The four sons of Debayakaikin repaired at first to Ychoalay's horde, but quitted it soon after, and took to a wandering course of life. But neither of them, though sufficiently advanced in years, was thought worthy to succeed his father in the office of Cacique. The whole nation, divided into small parties, lived together under their own authority. Some followed Oaherkaikin, others Pachieke, but many chose for their leader Revachigi, a man of low birth, and few years, but in noble actions, and endowments of mind and body, superior to any veteran. The Nakaiketergehes, though dispersed in various hordes, prosecuted the war against the Riikahés, with minds ever unanimous, and strength as far as possible united, the recent slaughter of Debayakaikin stimulating them to vengeance. Pachieke, pertinaciously hostile to the Cordobans, was at length slain in an ambuscade in the country, and his death was a fresh occasion for hostile excursions against the Spaniards. It would be endless to relate the ever-varying successes of this war, by which the town of St. Jeronymo was terribly afflicted, the progress of religious and domestic affairs retarded, and the patience of the fathers wonderfully exercised. But though they had to contend, during twenty years, with scarcity, daily danger of their lives, and hostile machinations, they never thought for a moment of deserting the colony, and at last succeeded so far that they joyfully beheld more than eight hundred persons initiated into the rites of the Church of Rome, besides Ychoalay. If to these you add the infants or adults baptized by them, when dying of the small-pox, or other diseases, you will judge that they had no despicable fruits of their Apostolic labours. CHAPTER XXIII. THE ORIGIN AND COMMENCEMENT OF A COLONY OF ABIPONES, NAMED FROM THE CONCEPTION OF THE DIVINE MOTHER.