, besieged by a surrounding company, and confined by the narrowness of the place, they have no room left them for escape. Scipio judged wisely that a flying enemy should be allowed a passage. This precept is generally obeyed by the Paraguayrian Spaniards, who often yielded the savages more liberty of escape than need required. This Barreda found in an hundred expeditions which he headed against the Abipones and Mocobios. These savages display much prudence in the choice of the situation of their hordes.